Feministing is full of shit

After last post’s take-down of “I Love Sucking Dick” feminism, I turn now to one feminist community that occasionally has Crowning Moments of Awesome, but is mostly full of fail: Feministing.

This, I think, stems from the site’s reputation as “feminism-lite”. I really can’t remember the last time that I’ve seen theory or anything approaching cerebral posted there. Understandably, the feministing commenters and contributors are confused. They ask such pressing feminist questions as, “can I read US News?” or, “how do I find environmentally-friendly mascara?” It’s feminism without substance or anything revolutionary. Postpostfeminism. We’ve apparently defeated racism, rape, the vast majority of humanity that suffers in poverty, homophobia, hate crimes, and all kinds of violence against women. Now we can talk about Obama and makeup.

So, how is Feministing full of shit? Ideally, I’d like to do a meta-analysis. But, hey, it’s a lot harder to do that blog-format, especially when I’m not getting paid or getting a grade for it. So I treat you to specific examples of the usual tripe that is posted there, with my witty take-downs.

First case: Jon and Kate, Plus Millions of Female Tabloid Readers. This post is about the divorce of former white-picket-fence heterosexual baby machines and reinforcers of patriarchal norms, Kate and John Gosslin. It’s also about women who read about the divorce, and how they are Bad Stupid Women. In short, this is a post about how certain kinds of feminists are totally better people and women in general than other stupid women. We’re good women, you’re not. How do we know this? Why, we read a post at Forbes—that bastion of feminist theory and unbiased reporting—that claims that women are responsible for this divorce because of our silly womanly rubbernecking and gossip, and vast consumption of tabloids.

So, the poster argues, stop buying tabloids! You’re to blame. Blah blah blah. You’re not really interested in her point, because it’s something you could easily read on an MRA site about how we’re all superficial bitches with crazy-making vaginas. It is funny to note that instead of going, “there’s a major news source blaming family troubles on women… doesn’t that sound familiar?” we’re going to say OH GOLLY GEE they totally have a point. We are, in fact silly bitches responsible for everything in the world, especially the content of tabloids. But not me, you understand, because I am a Good Woman, and you are not.

This vision of a Good Woman, in fact, doesn’t buy tabloids at airport kiosks (that’s the words she uses, “airport kiosks”). She instead buys Forbes, so she can be a good upper-class white woman and know everything there is to now about sociopaths pretending money makes their dick bigger finances and economics. She does this in an airport, because she’s so rich and shit and therefore flies often enough that her choice of airplane reading is, in fact, very dire indeed. Also, we all know that only women gossip about celebrities, and that if you ask any man out there they will have no idea who Kate Gosslin is, let alone have an opinion of her. We also know that women, in fact, are the editors and contributers and owners of every single tabloid, and that via vagina-hive-mind, we secretly collude at night about how purple is the new pink is the new black and what direction we will take the media—which we own and operate by ourselves—tomorrow.

Also, my reading of this article is totally accurate and shit, because down the thread you will notice that the commenters are trying to establish who is a Better Woman by comparing their choice of tabloids and television shows. Oh, the post patriarchy. How trivial are your concerns! Now that we have not dismantled the real hierarchies in which women are shamed, killed, and abused, we can invent new hierarchies to shame women!

Second Case: Why is it called “Feminism” if it’s supposed to fight all forms of inequality? The author wants to know how to make men think that the idea that women are equal to them isn’t bat-shit crazy. My advice would probably be unwanted: if a man thinks that he is a superior form of humanity, and therefore, that your feminism must be about him, for him, and by him before he gives a shit, he is a sad sack of dumbass and not worthy of the calories expended to acknowledge his existence. Also, it’s called “feminism” because we’re not fighting for men’s rights. Men’s rights, apparently, include not paying child support and forcing women to have abortions, so you can kindly shut the fuck up about men’s rights. I answered your questions, Men Who Don’t Get That Feminism Isn’t About Them, now go do your own research and learn to fail quietly, alone, where I don’t have to hear you.

Third Case; Post-feminism femme fatales. The author establishes that these aforementioned stunning examples of anti-feminism, class priviledge, and heteronormativity—as she imagines them—are “enchantress of the highest order, in all political, social, environmental and economic arenas” and “anticipating the ultimate passage of an Equal Rights Amendment, but in the meantime, busy chipping away at professional restrictions in our own spirited way”. This spirited way includes not burning the bra they paid at least $100 dollars for, which they will take off for men depending on their mood.

This case is about an obvious a case of I Suck Dick and It’s Fucking Awesome Feminism that one could hope to have. It’s so dumb, I thought it was satire. Oh, and if you think that agitating, angrily, because you have zero civil rights at a federal level makes someone a Bad Woman, have a big piece of shut the fuck up.

I’d post more cases, but all this is starting to make me slightly nauseous. Granted, the Feministing mainpage, devoted mostly to news (sans the comments, which are mostly full of fail), is more sanitary than the Community posts, which are typically full of “how do I make men like my feminism?” and “I like sucking dick” type posts. IMPORTANT UPDATE: Feminism is apparently all about men, and their dicks. Really. I learned it on the internet.

Why am I picking on Feministing? First, they’re a big popular site, my pissing and moaning isn’t going to hurt their hits in the least. Also, it’s because I’m working up my courage to eventually address the blog that led to the last post by taking down a trend I’ve witnessed on feminist blogs for a long time. This trend is alienating as shit to my queer not upper-middle-class ass, making online feminism more an exercise of searching for a non-dumbass in the rough than a happy fun time with friendsies.

Dear Anti-Radical Feminists,

First, I am using my priviledges as blogmistress to refer to you as Anti-Radical Feminists. I think this a far more honest descriptor than “pro-sex”. Why? Well, the whole thing about sex is that I’ve yet to meet a feminist who was actually anti-sex. Dworkin came close, but only if you take the misogynist proposition that the only sex that is sex is good old penis in vagina wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.

And that’s where I want to start off: your misogynist propositions that the only real sex is putting penises in vaginas or mouths or anuses and that we need to exhaust more effort to endlessly detail all the fun fantastic ways our fun feminist orgies can partake in heterosexual intercourse.

Because here’s the kicker: I’m not heterosexual. I position myself as “queer”, in that I have been attracted to men, but I find that it’s far more likely that I have relationships with other women who are typically more attractive and awesome in that way. What has been endlessly talked to death in feminist circles is all these marvelous things that we need to do to teach men about where our clitorises are, and how if we compose painful mental gymnastics we can even conceive of how M/f BDSM and ejaculating on someone’s face ceases to be a private neutral act and is actually an awesome fulfillment of feminist metatheory.

That’s all fine and dandy. I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible. What I see, time and time again, is that my experience is constantly erased. I have to twist myself in knots to find a feminist active in the blogosphere who is happily feminist and queer, and who hasn’t shacked up with a man and is presently enjoying straight priviledge. Yep, you can enjoy straight priviledge if you are queer and you live your life with a man. No shit.

But the thing is, I don’t. And there is this disgusting foul part of me that whispers when my ego is beaten and bruised that it would all be alright if I could just find some man, any man, and settle down with heterosexual privilege and pretend that I never did nasty horrible things like fall madly in love with my best female friend or find the back of the girl who sat in front of me in Astronomy lecture endlessly more fascinating than the modest amount of dick I’ve come across.

This horrible part of me rears its head often. I live closeted to all but my close friends and my father. So pretending to be straight means I’m very often suppressing the majority of my identity—namely, the majority that finds women really fascinating. Stumbling across yet another “pro-sex” defense of porking, blow jobs, anal sex, BDSM, and penis in vagina goodness exacerbates this to the nth-degree. It’s very easy to stumble across feminist defenses of privileged expressions of sexuality. Those feminists avow how happy they are with penis, how marvelous penis is if you’ve cured yourself of the Dworkin-induced paranoia of men, and how talking about heterosexual sex is a big no-no because it’s akin to homophobia and racism and you’re not really a feminist at all you fucking dyke, are you?

So this endless parade of “heterosexuality is so much fun” really isn’t much fun. Especially when I feel so goddamn alienated because of it. What really chaps my hide and blows all sorts of brain lobes is the assertion that I’m a massive misogynist bigot, like homophobes, if I question putting penis in vagina in the usual matter, or with a kink or two.

Assholes. Fucking shitbag assholes! The entire reason I tire of this endless fuckbag wankery over how blow jobs are so empowering is because it’s disgustingly homophobic and the biggest exercise of heterosexual priviledge in an ideology that thinks itself so much better than that. Shit. As a Big Bad Radical Feminist, I’m lumped in with 2nd wave relics who were, reportedly, big horrible homophobes who hated all transsexuals and maybe tossed around racial epithets in between dismantling all that is good in the universe.

Which is absolutely hilarious, thanks. 3rd wave feminism, if it’s really the driving force behind all this endless pontification about how dick is awesome, seems to me to be way more self-aggrandizing and privileged than any of the crouchity old radical hags that authored the texts that pepper my shelves.

I’m not talking about 3rd wave academic feminism, which is really all kinds of awesome and a godsend. I’m talking about blogosphere “hey, my boyfriend came on my face and I’m empowered!” feminism. It just seems to boil down to a bunch of women in their twenties and thirties who’ve settled down with a man (or have before or will), who like penis, and who really really want to talk about how Radical feminists are outdated harpies and they’ve seen the light! Evidently, the light is phallus-shaped and full of delicious bullshit, but I’m sure that you got that point by now.

So, to return to the title of this post:

Dear Anti-Radical Feminists,

You like penis. I get it. I got it on your last post about blow jobs in between how Dworkin is a total knob and you really heart Angelina Jolie and/or porn. I’m really quite happy that this endlessly self-reflecting homophobic world has provided you with endless avenues to explore your glorious and endangered heterosexuality. Please write another post on the clitoris and how to grind properly against a male pubic bone in the customary penis-in-vagina intercourse. I seem to have misplaced the two billion issues of Cosmo that do the same thing.

See, when you philosophize about how radical feminists (who apparently start and end with Dworkin, and perhaps Twisty) really hate sex, you totally erase the sex they were actually having and enjoying, which happens to be sex that I also enjoy. Thanks ever so much for ignoring my existence and the idea that sex doesn’t have to contain the almighty phallus. May I kiss your enlightened post-homophobic ass now?

See, I was laboring under the proposition that feminists were all about presenting new and ignored experiences. Dear Jesus and/or Buddha, how ignorant was I! Radical Feminism is apparently totally outdated because it’s just so damn easy to conceive of heterosexual intercourse without coercive, violent, domination/submissive narratives. Which is why nobody ever, in this enlightened age, uses their dick as an insult or weapon.

Ha! No. Thanks for playing. Seriously, where the fuck are these blow-job loving feminists finding men? I’m more likely to be whistled at on the street like a piece of meat or told that my breasts are violating dress code and distracting customers than coming across a penis-toting heterosexual specimen that doesn’t conceive of me as the very essence of filthy sexuality that needs to be contained, consumed, or denied. I engage in stupid pointless exercises daily to conceal the shape of my breasts and present myself as professional, all so the shitbag unenlightened masses don’t see my hips and boobs and equate me with a thing that exists for sex and because of sex. I do this and more, and then agonize over not doing it correctly (you never can, by the way) so I can have half the chance my male peers have just by virtue of having dicks.

If you think that you’re above that, you’re either (a) fooling yourself or (b) okay with this state of affairs because it caters to your priviledge. You can write all the goddamn articles you please about how having men whistling at you on the street is awesome and fun. Since I’m queer and have no desire to start anything with a man (thanks previous boyfriend: Mr. Fuckbag Non-Consensual Shit Is Awesome So Pretend To Be Asleep!) having men find me attractive in a predatory objectifying manner is totally not my cup of tea. Maybe it’s because I know that they think of me as tits, ass, three holes, and two hands rather than a human being. Maybe it’s because I’d like to walk around campus digesting the content of my last Ethics lecture without being reminded that my body exists for their viewing pleasure. Maybe it’s because I like to have sex with women more than men.

No, it’s not that at all. It’s actually the fact that I’m a prudish dyke of a Radical Feminist, who isn’t even properly queer (define your sexuality for me, you freak!) and has been either brainwashed by Andrea Dworkin or false consciousness theory beamed in from the USSR.

My mistake.

So, why am I so angry? It’s because I’ll find some feminist blog that seems legit and awesome, only for it to degenerate into a clusterfuck of Radical Feminists Are Horrible, or I Suck Dick and Enjoy It and Oh It’s Now a Feminist Act. I found one the other day that had an infuriatingly long comment thread of endlessly navel-gazing heterosexually privileged fuckbags that I want to take down sometime. But not now. Now, I’m too fucking angry. Maybe I’ll do it later.

Shoes of Satan

There’s a whole shit-ton of important things going on the world right now, but I want to take a moment out and bitch about something else.

That something else being shoes. Heeled shoes in particular.

For those few readers who have missed previous posts on the subject of female beauty standards: I think they all suck. The fun feminist hit squad may chase after me with pitchforks for this: but the only reason that women do stupid things like slather chemicals on their faces, put flammable shit in their hair, and wear heeled shoes is because we are given some sort of limited power for doing so while being denied that power if we don’t. Fun feminists can swear up and down that the reason they wear heels and makeup is because it “makes them feel good” and it’s “empowering”, and I don’t buy it. Okay, so you feel empowered by hurting yourself. Congratulations. Welcome to the patriarchy, enjoy your stay. If we’re going to play the “I feel this way, which happens to be exactly in line with the patriarchy, because of my innate sense of fashion/empowerment/self-hood, not because of the rewards patriarchy gives me when I comply” game, I’m going to opt out.

Relax people, I’m not trying to take away your shoes, makeup, diets, and impractical clothing. I too do stupid things like put concealer on my face when my pimples dismay me, wear clunky jewelry instead of spending money on more useful things, and enjoy occasionally painting my nails. Of course, I am self-aware enough to realize that the entire reason that I do these things and make an effort to appear feminine in public, even though I don’t wear makeup, is because of cultural values that reward me when I comply, and castigate me when I don’t. Oh, and I’m not the kind of person that can just fuck cultural norms and walk around in a bikini with my flabby stomach, stretch marks, and white ass hanging out. I still carry a deep shame about my body. I am susceptible to praise and disapproving looks. I follow trends out of the corner of my eye and sometimes hypocritically find myself thinking “why is she wearing those shoes with those pants ohmygosh!”

Patriarchy: we’re soaking in it. Me too. This blogmistress is not some god-like figure who poo-poos cultural conventions and doesn’t give a shit about other people. I do give a shit. I give too much of a shit sometimes. And the entire reason that I sometimes cover my pimples, cover my fat and stretch marks, and wear shoes that are really bad for me is because the mental energy it takes to systematically deprogram oneself from poisonous cultural values for every second of every day while squashing self-doubt while going about daily life as if everything is normal while having the courage to demand the same consideration and respect as everyone else when you butt heads with various patriarchal enforcers while battling my disabilities* is just more effort than it’s worth sometimes.

So, back to shoes. Heeled shoes suck. I almost exclusively wear flats, much to the dismay of some others. I’m practically the poster child for “needs heels”. Measuring in at 5′2”, flats mean that finding myself taller than anyone over the age of 12 is a novel occurrence. With height comes privileges: being able to see in concerts and movies, and having people take you more seriously, even if you do have lady bits.

But I caved the other week to the fashion mantra. It’s not often I find myself enamored of fleeting seasonal trends. But then came gladiator sandals. And I was like woah. So here’s a shoe, a sandal no less, that hearkens back to some sort of bad-assery. Typically the designs of women’s shoes are influenced by the want of seriously tiny feet, porn, more porn, and some sort of sadomasochist bullshit. But gladiator sandals were influenced by kicking ass. Oh, and they would look fantastic with the hippie style (read: lazy, loose, long, and comfortable) that I typically sport/slap together in five minutes.

So I found some sandals that looked a bit like the fashion. I really couldn’t justify buying the full out gladiator sandals, because spending $50 some dollars on shoes that only go with two outfits and will be hopelessly out of style in a year is, well, stupid. I bought the shoes you see above. They were strappy, brown (brown goes with everything), and didn’t give me blisters. But they had a heel. Not much of a heel, just 1.5 inches. So I’m figure, “what the hell?” gave into the patriarchal calls of fashion and style and bought some shoes I’d figure would get a lot of use during the summer.

Big mistake. See, these weren’t just sandals. They’re Satan’s shoes.

They’re cute. They go with everything. I put them on and they’re comfortable. My toes aren’t squished. I don’t really notice the heel. I walked miles around campus without feeling like my arch was going to collapse like it does in most cheap flats.

So I go to sleep at night, happy that my superficial shoe purchase was worth it. The next day, I throw on some clothes, five minutes after I’m supposed to leave, and then slip on some black flip-flops I got for $4 at Target.

And Satan’s shoes thus earned their name.

Walking to class was agony. My feet felt like they had anvils dropped on them. My arches were cramping, my calves were burning, and I tripped on the stairs and scrapped my knees when my ankles gave out in flats that I wore without trouble for years.

What the fuck? What the hell was this? I’ve displayed more grace after five Gin and Tonics and suffered less pain after overdoing it in pilates. Satan’s shoes, it seems, had shortened my tendons and altered my gait from their measly 1.5 inch heel and one day of wearing them.

So here I sit, at home with aching calves, thinking to myself that patriarchy fucking sucks. I can’t imagine the pain of wearing shoes like that, or higher, constantly. It must permanently fuck up your legs and feet and back. Thousands of women around the world are required or compelled to wear such shoes daily. For what? The pitiful amount of power that sex appeal grants? A pathetic offering considering how people with dicks get that and more while enjoying nice flat arch-supporting shoes.

So fuck you, Shoes of Satan. Fuck you beauty expectations. Fuck you patriarchy. Fuck you people who insist that such masochism is empowering. Really, when I’m chanting to myself “mind over matter, just half a mile until you’re done” whilst my feet feel like they’re going to fall off from simple walking I could do just fine two days ago, knowing that some dude finds my calves marginally more fuckable when I wear 1.5 inch heels doesn’t help. Even if the shoes are cute.

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*I’ve never really posted about it before, but I have persistent debilitating digestive problems, various skin conditions, really shitty vision and sensitivity to light (and I stupidly live in a sunny state), depression, severe ADD, social anxiety, and enough allergies to make label-reading a personal hobby. I’ll blog about what disability means to me sometime.

Terrorism: Doctor George Tiller, one of only three doctors willing to provide late-term abortions, viciously gunned down by far-right extremist

A long target of the extreme right and a survivor of a previous murder attempt, George Tiller was tragically gunned down while serving as an usher in his local church. The late doctor Tiller ran one of only three clinics in the United States that provide abortion after the 21st week of pregnancy. Scott Roeder, the alleged killer, is a known anti-abortionist extremist who had been linked to various far-right groups and had previously been arrested with explosives allegedly destined to be detonated at an abortion clinic.

Tiller was a controversial figure in his Kansas home, where state law prohibits late-term abortion unless at least two doctors certify that continuing pregnancy would cause the woman “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function”. The doctor has been targeted before for alleged violations of state law, but his sole trial led to an acquittal of all 19 misdemeanor charges.

Doctor Tiller survived constant harassment by high-profile and local extremist figures, legal persecution, and attempts and threats on his life in his dedication to providing a vital service to women’s reproductive health. In a nation beset by misinformation and lies about abortion, he will be sorely missed.

Dr. Tiller was a diamond in the rough, who has sacrificed so much for women’s reproductive freedom. In a single act of terrorism, the number of people who are willing to provide half of the nation with a life-saving procedure if tragedy strikes has decreased 33%, and is now down to two.

It’s truly sickening that anyone could politicize the heart-wrenching and personal choices of the women who have to choose late-term abortion away, while pretending that this callous and disgusting murder was anything but a political manifestation of a culture’s hatred of a woman’s reproductive freedom.

I grieve for a world who has lost a brave and selfless man. And I grieve even more because I feel like the battle is lost. When people can go on camera and defend the cold-blooded slaughter of someone who had the audacity to use their medical education to grant women the reproductive choices they require, I feel like we’ve lost.

I have studiously avoided the news today, and I will tomorrow, because of the emotions stories like the ones you posted inspire in me. I can’t help but feel anything but a hopeless crushing agony.

Are women so reviled that even our physicians must be hounded off the mortal coil? Dr. Tiller paid the ultimate price for a medical defiance of the patriarchal colonization of the female body. I feel nothing but despair at the knowledge that now there are only two brave doctors to service the needs of a nation of millions.

What a travesty. Rest in peace Doctor George Tiller. May you find peace in an afterlife more merciful than a nation that stood idly by let your commitment to women’s freedom condemn you to years of harassment and a horribly unfitting end to a beautiful and selfless life.

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More information:

Democracy Now!

The Toronto Star

Patients Remember Doctor Tiller

Tiller’s account of his decades of harassment and fear

Melissa McEwan’s open letter to Obama

A Fascist Movement in Our Country

Reactions from Doctor Hern, one of two surviving American doctors willing to provide late-term abortion

Who Killed George Tiller?

Why Clinic Violence is Obama’s Problem

Women in Media & News

A Foreshadowing

George Tiller Needs More Than Candlelight Vigils

A solemn statement from NY Governor Paterson, and a sub par statement from President Obama.

To Catch a Rapist

A while ago, I came home from work to find my mother forgoing her usual routine of reality television to watch PBS Frontline’s “Sex Slaves“. The documentary was about sex trafficking, particularly of women and girls.

Now, I think that this issue is enormous and poignant and heart-wrenchingly serious. But somehow the entire two hours or so of the documentary managed to not show the face of a single man who was guilty of raping a prostituted sex slave. What it featured instead was candid-camera shots—reminiscent of titillating homemade sex tapes—of bared mid drifts, jean-glad backsides, and five inch heels. Human interest stories and interviews primarily featured white European women, and men that had “rescued” or wanted to rescue their sexual property damsels in distress from other men.

The entire thing was sickening to behold. Invariably, my mother—not very savvy on feminist issues—thought that my objections were “silly” (thanks for the condescension, Mom). Wasn’t it enough that someone was paying attention?

Of course it isn’t. The problem with sex trafficking is not about how pimps and traffickers are “victimizing” the poor whittle men and breaking up their nice white familes. It’s not about stealing the virginity of European girls. It’s certainly not just another story about “Bad Stuff Happens to You When You’re Poor”. It’s about the sexploitation of women and girls and the men who feel they have the right to rape women in order to express their sick conflation of dominance and sex.

What the fauxomentary actually showed was nothing progressive or at all helpful. It was just the same pathetic human-interest stories about nice white virginal women being kidnapped and then being saved by their knight in shining armor. Women of color and of other nationalities were dissected into flashes of boobs and asses to titillate the viewer. Women who did not fall within the patriarchy’s idea of “sexy” were not shown at all. Apparently, it’s only rape if you’re hot.

The result was the fauxgressive capitalist-friendly hand-waving treatment of sex trafficking. No men were shamed, only glorified as heroes. No unsexy women were shown. No trends were explored. No cultural critique was done. The expose of one of the most grevious manifestations of patriarchy reduced to sexploitation. I could picture liberal dudez sitting around their televisions debating over which formerly trafficked woman was hotter, and which used vagina was still pure enough to have the priviledge of being approved of by their cock. Their thoughts would have only been encouraged by plentiful erotic camera shots: the sexploitation of the sexploited. The hypocrisy was utterly disgusting.

Now that I think of it, the only television program that has succeeded in doing anything positive for the victims of rape is To Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen. The show doesn’t sex-up the would-be victim, who is blurred out and seen from afar by hidden cameras. The predator is the star of this show. His victim exits the stage within the first minute of the footage, and then we are treated to close up of his quivering visage and “oh shit” face. We get to hear his pathetic excuses and justification of the rape of children. We curl our lips at his explanations of why he has condoms and lube if he’s meeting a ten year old. We get to see his shame when his sexually explicit and criminally damning online conversations to a supposedly underage plant are read back to him.

What To Catch a Predator does is expose the subject and perpetrator of a heinous crime to the loathing of the population. It doesn’t shame victims who “led on” the poor wittle man in need of sex. It doesn’t warn parents to chain their whorish daughters to their beds and not let them touch a computer. Instead, it presents the criminals to public and says, “look, the emperor has no clothes, and he likes to rape small children”.

That is what PBS should have done. Instead of filming what looks to be a pornography on the subject of sex trafficking, they should have made clear who exactly was causing the demand for rape-for-pay. It should have raided brothels of trafficked women and exposed the rapists and traffickers (and called them such, instead of “johns” and “pimps”) as the disgusting pieces of shit they are. It should have waved a bright light in their face and said, “explain why we found you raping a non-consenting woman”. Then it should have plastered their full name, occupation, and age all over the television as they were escorted in handcuffs to a police crusier.

Wet streets don’t rape and traffic women. Men are out there, right now, demanding and dirving a multi-billion dollar economy bought off the backs of viciously exploited women, children, and the occasional man. Showing the faces of these women is just another drop in the bucket for the porn-sick consumers of America. They either become tainted women in need of rescuing, or whores you can jerk one off to in the imagining of the hopelessly indoctrinated patriachial shitstain.

What the world needs is to for PBS to take their stupid blur off the faces of the rapists and ask them to “take a seat over there”. We need to know who these sick fucks are. We need to know that they are responsible for their crimes and that their excuses are hollow and hypocritical. We need to see the law deal seriously with their transgressions.

Only then will a documentary about sex trafficking be about something other than HOT WIMMENZ FOOLIN POOR WITTLE MENZ INTO BONIN THEM.

Homophobia and bladder priviledges

h/t to the Advocate

Franklin County High School in Kentucky has advised teachers to bar gay students from using the bathroom during class. Assistant Principle (but head bigot) Karen Buzard saw two girls kissing in a bathroom during class, and apparently needed to save her school from the horrible plague of lesbian kissing.

Yes, how terrible.

Now, I was in high school just four years ago. Lots of lesbian kissing went on. Gay kissing did too, but it was generally considered disgusting by the omnipresent male gaze, and was thus sequestered to underneath bleachers at lunch. Naturally, I recall my principle catching two girls swapping spit outside the office after school. PANIC ensued, and the girls got suspended. I assumed that she generally disapproved of PDA. That clearly wasn’t the case. Two students were caught the next week playing a suggestive game of “nervous” that ended up with a girl’s hand down a male classmate’s pants at lunch. My friends had claimed the adjacent area as our lunch spot years ago, and so we were all uncomfortably familar with that couple’s frequent display of teenage hormones.

Apparently the idea of going to first base with someone of the same sex after school is more disgusting than heavy petting during school hours with someone of the opposite sex, because the next day the couple was at it again with a vigorous game of footsie. Turns out the principle lectured them for ten minutes, threatened to call their parents, and let them go.

Proportional? Obviously not.

The Kentucky reaction screams of the same irrationality. High school students have been getting frisky in bathrooms since schools became co-ed. It’s only when doing homosexual things in bathrooms comes to light that mass panic ensues. Little johnny might get a pat on the back for getting his dick sucked in the ladies room in eleventh grade, but only if the suckee is a girl. Otherwise, we might have to call in disease control and test all the children for AIDS.

This is a clear manifestation of homosexual oppression. Homosexuality is so demonized that it is forbidden to be expressed in public. However, it’s so politicized and feared by the majority that it cannot be freely chosen in private either. Homosexuals—children or adults—have no privacy and no public voice. They are shaped in the public eye by bigots and their over-reactions. A closet? Try a cage at a zoo. Every sideways glance, every fleeting touch is dissected by the merciless judgment of a society that, at best, merely “tolerates” your deviancy. You’re a criminal, hiding from those that go out of their way to notice you and then recoil in distaste. You can’t be invisible, you can’t be unremarkable. Hell, you can’t be at all. You can only be defined, mocked, and shamed. The butt of every joke, the punch line of every over zealous fear of human sexuality. That’s you.

I know why gay high school children rendezvous in bathrooms during school hours. They cannot touch in public. Their words must be carefully chosen to avoid social ostracization. They cannot express affection. They fear to date openly outside of and after school. As bad as it is inside the halls, out on the streets or under your parent’s roof the risk of being yourself is higher. So they meet, clandestinely, in the bathroom. That is their closet, their cage, their romantic candle-light dinner. Their affection, love, lust, and exploration must be done in three square feet, pressed up against plastic walls and porcelain toilets.

And for going out of their way to keep their intolerable filth from the judging eyes, they are only pushed back out onto the stage, into the limelight, and chastised for daring to exist at all. Now you cannot pee, because they so fear the small place you’ve carved out for yourselves as safe. No place is safe for the gay teenager, they remind you. You cannot have your public hand-holding and pecks on the cheek. You cannot have your prom or your homecoming dance. You can’t even have your three square feet.

And for daring to assume you can, they’ll take away your right to use the restroom at all. Hold your pee while the good straight children play footsie at lunch and use the bathroom during class.

What, did you think you were human or something?

Unchanging orientation: a point that should not be ceded

In the course of the gay rights movement, it seems that sexual orientation has been constructed as something unchanging. Gay people are assumed to have been born gay, and their sexual choices are thus “natural” and above political analysis.

I think that this has done far more harm than good, for the following reasons.

1. It excludes from the gay rights movement those who are not cisgendered. Transpersons and intersexed persons do not have a definitive place of the gender binary to call their own. Thus, they cannot call themselves either straight or gay. Orientation is an identity that depends on both one’s gender and the gender of those to which one is attracted. For those who have no place in the restrictive gender paradigm (or those whose partners do not have a place), an unchanging model of identity cannot conceive of their experiences and oppressions. What happens is that these people—who are more vulnerable to violence than cisgendered homosexuals—are often totally ignored in the scope of gay rights and gay theory.

2. It excludes those who are not homosexual but not straight. Bisexuals, pansexuals, polysexuals, and asexuals all have identities and experiences much different from homosexuals and heterosexuals. Yet, because orientation is determined mostly by one’s attraction to the opposite or same sex, rather than other variables¹ these people occupy a tentative place in gay theorizing and are often thrown in as an afterthought or excluded altogether. An example would be a gay bar whose patrons are not friendly to the expression of heterosexual relationships therein. How do they create a place for the bisexual woman with a male partner? Is this possible? Such instances, in which cisgendered and/or cisgender-attracted (i.e. attracted to one specific gender) homosexuals oppress or exclude others, cannot be captured with the assumption that orientation is binary and unchanging.

3. It excludes those whose gender or orientation has changed. Many closeted homosexuals have had relationships with members of the opposite sex. While some later find that these relationships are not satisfying, some find that although they were satisfying at the time, their identity has changed. For example, a gay man might marry a woman in order to hide his sexual preferences and enjoy the many privileges legal marriage grants. However, he never feels fulfilled. But it is also the case that a man can marry a woman and be fully fulfilled in that marriage, only to later turn around afterwards (through divorce, death, or separation) and find that the company of other men is just as satisfying, even though it was not before. I wouldn’t doubt that such circumstances are far more commonplace than presently reported. Other groups that fall under the same oppression are those such as political lesbians—women whose political convictions imply that being a “woman-identified women” is more revolutionary than remaining straight—and any transitioning or happily ambiguous non-cisgendered person. Obviously, if one is not female or male, one cannot have a sexual orientation. The current definition of orientation relies on the sex of the orientated. If that sex is fluid, ambiguous, undefined, or transitioning, the orientation is similarly undefined, ignored, oppressed, invisible, and/or transitioning.

4. It gives authority to dichotomous and oversimplified thinking. The reasons for maintaining that orientation is innate are very political pervasive. First, it serves as an easy way to stop debate. The gay rights chant, “we’re here; we’re queer; get used to it!” references the idea that orientation cannot be altered; only suppressed. But this obviously excludes vast numbers of non-heterosexuals who are equally, or even more, oppressed than homosexuals. It might be tempting thus to grant legitimacy to those whose orientation has changed, but deny that anyone can consciously change their orientation. But this solution is inadequate. Is the political lesbian who chooses to seek romantic relationships with other women not oppressed? It would be absurd to deny that. Why this concrete theory of orientation arose has little to do with referencing the experiences of oppressed non-heterosexuals, and more to do with making the face of the gay rights movement easily defensible and more palatable to those who are responsible for oppression. What has happened is that the gay right movement has let the prejudices and the biases of the homophobic public dictate the method of gay theorizing. This obviously has resulted in the exclusion of wide swaths of the non-heterosexual experience, and jeopardized the long-term success of the entire movement.

What I mean by this is that the public conception of “natural” is very much tied up with the conception of “good”. What is good is natural, and what is natural is good. Such reasoning is not only dangerous, but highly absurd. First, determining what is “natural” is always done by the dominant class. There is no objective way to point out the natural order of humanity without creating an infinite regress of anthropologic theory. Is Babylonian civilization “natural”, or do we have to regress back to an earlier non-human ancestor to answer that question? Such inquires are absurd and have no cognitive value. The result is that the dominant class—the class with the most access to the prestige required for recognized theorizing—stops the regress at the point which best buttresses claims about the legitimacy of the forms of oppression that they benefit from. The result is such navel-gazing “science” as the following examination of why women like pink:

Ling speculates that the color preference and women’s ability to better discriminate red from green could have evolved due to sex-specific divisions of labor: while men hunted, women gathered, and they had to be able to spot ripe berries and fruits. Another theory suggests that women, as caregivers who need to be particularly sensitive to, say, a child flushed with fever, have developed sensitivity to reddish changes in skin color, a skill that enhances their abilities as the “empathizer.”

Thus, when a gay person asserts their right to exist with claims about the naturalness of homosexuality, they are framing the debate in the only way the class of oppressors permits them to. This references the old homophobic claim that “homosexuality is unnatural“. Rather than the gay rights advocate exclaiming, “No, it’s just as natural as heterosexuality,” they should have replied, “Questions about nature are irrelevant.” After all, the purpose of sex is not solely reproductive. Unless the heterosexual debater is willing to cede that his purely carnal, not reproductive, enjoyment of women—clad in artificial titillating textiles or slathered in toxic paints—is just as unnatural and should thus be subject to the same vicious repression.

5. It conceals the real source of oppression. For some of the reasons I’ve briefly explored above, insisting that homosexuality is as “natural” as heterosexuality is simply easier to support without rigorous debate. But why support anything without rigorous debate? When confronted with the pseudo-intellectual who is unwilling to entertain arguments that unseat his deep prejudges, the better idea, clearly, is to reject those prejudges rather than continue to play the game by his rules. Playing the game in this fashion has legitimized the “divide and conquer” tactic of the oppressors. In much the same way that anti-feminists mischaracterize feminists to pit working mothers against homemakers, or anti-porn feminists against sex workers, homophobes would like nothing more than to let non-heterosexuals endlessly fight amongst themselves rather than ever have to see their privilege dismantled. It should be obvious, for any marginalized population, that letting the oppressors set the frame of the debate will result in intellectual stagnation and political fragmentation on the lines of false dichotomies.

The issue here is not whether or not homosexuality is natural. In fact, who cares? Who cares why Sally prefers women to men? Who cares why Sally can maintain this preference and still have a happy relationship with a man? Does any of this change the fact that non-heterosexuals are viciously oppressed? No! For gay rights to even have a chance to succeed, the debate must be framed in a way legitimized by the experiences of all oppressed non-heterosexuals. It should not be comfortable and soothing to the innate prejudices of homophobes. Indeed, isn’t that contrary to the point of the movement?

When mental health professionals try to “cure” adults and youth of “gender disorders” and homosexuality, is the problem that they cannot cure them? Obviously not. The source of oppression is that anyone can conceive of why such things are deviances that ought to be “cured” in the first place. This point is not altered if the gay movement recognizes that orientation can change, and has changed, for many people. They have ceded no intellectual ground. Rather, they have wrested the reigns of the debate back from the oppressors and refused to recognize their logical fallacies.

The question was never whether or not transsexuality, homosexuality, bisexual, heterosexuality, or anything else was “natural”. It has always been whether or not the oppression of anyone who is not heterosexual and cis-gendered is valid. This is concealed with debates over if therapy to cure homosexuals can work, or if such a thing as a gay gene exists. Honestly, anyone who is a true ally of the gay rights movement shouldn’t give a damn whether or not homosexuality is learned, innate, or filters into our brains with a diet of tainted fruit.

All such debates rest on the assumption that heterosexuality is normal and that non-heterosexuality is the other. Rejecting that hierarchy of oppression cannot be accomplished by excluding non-cisgendered non-heteroexuals from the debate or by infinitely regressing explorations of anthropological “natural” human behavior.

In fact, it never will.

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¹I fully intend to, at a later date, attempt to construct a more useful method for the delineation of gender identity and orientation with more variables than the current political model.

South Park… feminist?

South Park is my guilty pleasure. I remember turning the volume down really low at night so that I could watch it without my parents hearing. It was so deliciously foul—and it horrified my parents. What wasn’t to like?

Recent episodes have rekindled that warm feeling that deliberately foul and excessive toilet humor inspires. I thought that it really couldn’t get much better than when they parodied the bailout by turning the Treasury Department into a gaggle of idiots.

I suppose I was wrong.

For April 1, South Park released it’s newest episode, “Eat, Pray, Queef”. Which is exactly what it sounds like: 30 minutes of jokes about the sound air makes when it is expelled from a woman’s vagina.

In the episode, the men of South Park overreact to the queef, and the women in their lives that find it funny. Culminating in a Senate hearing in which a female senator queefs a monologue to Roadwarrior, the funniest part of the show was how my brother, who watched it with me, didn’t think queefing was as funny as I did.  It made him a tad uncomfortable.

Most astounding though, By the end, when the men ban queefing, one of the female characters has a monologue that is undoubtedly the most feminist thing I’ve ever heard on television, bar none. My jaw literally dropped. It wasn’t tongue-in-cheek, it didn’t reference bra-burning or any of the other anti-feminist bullshit memes.

Even more hilarious is how disturbed by the episode fans are on IMDb and elsewhere. I came across numerous posts about how queefs are “disgusting” (but apparently a talking piece of shit isn’t) and how vaginas are gross and look like “gun shot wounds”. Rather than just say that they didn’t like the episode though, numerous viewers gave it a 0/10 when asked. Me thinks this might be because they’re just mad that South Park pulled off a joke at their expense. I have to say, the reaction of people to this episode is even funnier than the episode itself. When pushed, the commentors will eventually resort to excuses such as “vaginas are gross” or “feminism is stupid”. Excuse me, wasn’t the point of satire to laugh at yourself? After being bogged down by the minuta of the bailout, an episode on how stupid it all was made me laugh at myself for taking it so seriously. Would it fucking kill people to laugh at themselves instead of other people? Apparently not. Which is extremely funny in a very dark way.

All in all, South Park still isn’t outwardly feminist, and still does have its problems (jokes about rape anyone?), but it was still the most feminist thing I’ve seen on television, for a general audience, ever. How sad is that? Even sadder, how many men are complaining on the IMDb boards about their butthurt that sexism isn’t funny? Way to get a joke, morons.

I love French

Setting aside my issues with gendered nouns and adjectives and the use of the male plural to describe a group of mixed genders, I really love French.

Why, do you ask?

My French composition course this week had a lesson about l’injustice dans la société [injustices in society]. I have an essay about injustices due this weekend (note: writing essays in another language is really difficult. Thus, I procrastinate until the last second).

On the list of vocabulaire utile [useful vocabulary] provided by my professor is the following:

le sexisme (un[e] phallocrate)

That’s right, the French word for someone who is a “male chauvinist (pig),” or has sexisme [sexism], is un phallocrate.

I knew I picked the right language to study. Expect later posts referencing phallocrats.

Meme Time: the Fuck-t List

Wonderful Kate Harding of Shapely Prose has stumbled upon a great meme: the Fuck-t List. Because I wholeheartedly support delineating and rejecting asinine cultural rituals, here’s my non-exhaustive list of things I have no desire to do before I die that many people seem to think are awesome:

• Marry a Nice Guy and have a white wedding
• Try illicit drugs specifically for Cool Points^TM
• Participate in any sort of marathon-type activity
• Get Botox or plastic surgery
• Climb any terrain not suited for aforementioned activity, such as Mt. Everest
• Attend church regularly and/or “find God”
• Dye, straighten, meticulously style, or use more than two products on my hair
• Be considered up-to-date on all the trendiest fashions
• Purchase a purse, jeans, or shirt costing more than $100
• Wear heels high and uncomfortable enough to be “sexy”
• Ride, own, or interact in any fashion with a horse
• Diet
• Age gracefully
• Wear a bikini
• Wear a thong or any lingerie with a purely decorative purpose
• Keep my cat off furniture
• Wear anything shorter than my mid-thigh
• Please people who are actually assholes, no matter how important they are
• Wax, pluck, or shave my pubic hair
• Give up meat, coffee, fat, butter, or dessert
• Read “classics” that everyone thinks are impressive but actually suck
• Pretend that I don’t think that the “meat and potato” white male navel-gazing philosophers I have to read eight times aren’t  full of shit
• Own a brand new car, or any sort of SUV
• Really care about professional sports
• Develop a “wine pallet”
• Get really organized
• Fake an orgasm
• Have washboard abs
• Wear makeup on a daily basis
• Have a torrid affair with patriarchal dominant/submissive undertones
• Listen to NPR for more than 5 minutes without being filled with RAGE
• Apologize for my high moral standards, education and/or intelligence
• Get over my escalator phobia
• Become so wealthy I could hire someone to walk my dog
• Wear tiny pants. Fuck no.
• Wake up early for repetitive exercise
• Purposely seek to tan my white ass by either artificial or natural means

So my small but fantastic audience, what things  would you include on your Fuck-t List?