Shakesville

Say, I Know Some People Who'd Like to Get Married...

Report: U.S. Marriages are Down...Way Down:

Data reported by the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based research organization that comes up with global demographic stats, show that the number of American young adults, aged 25-34, have dropped a dramatic 10 percentage points between 2000 and 2009 from 55.1% to 44.9%, citing the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Among the total population, aged 18 or older, marriage dropped from 57% in 2000 to 52% in 2009.

The numbers are the lowest since the Census Bureau began counting marriage a century ago.

I blame feminism!

You know, if the People Who Care About These Things want to bump up those marriage rates, they could try legalizing same-sex marriage.

But, of course, it's really not marriage over which they're wringing their beringed hands; it it were, the fact that "90% of adults will get married at some point in their lives," thus suggesting not fewer marriages but merely delayed marriages, would soothe their alarm. What it's really about is protecting the proud tradition of male supremacy, of which early marriage (and childbearing) has long been an integral part.

Ah well. Female equality's a bitch. *rimshot*

(Btw/TW: A million demerits for the image accompanying the article and the lede equating marriage to "clubbing someone over the head." Whoops you forgot to flip your calendar to the 21st century!)

Daily Dose o' Cute

There's a monster in the shower! Oh, nope -- it's just Sophie. Olivia and Matilda are the laziest playpals ever. Dudz couldn't be less interested. Zzzzz.

(I'll post some still pictures for those who can't view video later in the day.)

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

[Trigger warning for rape apologism, heterocentrism, ciscentrism.]

Another important dispatch from the Department of Gender Essentialism, Evo-Psych, and Farts...

One-Night Stands Explained: Men Prefer Hot Bods to Pretty Faces.

And that explains why women have one-night stands how...?

Wait wait—don't tell me! I bet it's because of our ancient evo-ova driving us to procure seed to make teh babies, amirite? HIGH FIVE, LADIES! (But only the cis ladies, obviously.)

You know, the really fun thing about evo-psych is how useful it has the potential to be for rape apologists, given its insistence on ripping apart our bodies from our minds and assigning them their own individual motivations. When scientists say that our sexual urges are "operating outside of conscious awareness," it's like getting a big fat stamp of institutional approval on that old "your mouth says no, but your body says yes" chestnut. Classic!

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Peter Murphy: "Cuts You Up"

I Guess They're Nice Guys, Too

[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]

What the everloving fuck. Two Michigan State University basketball players are accused of taking turns "assaulting an unidentified woman for nearly an hour in their Wonders Hall dormitory room late on Aug. 29 and into Aug. 30," and one of the players "who volunteered a statement corroborated much of the victim's statement," including the fact that she did not consent, but prosecutors have nonetheless declined to pursue the case.

The victim, who was brought to tears by a prosecutor affecting "a defense approach" and "grill[ing] her about whether or not it was possible the perpetrators thought the activity was consensual, why she didn't yell and scream and why she didn't run or try and fight her way out of the room," is still willing to testify.

"I worry about what would happen if it didn't go through and having to deal with all the publicity and everything that goes with pursuing charges," she said. "But also I am angry. It's just that everybody looks at them as heroes and they're so excited for basketball season that [the players] get off without anybody caring. They haven't even been punished."

Asked what she would like to see, she tenses the muscles in her face, and chews nervously at her upper lip.

"Just some justice, because right now there's none," she says.

Leaving her rapists free to do it again, creating even more victims whose cases prosecutors can decline to pursue.

Unless the victim, having already survived a gang rape, goes back to the prosecutors who revictimized her and asks them to reconsider: Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III generously offers, "There is a reconsideration policy in our office. If a victim is not happy, they can come talk to me and I'll review everything personally."

What a swell guy.

[H/T to Shaker nina_bruja.]

"But He's Such a Nice Guy"

[Trigger warning for sexual assault, homophobia, and suicide.]

By now, you've probably heard the details of the terrible incident at Rutgers University, in which 18-year-old freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and a friend secretly filmed and live-streamed Clementi making out with another young man.

Naturally, a lot of people have reasonably concluded that the "merry pranksters" who broadcast Clementi's private sexual acts, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, were homophobic. But a longtime friend of Ravi's says this is not true:

[Michael Zhuang told ABC News] the media portrayals of Ravi as possibly homophobic or a serious prankster are not true. "I'm in shock, I didn't expect this to happen and I am just speechless. He's normally very nice and I don't think that this is a representation of him," said Zhuang. "He's very very open minded and he, like if it had been a girl in the room it wouldn't have been any different," he said.

See that? Ravi isn't homophobic; he's an equal opportunity sexual assaulter.

Oh, pardon me: An equal opportunity privacy-invader. Ravi and Wei "have been charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy."

You know you're living in a rape culture when the proffered evidence of someone's decency and open-mindedness is that he'd have callously violated his roommate's privacy if he'd been intimate with a girl, too.

Naturally, the phrase "if it had been a girl in the room it wouldn't have been any different" is absurd for another reason: It might not have been any different for Ravi (a dubious claim in the first place, frankly), but it certainly made a world of difference to his victim, by virtue of the fact that we live in an institutionally homophobic culture where straight people generally needn't worry about violent retribution or familial ostracization or any of the other potential consequences many gay/bi men and women might face after evidence of their sexuality is broadcast to the world.

The things Clementi evidently feared enough to take his own life.

Top Chef: Just Desserts Open Thread

[Image from last night's episode: The chefjudicators visit our pastrycheftestants at the "bake sale."]

Last night's episode will be gently fluffed, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your whisk and go...

The Good News and the Bad News

The Good News: Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey will reportedly introduce LGBTQI-inclusive immigration legislation today or tomorrow, at long last providing US citizens and permanent residents to sponsor same-sex partners for residency in the same way opposite-sex partners can. (For evident reasons, this is a particular legislative interest of Iain's and mine.) The legislation "would also provide a path to citizenship for the undocumented and would include the DREAM Act, which would give adolescents who came to the U.S. as children a chance to achieve citizenship through completing two years of college or spending two years in the military."

The Bad News: The Senate adjourns this week for the midterm recess. Senator Menendez's spokesperson "would not confirm the report but said details of the bill." And "the complicated legislation is not expected to move before the end of the year, but may just be laying the groundwork for next session.

Or, worse, may be a promise to mixed-nationality gay families and immigrant families before the midterm elections that the Democrats actually have no promise of keeping.

I don't like feeling that cynical, though, so I'm going to quote the optimistic Steve Ralls, director of communications for the pro-LGBT Immigration Equality: "Senator Menendez's bill will set the stage, in this Congress and the next, for a serious debate on fixing our broken immigration system."

Today might be a good day to contact your senators and ask them to support LGBTQI-inclusive immigration reform, which also includes the DREAM Act and offers undocumented workers a path to citizenship. Let them know there is a constituency who's eager to see such legislation passed, so when the legislation comes across their desks, they see it as an issue with broad support, not "special interest" legislation they can ignore as long as it got a press release.

Open Thread

Hosted by The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Question of the Day

Following up on yesterday's question: Once I get moved, what kind of shop/business should I open?

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

Are Men the New Minority? "With more women on campus, some male activists are now crying foul."

I've written about the OH NOES MORE LADIES GETTING DEGREES! and BOY CRISIS! alarmism more times than I can count, so I'm not going to do it again. Just have at it in comments.

Instead, I'll share with you the email exchange in which Iain sent me this article.

Iain: Sends link under the deceptively innocuous subject line "Hi."

Liss: LOL. You could have warned me you were about to throw me into a pile of garbage. Now I smell like poo.

Iain: LOL. Sorry, honsels.

Privacy Schmivacy: It's Like You Want the Terrorists to WIN!

Adam Serwer on how radical the administration's internet surveillance proposal (about which I tweeted here) really is:

I don't think I adequately expressed how fundamentally radical it is that the administration is planning to propose legislation that would force Internet communications companies to build their systems in a way that allows the government to have a backdoor. Part of the problem, I think, is that we still think of privacy on the Internet as being somehow different from physical privacy. As in, I still have privacy if there isn't a camera in my home, but the government can read my e-mails. It should be immediately obvious, though, even in that example, how tapping the Internet is not like tapping a phone line.

"Telephone conversations are ephemeral, they go away after you're done," explains Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel with the ACLU. "Internet communications leave a record; that record, while it seems just as private as the actual conversation, is protected at a much lower level." What that means is that unlike a phone tap, which tracks future communications from the point at which the eavesdropping begins, under this proposal, past records would be accessible too.

Last night I was thinking about an aside in a piece Julian Sanchez wrote about how we increasingly live our lives, and it's true. For a growing number of people, if the government has access to someone's Internet communications, you have access to just about everything. They know what food you like. They know who you're having sex with. You know who your friends are, and who your enemies are. They know your political views, your literary preferences, your sense of humor. They know how much money you make, what kinds of health problems you have, what neighborhood you live in.

Viewed in this context, forcing Internet communications companies to reverse engineer their systems for breach by the government is like forcing construction companies to build houses that have cameras in every room.

That's an enormous amount of information for the government to have access to. And even if one "doesn't have anything to hide" from a center-left administration, would the same be true under a far right administration...?

Scary stuff, this.

Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

Texting! With Liss and Deeky!

Deeky: Patti LuPone! You're such a fudgepacker.

Liss: I ain't packin' no fudge! I'm just sitting here quietly minding my own business, reading an article about Liza Minelli while listening to Patti LuPone.

Deeky: LOL! There is almost no way that could be gayer.

What I'm Listening To

Patti LuPone, "Everything's Coming Up Roses"

I love her. That is all.

I Couldn't Make This Shit Up

Senators Tom Coburn (R-Eprobate) and Jim DeMint (R-Evolting) have put a hold on a bill that would grant "approval of a decade-long effort to build a women's history museum in the nation's capital." The two senators are concerned about, among other things, bias.

Got that? Two conservative male senators are holding up approval of a women's history museum because they're not sure it will conform to their dudely ideas of what a women's museum should be.

Without a trace of irony.

Two Facts

1. When I wrote passionate criticisms of a Republican administration and Republican Congressional majority who failed to champion LGBTQI equality, assailed women's bodily autonomy, treated Roe as a suggestion, refused to disclose lobbyist visits to the White House, invoked the separation of powers to protect themselves, called for spending freezes on social programs, legitimized rightwing extremists, advocated for offshore drilling, pushed HSAs, escalated a war, thumbed their nose at due process, engaged in black ops, treated scientists with contempt, expanded the executive's extrajudicial powers, demeaned liberal activists, and invoked state's-secrets privilege for bullshit reasons, I was a principled progressive.

2. When I write passionate criticisms of a Democratic administration and Democratic Congressional majority who fail to champion LGBTQI equality, assail women's bodily autonomy, treat Roe as a suggestion, refuse to disclose lobbyist visits to the White House, invoke the separation of powers to protect themselves, call for spending freezes on social programs, legitimize rightwing extremists, advocate for offshore drilling, push HSAs, escalate a war, thumb their nose at due process, engage in black ops, treat scientists with contempt, expand the executive's extrajudicial powers, demean liberal activists, and invoke state's-secrets privilege for bullshit reasons, I am a stupid ingrate who doesn't understand how politics works.

Always with the Misogyny

[Trigger warning: Sexual Harassment]

If you've been hanging out in Feministville for any length of time, there's a good chance that you've noticed the propensity of many activists to treat women as objects. While this is a problem on the left, conservative activists seem to have a particular knack for treating women as means to an ends, or merely as objects for their own sake.

Last year, neo con man James O'Keefe released videos of what appeared to be ACORN employees helping prostitutes get loans to finance brothels. The subsequent scandal, which involved O'Keefe posing as a pimp and subsequently editing the bejeezus out of secret tapes, brought down ACORN. Apparently using the sex class is a much more direct way to bring down progressive organizations than, say, discussing predatory lending.

You may or may not remember James O'Keefe from his role in disseminating heavily edited videotapes of an actress portraying a 13 year-old rape victim seeking assistance from Planned Parenthood.

Earlier this year, O' Keefe was among the folks who broke into Senator Mary Landrieu's office to tap her phones, for reasons unknown.

He also launched a campaign against Representative Maxine Waters.

O' Keefe's friend, Andrew Breibert, went after the Obama administration's “racist” ways by editing a video (um, CNN?) of longtime Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod, who is also a woman. I'm not sure how much the racism charges against Obama stuck, but I do know that Sherrod no longer works for the USDA.

What a sad, sorry, and frightening pattern. What could possibly come next?

CNN investigative reporter Abbie Boudreau was working on a story about O'Keefe and company, who were none too pleased to be the target of some woman's criticism. Naturally, O'Keefe responded with a heavy dose of sexual harassment:

When I [Abbie Boudreau] showed up [to interview O'Keefe], there was no office, as promised. Instead, he wanted to get me on a boat, which we later learned, was staged as a "pleasure palace." One of his colleagues, Izzy Santa, who was in Maryland that day, told me about the plan and stopped the punk before it happened.

Izzy told me he had "strawberries and champagne" waiting for me on the boat, and that he planned to "hit on me" the entire time. She said it would all be captured on hidden cameras that had been set up on the boat and in the back yard. She said the sole purpose of the "punk" was to embarrass me, and to make CNN look bad.

Yes, because when men harass women and hit on them the entire time, it's the women and their employers who look bad.

Even on a boat, we're swimming in rape culture:

James was supposed to tape the following script before the meeting on the boat.

"My name is James, I work in video activism and journalism. I've been approached by CNN for an interview where I know what their angle is: they want to portray me and my friends as crazies, as non-journalists, as unprofessional and likely as homophobes, racists or bigots of some sort…"

"Instead, I've decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she'll get seduced on camera and you'll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath."

"Please sit back and enjoy the show."

It explains very simply what "the joke" is.

"The joke is that the tables have turned on CNN. Using hot blondes to seduce interviewees to get screwed on television, you are faux seducing her in order to screw her on television."

I just don't know what to say to that.

Homophobia? Well, now that you mention it Mr. O'Keefe, sure, why not?

Confusing the work of a woman with seduction? Honestly, when's the last time Wolf Blitzer was accused of seducing anyone? Of course, Blitzer's not a bleach-blonde. I'm not sure that look would suit him.

And the screwing. Always with the screwing.

Always with the screwing because rape culture is alive and well. Always because this is the nth time the same man has tried to get away with using similar tactics. And conservatives will hail him as a once and future hero in three, two, one...

H/t: Shaker JMonkey

Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud sponsors of the upcoming Vegas showdown Deeks v. Beck. Mezzanine tickets are still available.

Recommended Reading:

Peter: Liberal Bloggers Are Bringing Down Obama, Part II

Echidne: The Care and Feeding of the Political Bases

Andrew: Joint Chiefs Chairman Stands by DADT Repeal, Pentagon Review

IWHC @ Akimbo: Women First: The Global Health Initiative's Women- and Girl-Centered Approach

crunktastic: The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Sex and Power in the Black Church [TW for discussions of sexual violence and clergy abuse.]

DeeLeigh: Fat Kids Targeted [TW for fat hatred]

Jo: Did you know people with artificial legs shouldn't go hiking? [TW for disablism.]

Esra'a: Geek Feminism and Mideast Youth

Leave your links in comments...

Daily Dose o' Cute

When no one's looking, Vincent reverts back to his normal deity form and takes a well deserved nap.

In the Lost final episode thread, I commented that with all the Egyptian mythology, it seemed to me that Vincent was actually Anubis getting ready to escort Jack to the next "plane", as it were.

Between Alfie's coloring being an almost spot-on match with Vincent and his ears relaxing in perfect Anubis fashion, I think we just found our Lost pup. :)