Inside His Head: What Your Drink Says About You.
Important information for ALL THE LADIES before the Virtual Pub opens.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for violence.]
"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary. [Violent overthrow] is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms. However, it is not the first option."—Republican congressional candidate and South Dallas pastor Stephen Broden, during a TV interview yesterday.
His comment "drew a quick denunciation from the head of the Dallas County GOP, who called the remarks 'inappropriate'."
Hey, he did say it isn't the first option! Geez.
Hip and Edgy and Shit
[Trigger warning for disablism and rape culture.]
"I Have PSD."
Photoshop dexterity (PSD) is a skillset acquired by proficient users of Adobe Photoshop, the world's most ubiquitous digital tool for creating visual ideas. Qualities of PSD include supernatural powers of imagination and an overwhelming desire to constantly make the world more beautiful. PSD affects people from different walks of life. In fact, there is a high probability that you have PSD.Ha ha, hilarious marketing campaign, Hyperakt Design Group. A fake disease. The acronym for which sounds almost exactly like the one that affects trauma victims, like soldiers and rape survivors. I'm sure that's just a coincidence, though, and no one will make the connection.
Whoooooooops.
I must confess. I have PSD. I got it one crazy night. She was beautiful. We were drunk. She looked deep into my eyes and, without even thinking, I was over all her buttons and she was making me swoon.Ha ha, see it's funny, because he's a dude and she's a computer, and PSD isn't a real disease.
She was a PowerMac 8100, the first computer with a PowerPC RISC processor.
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.]
Every Other Thing
**Trigger warning for violence**
I've been working on this thing--not quite a poem--for several months now. It's a piece, not exactly autobiographical, but rooted in the experiences of violence that I and way too many women I know have had. It is a story that I've heard and seen so many times through my and my friends' tears as we wonder how and why. It's a story also rooted in my sadness, an emotion created by my absolute certainty that I will again sit in a hospital, or a bedroom, or a police station with a woman I know and struggle to find something to say to encourage or help her.
I hadn't shown it to anyone until I recently shared it with Liss. By coincidence, I received an e-mail that day from our Women's Studies Department asking for faculty and students to participate in a Domestic Violence Awareness Poetry Reading. I decided that I was going to participate. I also decided to share it here, but I'm putting it below the fold and want to reiterate the trigger warning for references to/images of battering and sexual violence.
Every Other Thing
I almost said to her,
almost looked deeply into her eyes—
as deeply as I could with the swelling and all—
and said
“Love shouldn’t hurt.”
(Good catchphrase, isn’t it?
Serious and trendy, all at once.)
But, anyway, she was wrapped up in her bed,
right below the picture of her savior,
“No greater love,” read the caption.
an image of him on the cross
giving his life,
shedding his blood,
proving his love.
Still,
I almost uttered it,
because I could say it in a quick breath,
in the little bit of time I’d have,
before I’d suddenly have to leave
and she’d be grilled about what she told me
But in the background,
her music was playing,
(that blues shit I hate)
assuring her that without pain, there was no gain.
Telling her don’t blame Mr. Charlie for his transgressions.
He’s just a man
and He-e-e-e’s doing the best he can.
And didn’t she know,
having a piece of man
was better than no man at all?
Good music, she said.
She don't know how the hell
these young girls
(with they silly selves)
listen to men talking bout
breaking their backs
beatin it out the frame
knocking them down
Ooh!
Just too violent!
I still wanted to say it,
even as I looked at her shelves of books.
Nasty novels, my grandma had called them.
(I liked them, too)
I knew what she read inside.
About the women who were always so small, pale, fragile…
Breakable…
About the men so well-endowed that they had to
“Force themselves in”
or
“Work against her natural resistance”
or
“Make sure she was ready”
for the hard fucking that was coming,
for the pain that magically turned into pleasure
because she wanted him soooo much.
And because he was skilled—
knew how to use his dick/weapon, hmm!
He didn’t tear her asunder.
“Just say it,” I thought,
even as images flashed on the screen of her T.V.
No sound, but hey, I’d seen this!
I remember he slapped her!
But only this one time
cuz he was really angry.
After all she’d liedcheatedbeendemandingactedlikeabitch.
Or something that made it understandable.
Just this one time, just to get her attention,
make her realize how much he cared!
I wanted to tell her
“Love shouldn’t hurt. It’s not about suffering,”
while I looked in her eyes and patted her hands.
(I’d paid attention when they were telling me that at that women’s center.
I had this down!)
That’s what I’d heard, anyway.
But I/she hadn’t seen that
or been taught that
hell, we hadn’t lived that.
And you know what else I'd heard?
(Lord, so long ago)
From every older woman I knew?
Right after they'd looked at me sympathetically
(they patted my hands, too)
when I told them I was in love
and I was happy?
"Just wait, baby," they said,
shaking their heads because poor baby me
didn't know what was to come,
"You don't know nothing til you been through something."
(No pain, no gain! Damn those blues!)
So, I didn’t have examples
or assurances.
(In fact,
knowing what I’d seen…
what she’d seen…
I wasn’t sure…
Maybe love is this.
I mean, it was for so many
and you’d think
by now
someone could’ve figured out
a better way to love.
Someone besides the women at the center
who’d patted my hands in their certainty.
(I felt like a puppy))
I did have the words,
but suddenly, they seemed,
in that room,
in our lives,
not enough to counter
every other thing.
I patted her hands, though.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the award-winning memoir Things I Find Funny by Melissa L. McEwan, now in paperback with an additional chapter on farts.
Recommended Reading:
[TW for dehumanization] Cara: Report Shows HIV-Positive Women in Chile Forcibly Sterilized, Denied Medical Treatment
[TW for homophobia] Andy: Marriage Equality Under Attack in Iowa on Eve of Bus Tour Targeting Pro-Equality Supreme Court Judges
Shark-fu: What did the Moon ever do to deserve us?
LeMew: I Am Outraged That NPR Would Fire This Towering Intellect
Terrance: Evolving the Perfect Mouse
Melissa: Spark Summit – Speaking out against the Sexualization of Girls
Leave your links in comments...
Actual Headline
GOP says compromise not on the agenda if they retake the House.
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Great Book. Very Cool.
In case you were wondering what Judd Apatow finds funny, besides rape jokes and misogyny, now it's been compiled into handy book form for you. Thanks, McSweeney's!
P.S. I love that it includes one of his own essays.
This is a real thing in the world.
Here's The Situation: A Guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades and Getting in Your GTL on the Jersey Shore by Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, Gotham Publishing, 144 pages.
[Via Michael K.]
Gibson Cameo Cancelled
It's a tough week for racist d-bags, I guess. It looks like Mel Gibson's upcoming appearance in Hangover 2: Bangkok Boogaloo has been scuttled. Sad face for old hatebag Mel. (Not really.)
Thank Zach Galifianakis for this one. Earlier this week he was quoted as saying:
"A movie you're acting in, you don't have a lot of control; you just show up and vomit your lines out. I'm not the boss. I'm in deep protest right now about a movie I'm working on, up in arms about something. But I can't get the guys to [listen]. ... I'm not making any leeway."
The allusion was widely believed to be about Gibson's cameo in Hangover 2. Gibson was canned shortly thereafter. Director Todd Phillips had this to say:
"I thought Mel would have been great in the movie and I had the full backing of Jeff Robinov and his team. But I realize filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and this decision ultimately did not have the full support of my entire cast and crew."
Good on Zach and company for protesting. Sad face for Todd Phillips and whomever thought the choice of Gibson was a good idea.
Hobbit Casting Finalized
Heads-up, fellow nerdlings: Martin Freeman, who you may know as Tim from The Office (UK) or as the naked stand-in from Love, Actually, has been officially cast to play Bilbo Baggins. Yay! Good casting.
Interestingly, Ian McKellen is reportedly returning as Gandalf and Andy Serkis as Gollum, but the item notes that Elrond is still being cast. Huh. I wonder if Hugo Weaving declined, or if he wasn't asked, or if that discussion hasn't even happened yet. Curious.
[TW] Now that Free Polanski signatory Guillermo del Toro is off the project and Peter Jackson back on, I'm really excited about the film(s) again.
Grumble Growl Grumble Grumble Growl
Clint Eastwood says he thinks President Obama is a "nice fella," but he's "not a fan of what he's doing at the moment."
Maybe some crusty, narrow-eyed, weathered-but-wise, no-nonsense, old straight white conservative dude, half patriot, half reluctant hero, can grit his teeth, get his scowl on, and go rescue the black president from himself, eh, Clint?
(If you've not seen a lot of Clint Eastwood films, you'll have to take my word for it that that's pretty damn funny, in a lolsobby sorta way.)
[Previous Clint: Creepy, Mancentric.]
In Case You'd Missed Being Called Stupid by the Obama Administration...
Igor catches White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett noting, with regard to the repeal of DADT, that the "members of the gay community who actually understand [that the Justice Department is required to defend the law of the land are] working with us to try to put pressure on Congress to repeal it."
So, if you're not behind the White House interminably delaying the repeal for bullshit reasons, it's because, as per usual, you're too stupid to understand (or too hysterical to care) How Things Work.
Whoooooooooops.
Savage Advice
[Trigger warning for sexual violence and victim-blaming.]
I'm asking this not to be snarky, but because I truly want to know: What qualifies Dan Savage to hand out advice in a nationally syndicated column on sex and sexuality?
Because after reading today's column, he seems woefully, and dangerously, deficient in that capacity.
The long and the short of it is this: A woman in an open marriage wrote in saying how, since a former partner sexually assaulted her five months ago, she's been unable to be intimate with her husband, but has no problem being intimate with her boyfriend. Specifically, when her husband "tries to initiate sexual contact [her] skin crawls," but sex with her boyfriend "is amazing and leaves me feeling loved and whole and wonderful." This has left her husband feeling "incredibly jealous," "depressed," "angry," accusatory that she no longer loves him, and demanding that she "stop sleeping with [her] boyfriend until [their] marriage is back to normal."
She wants to know what to do. She signs her letter "Potentially Traumatized Sexual Deviant," the acronym of which is PTSD, also the acronym for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Dan Savage tells her: "You're being a total shit."
That is not a paraphrase. That is a direct quote.
He lectures her that she should be reporting the crime, tells her he hopes she knows "that being the victim of sexual assault is not a Get Out of Being a Human Being Free card," accuses her of "emotionally assaulting" her husband, and tells her, as I mentioned above, that she's "being a total shit."
Yeah.
I don't have PTSD (although I am close to someone who does), but I do understand that, especially when one is first learning to live with it, it can be hard to know exactly what will and does trigger it, including what could be causing an aversion to sex. It's entirely possible her husband (her currently jealous, depressed, angry, accusatory, demanding husband, mind you) may be unintentionally doing something as part of their sex routine that's triggering her, and the only language she has for it right now, even in her own mind, is "I don't want to have sex with him."
That's a possibility that anyone who professes to be a sex expert should recognize, if they're going to respond to survivors' sex questions.
It's unconscionable that Savage would advise this woman, a sexual assault survivor, to, essentially, get over it, and fuck someone she doesn't want to.
Oh, not that he says that directly, of course. She should just stop being "cruel and selfish," and get her "ass into therapy," if she "truly" loves her husband and values her marriage. Savage isn't telling her to fuck someone she doesn't want to; he's just telling her to figure out a way to fuck someone she doesn't want to. Or end the marriage.
Because it's cruel and selfish, it's downright "emotional assault," to not have sex with her husband while she's having sex with the boyfriend her husband was totes okay with her having, as long as she was fucking him, too.
As Liss said in an email exchange about this: "Yes, it's difficult to understand why, after being sexually assaulted, she doesn't want to have sex with someone who considers her autonomy a negotiable item, contingent upon whether she's sexually servicing him."
How "cruel and selfish" she is. What a "total shit."
Savage's response is incomprehensibly callous. And if it weren't bad enough on its own, it's accompanied by this positively adorable cartoon of a man trying to woo a woman who's crying.
[H/T to Shaker Jill.]
