[Trigger warning for all kinds of fucked up shit.]
Mother Jones reports: A bill under consideration in the Mount Rushmore State would make preventing harm to a fetus a "justifiable homicide" in many cases.
Read. Discuss.
South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Pet Shop Boys: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)"
Blog Note
Liss is currently without power. Yay for infrastructure improvements. Boo for ten minutes notice. She'll be online as soon as they're done completing their work. (Whomever they are.)
In the meantime, enjoy this image of David Bowie as Nikola Tesla:
The Overton Window: Chapter Thirty-Five
I know you've all been waiting for some more faction and here it comes! And by faction I mean there's a scene that takes place in a real restaurant (unlike the Stars 'n Stripes He-Man Patriots Club). Yay for faction! Boo for cab rides. Yeah, you didn't think you'd get away without another cab ride, did you? Remember, cab rides = movement. You can't say the story isn't moving because it is! Literally! See? Noah moved from the hospital to the Buccaneer Diner. A real page turner! Oh, and yeah, that's the faction part. The diner. It's real. Click here if you don't believe me. (You believe me, right?)
I'm not sure, but the writing actually seems to be getting worse as the novel progresses. That hardly seems possible. You'd think through the course of a couple hundred pages the ghostwriter might hit his stride. I guess not. Look at the opening paragraph:
The street address that had been scrawled on the hospital's notepaper didn't lead him to another of the so-called safe houses that Molly had described. When Noah looked up as the cab pulled to a stop he found he was outside what looked like a quaint family-style eatery, the Buccaneer Diner on Astoria Boulevard in Queens, about a mile from La Guardia Airport.
That first sentence is clunky and awkward. As if the author couldn't quite figure out how to express his ideas clearly, and just sort of jammed them together into one uncooperative sentence. Look, it's no secret that Beck is a wealthy man. He could have hired on any number of competent ghostwriters. Instead we're saddled with prose that reads like a tenth grade writing assignment. (No offense to tenth graders.) This is, quite literally, the worst thing I've ever read. And I've read Bret Easton Ellis. Yeah, I've used that joke before. This book is so crappy I can't even be bothered to come up with fresh insults for it.
Honestly, the only thing that keeps me going at this point is that we're only about ten chapters from the end. I can't wait to see how it turns out. (I can wait.) (p.s. I already know how it ends.) The truth is, it shouldn't have taken us 200 pages to get where we are, considering we've not come much anywhere. Right? There's a bomb, and a stolen Powerpoint, and the New World Order. Really, this could have been covered in the prologue. All of which is to say, you've probably guessed by now everything in this book exists solely to set up a sequel.
We're going to get our Casus Belli moment (bye-bye, Harry Reid!), then fade to black. No resolution, no closure, no nothing. Just 275 pages of fear-mongering, pseudo-libertarian wankery, and the worst writing this side of Stephenie Meyer. That end can't come quickly enough as far as I am concerned. Bring on the New World Order, I say. So long as they put a stop to this sort of hackery, I'm okay with being under the thumb of the Nicolae Carpathia or Horatio J. HooDoo or whomever.
The only good thing about this chapter is it is free of any dialogue. It's crap writing, sure, but I guess it could be worse. There's are lot of "Molly explained" and "Noah told her" without actually detailing any of what they said. It's quicker that way, I guess. And sort of frees the author from having to put too much thought into anything.
The two are quickly reunited. I guess if this were a movie (this soooooooooo needs to be a movie) the scene would be warmly lit, and in slow motion, and they'd talk, sure, but we, the audience, would only hear the swell of Howard Shore's tear-inducing score.
Inside the restaurant the lunchtime rush was winding down, with most of the tables emptying out and the floor staff busy doing cleanup and taking care of departing patrons at the register. But sitting alone in a booth near the back, in the nearest thing to a dark corner that was available in such a place on a sunny Monday afternoon, was the young woman he'd come to see.
When Molly looked over and saw him walking up the aisle she stood and was suddenly overcome by a flood of tears she must have been barely holding at bay. She ran to him and threw herself into his arms.
Yay. Star-crossed lovers.
One question: Why are these two lovebirds so thrilled to see one another? They've spent, what, a total of three or four hours in each other's company? (If you cut out all the time Noah's been unconscious. And Noah's spent a lot of time unconscious.) They chatted briefly at work. They barely talked at the teabagger bar. They briefly talked, I guess, in the back of the police wagon. There was a limo ride and chicken and waffles and a nap. Then they watched the Powerpoint, followed by a silent cab ride. Then another brief chat in Molly's safehouse apartment. They hardly know each other. And what Noah knows is largely a lie. He's twice been drugged by Molly. Manipulated by her evoking the memories of his late mother. Had his career nearly destroyed. So why does he want to see her? And Noah represents everything Molly despises. He is colluding to install the NWO. Noah's father just had her mother murdered, her ex-boyfriend arrested, her friends beaten. Why does she want to see him?
This romance, much like everything else in the book makes. no. fucking. sense.
Neither forgiving nor forgetting, he put it all aside for the time being and just held her for a while.
Swell.
Hey, I'm no cynic. (Okay, I am.) I liked Sabrina. I'm all for love where a couple that has nothing in common manage to find romance against all odds and somehow make it work. But it's not that Molly and Noah have nothing in common, they have actually been on opposites sides of a conflict fraught with murder plots, violence and deceit. And I'm not talking some Romeo & Juliet shit here either. Molly and Noah have been active participants in this treachery.
Nonetheless, the two are back in each other's lying, deceitful arms. And there is no time make-up sex.
Molly's traveling companions had gone on ahead to test the waters at La Guardia in preparation for their flight west toward less hostile environs. According to the news the DHS had taken the nation to high alert over the weekend, and that put the airports at the very highest level; this was obviously cause for concern. Sure enough, word had reached her that the first of her friends to pass through the TSA checkpoint had been singled out and pulled aside. They weren't just searched and harassed, as had often been the case in recent years; this time they were arrested and detained.
Molly explained that she had to get out of town and make it to a rendezvous across the country as quickly as possible. Driving wouldn't do; she had to fly in order to make it.
You know, I think maybe at this point, we're just reading the author's outline. It doesn't read like an actual novel. Just some jotted down ideas, some notes that will need to be fleshed out, later perhaps. I feel like I've stumbled onto Tolkien's background sketches for The Hobbit. If Tolkien was a dumbass.
Noah was listening, and he was also studying her face as she spoke. The passing resemblance to that picture of his mother was almost gone now that she'd ceased to maintain it. That likeness had been subliminal at best, just enough to hook into his subconscious. But now, as they sat under the bright fluorescent lights of a Queens diner, he realized that there was absolutely no denying who Molly did look like.
And that gave him an absolutely brilliant idea.
Anyone care to guess what Noah's brilliant idea is? No, don't bother. You'll never guess. You're not a dumbass. You could never guess. No one could. It's that bad.
Question of the Day
As I said two years ago: So today is Valentine's Day. Eh.
However! Good music abounds! So share 'em here--your favorite songs about partner love, platonic love, romance, and/or heartbreak. Happy, sad, angry, dark, goofy, non-traditional...let us know (and if there's a story to go with, share that too!).
I'll start us off with a, er, few of mine (without repeating the most excellent songs of the last post, lol):
LOL
[Trigger warning for various mentions of inappropriate "humor."]
An actual bid for conservative email addresses poll currently being run by that honorable bastion of conservative thought, Townhall.barf.
[Click to embiggen.]
Yes, who IS the most liberal media personality?
Is it Keith Olbermann, the rape apologist and misogynist who has "joked" about killing Hillary Clinton, referred to Michelle Malkin as " a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it," and used alleged promiscuity to justify incessant jokes at the expense of young women like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton?
Is it Chris Matthews, the homophobic, racist (and racist and more racist), misogynist (misogynist, misogynist, misogynist, misogynist, misogynist, misogynist...) dildobrain?
Is it the Bill Maher, the deeply misogynist, fat-hating, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, one-man rape joke machine?
Is it Jon Stewart, who, when he is not actually lecturing liberals on how terrible they are, spends his time anchoring a comedy news show that is written almost exclusively by white men and uses humor that's as edgy as it is progressive like fat jokes and transmisogyny?
Or is it a tie between ALL THESE AWESOME LIBERALS?
You know, the sad part is that there are lot of
But they are all just opportunists whose ideas of justice had boundaries extend only as far as whomever he wants to make fun of, be cruel to, or marginalize as unserious or uncredible.
They were Bush-haters. They were never progressives.
Number of the Day
7.5%: The percentage by which, on an annual basis, full-time state and local employees are under-compensated in Indiana, in comparison with otherwise similar private-sector workers.
After his election in 2004, Governor Mitch Daniels rescinded the rights of highway police, hospital attendants, mechanics, and other state workers to collectively bargain for wage and hour increases, working conditions, and other benefits, eliminating the unionization rights and contracts of approximately 25,000 state employees. Governor Daniels is also promoting vouchers for private schools and reducing public school funding, which may result in teacher pay cuts and layoffs.Daniels justified all of the above on the basis that Indiana state and local employees were overpaid.
This is what we have to look forward to if the Republican Party is craven enough to nominate Mitch Daniels as their '12 candidate and the nation is foolish enough to vote him into national office.
Monday Blogaround
Today's blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, makers of new LadyVote voting machines. LadyVote: capable of registering 146 million distinct opinions!
scatx: Fuck yeah, Google!
Razib Khan: The undersampled 1 billion (genetically that is)
Gender Reality: If you can talk to the media (Caitiecat had a related post here last week.)
Knitting Clio: Women’s History And Wikipedia Part II: Wikiproject Women’s History
Arya M. Sharma, MD: The Science Behind Health At Every Size (HAES) (H/T Obesity Panacea)
Sociological Images: [TW violence against women] Shifting Cultural Sensibilities and Valentine's Pleas
Terri Sundquist: [TW violent crime] Was Dr. Crippen Innocent After All? New Forensic Evidence 100 Years After his Execution
steamfashion: More CNSE News! (The CNSE is the Canadian National Steampunk Exposition)
And finally, another entry for The Franco Files. Ladysquires: I Have Questions
Leave your links in comments!
(image description: a black-and-white photo of James Franco looking like James Dean, with a cigarette and spectacles. Image credit: c. sexowski, Flickr Creative Commons, via Ladysquires)
I Write Letters
Dear Adobe,
I was already unthrilled when the text tool stopped working in your Photoshop Elements software which I JUST PURCHASED like two weeks ago.
I was even more aggravated after your help forums were of no help. No, I am not using text that is the same color as the background. No, I do not have the text buried behind another layer. No, the text size is not being measured in pixels instead of points. Yes, I have tried resetting the tool. Yes, I have tried restarting the program.
I am, however, most irritated that I am 24 minutes into what I've been told is a 38-minute wait time on your customer service line.
I'll DEFINITELY be less angry after waiting 38 minutes.
Love,
Liss
Like a Horse and Carriage
Like most of our holidays, Valentine's Day has a history that reportedly starts with those horny pagans and another one of their many fertility festivals, makes its way to the Catholic Church, which, in a typical cooption, laid on top its own celebration and gave it a fancy new saint-name, winds its way through the work of a popular British author (no, not that guy for a change, but this guy) who gifted its association with romantic love, and ended up mercilessly corrupted by soulless corporations who want to Sell You Shit Without Which You Can't Possibly Celebrate This Holiday.
Ya know. Kinda like Easter. Or Christmas.
Its origins being murky at best, there are competing legends about the sainted man for whom Valentine's Day is named, each of which has emerged to fill a need in its time, like such things have a wont to do. The account I like best, though, casts St. Valentine as a priest who defied a decree of the Roman Emperor Claudius II forbidding soldiers from getting married on the premise that such emotional attachments weakened soldiers' resolve. Valentine, moved by the injustice of the edict, met young lovers in secret and held clandestine weddings despite the prohibition—an acknowledgement of the (nearly) universal desire to love and be loved and commit to another, for which he was eventually jailed and executed.
I like the idea, even if it's only that and nothing more, that Valentine's Day is not just about love, but about marriage equality.
Love is a concept that is largely absent from our modern debates about marriage equality—because, of course, the people who seek to deny marriage to same-sex couples lose ground when the emotions of the thing impose upon their clinical, passionless talking points about protecting an institution they'd happily return to little more than a property exchange between landowning men, given half a chance.
For a very long time, marriage between a man and a woman didn't have a lot to do with romantic love. (In fact, in some traditions, it still doesn't.) One of the most remarkable things about US culture is that we have the freedom to partner for love, to forge lifelong bonds based not on class or race or religion or the number of goats our dads can spare, but on a feeling so beautiful that poets have spent lifetimes trying to lay it on a page, that artists have passionately sought its capture in one still but enduring moment. Operas and books and films and pop songs, so heartbreakingly lovely that they can steal one's breath, if just for a moment, have been written by people in the thralls of love, or the searing pain of its loss. Monuments have been built, wars have been fought, and some of the greatest happiness ever experienced by humankind has been born because of love.
We are blessed with the luxury of romantic love, and, make no mistake, it is a luxury.
We are also blessed with the luxury of choosing to have nothing to do with romantic love, or the institutions of its association, if that is our wish.
But, even if we wish nothing more than to take part in those institutions, some of us nonetheless continue to be denied equal access, based on whom it is that we love. Marriage remains, in most of the US and much of the rest of the world, a privilege, denied to same-sex couples by people invoking gods of various names (Jesus, Mohammed, Tradition) as thin veneers to lay atop the desperate insecurity about their super-special relationships losing the shimmering, golden glow that only denying equality to same-sex couples conveys upon their gloriously gilded unions.
To throw wide the doors of marriage to same-sex couples (or—gasp!—poly relationships) is to undermine its value, they argue.
But marriage at its best is an expression of love. When it's simply an institution to facilitate the continued existence of a society through the birth of new generations, it is a splendid functional legal contract and nothing more. When it's a sign of commitment forged out of love, it is something ever so much grander. It is evidence of consent, autonomy, respect, dignity. It is evidence of love.
The value of any individual marriage is determined exclusively by the people joined by the union, but the value of marriage as an institution is diminished because we refuse to open access to all loving people. People marry for convenience, for access to healthcare, for immigration purposes, for all manner of practical reasons (as well they should be allowed to do), which one would think might be of more interest to those ostensibly preoccupied by defending the sanctity of marriage. That they are not betrays the lie, the thin façade of their deceitful justification. If there is anything sacred to be found at all in marriage, it is love—which is not bound by simple binaries.
The truth is this: Restricting marriage does not make it worth more. It makes it worth less.
Aristophanes said, in Plato's Symposium, that humankind, "judging by their neglect of it, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood it they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in its honor."
We could start, in this country, simply by repealing DOMA. The monuments can come later.
Love is neither the sole province of unions between one man and one woman, nor a luxury we should ever take for granted. It is a luxury so precious that denying of some people any and every expression of its unique and awesome qualities, treating their love as different, as less, is an affront to the tremendous gift we have been given in our capacity to feel love.
If we really understood love, we would not just build in its honor noble temples and altars, and offer solemn sacrifices, but would believe without reservation that to deny its existence in every human heart is to reject our humanity.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Life Flashes By: A Deeper Look
This past November, I posted about a new PC-based game titled Life Flashes By, developed by Deirdra Kiai (aka Squinky). If you haven't yet played it, I highly recommend you give it a go, especially to check out my mad voice acting skillz.
Recently, Deirdra had an e-mail chat with a friend of hers at the Border House to delve into Deirdra's thought process and how several cultural narratives contributed to the script and character development within the game. Following is an excerpt:
It was always in my head that Charlotte had to be a person who feels real, with a complex personality that includes both positive and negative characteristics. Honestly, it’s such an obvious thing to me that I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. I mean, I see a lot of well-meaning male creators in various media who aim for what we call Strong Female Characters, and while that’s way better than using women as decorative set pieces or not having any women around at all, I keep feeling like there’s too much idealizing going on at least in comparison to the variety we have in sympathetic male protagonists. It’s been my personal experience that I can relate better to a socially awkward nebbish protagonist like Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island games than I can to, say, April Ryan from The Longest Journey — and I say this knowing that April’s still one of the best Strong Female Characters we’ve got in gaming. Something’s got to give.Do give the whole thread a read, as it really touches upon a lot of items that help give the game an even deeper meaning.
Thoughts on Internet Dating; Or, a Series of Unfortunate Cultural Narratives
by Shaker and Shakesville Moderator Aphra_Behn
(Please note that in this analysis, I only speak to my experiences with male-identified people seeking me out as a female-identified person. It should also be noted that Internet dating sites are bastions of various sorts of privilege: classism, sizeism, ableism, heterocentricism, racism, and more.)
On this Valentine's Day, as the media's message turns to a variety of craptastic narratives about love and romance, I find myself casting my mind back to a dark and stormy night not too long ago. That tempestuous evening, I received a message from a Gentleman Emailer, in response to my posting on Popular Internet Dating Site.
This, my first and only message from said GE, consisted of:
1. SUBJECT: Greeting! Assertion of our inevitable romantic destiny!
2. Revelation of previous disastrous romantic fate online.
3. Wish to be in love with me!
4. Expression of love for my [body part]!
5. Phone number, with conditional instructions to call it.
6. New assertion of our inevitable romantic destiny!
7. Proverbial saying about love.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Gentleman Emailer expected to inspire romance via this missive. Yet, curiously, "feeling romanced" was not my reaction.
My reaction was more along the lines of: hide! under covers! on the fainting couch! for about the next century.
Reader, I would like to tell you that this was a singular occurrence. It was not.
Overall, my exchanges with Gentleman Emailers have been enjoyable. Our periods of correspondence frequently turn into tea-palace excursions or evenings waltzing at the dance hall. I have made a number of friends, and in general, quite enjoy dating. But if we lay aside those pleasant emails that result in actual conversations, and speak to emails in the "first and only" category, some remarkably similar patterns emerge.
I have come to the conclusion that some men on Popular Internet Dating Site are tragic victims of A Series of Unfortunate Cultural Narratives. Found in romantic comedies, popular music, advertising, and just about every other media of modern life, these Unfortunate Cultural Narratives consistently prove themselves to be remarkably poor guides in real life.
(Note: Among their other garbage, these Unfortunate Cultural Narratives assume that all humans are straight, sexual, and cisgendered. That is rubbish. With said detritus duly noted, let us sally forth.)
Unfortunate Cultural Narrative # 1: Women exist primarily (or solely) as potentially pleasing bodies, and men cannot control their responses to those bodies.
Sample Email Expression: Your [body part] is so [overwhelmingly positive adjective!] I don't think I can stop myself from [action]!
Reaction: This has landed in my inbox so often that I checked to make sure my profile hadn't been haxXx0red by ancient Greek Sirens, whose magically delicious songs were enticing brawny, bronzed sailors to jump into my shimmering Inbox, only to drown in my winsome charms.
Dear Reader, it was not so.
These Gentleman Emailers are conflating activities they would like to undertake with actions they must take. Such repeated, enthusiastic expressions give me the impression that the Gentleman Emailer doesn't much care about my personality, interests, boundaries, or any of the other points in my (time-consumingly written) profile. And so: I touch that button known as "Delete," and *plonk* goes the epistle.
Unfortunate Cultural Narrative #2: Women will be flattered when informed that they are not like other women.
Email Example: I can tell you are not like [description of All the Women Who Done Him Wrong].
Reaction: I have sometimes wondered if these particular Gentleman Emailers would open a job interview at General Motors by saying "ALL CAR MANUFACTURERS ARE LIKE MUCUS. GATHERED FROM ROTTING SNAILS. IN THE SARLAAC'S PIT OUTSIDE JABBA'S PALACE. (pause) Except for you guys. You're awesome!"
I think not.
Many of us humans on Popular Internet Dating Site have had our hearts broken. But making immediate assertions about those other people in your life signals to me that you are blaming problems in said past relationships on woman-ness, rather trying to figure out what went wrong and each case and taking responsibility for your own actions. It does not inspire confidence that you see me as an individual. I'm not the Woman to Do You Right; I'm just the Woman Who Hasn't Done You Wrong...Yet.
*Plonk* we go.
Unfortunate Cultural Narrative #3: Women wish to be swept off their feet! Immediately! With Bold! Romantic! Gestures!
Email Example: Oh my god you are just [extreme superlative]. I already know I love you. Call me so we can [offline activity].
Reaction: I confess, dear reader, that when I had just begun this Internet dating thing, I accepted one of these invitations from a first email, against my better judgment. (Ah, better judgment! How I have learned to love you.)
The date went something like this:
Me: [Query about current event]
Gentleman Emailer: [Sneering Republican Sentiment]
Me: [Mildly Liberal Position, with Obama-esque Statement of Common Ground]
GE: [Guffaw, with accompanying Fox News Quote]
Me: [Something Canadian]
GE: [Repeat of Sneering Republican Sentiment, with Added Canadian Insult]
Me: [Somewhat Frosty, Muted Reply]
GE: [Further Canadian Slur]
Me: [Increasingly Frosty WASP Reply]
GE: [Yet more slurs! Assurance of Joking State.]
Me: [*is basically Queen Elizabeth now*]
In every way, his behavior on the date confirmed that he had no interest in my personality, interests, or boundaries. The pressure to go out wasn't romantic. It was bullying.
Reader, I *plonked* him.
Unfortunate Cultural Narrative #4: All women want a man to rescue her from her drab existence.
Email Example: Hey, [highly familiar endearment] are you ready to be spoiled? Because I want to [remove you from your current condition].
Reaction: I have a fantasy, dear Reader. In my fantasy, Captain Jack Harkness swoops by one eve to whisk me away for a life of well-dressed swashbuckling weirdness, punctuated by lots and lots of seriously sweaty snugglebunnies with said Captain Jack. Occasionally, Captain Mal joins in the sweaty snugglebunnies, whilst Captain Picard reads erotic passages of the Kama Sutra to us in his plummy, yummy, voice.
Reader, that is a fantasy.
In reality, if a dude swoops down from the sky—or Internet—to announce that he wants to take me to Tahiti and spend his fortune keeping me in Fabergè eggs and unicorn farts, it does not make me want to accompany him to the corner gas station, let alone any destination requiring a passport.
It makes me wonder what he expects in exchange for this cozy arrangement. It makes me wonder what he saw in my profile that suggests I am unhappy with my current life. It makes me reach quickly for my trusty friend, Delete.
Sweet, sweet *plonk* of life.
Unfortunate Cultural Narrative #5: Women do not know what they want, and are therefore charmed when men tell them what it is they actually want.
Email Example: oh, I know you stated your [boundaries] were [range], but I am [significant outlier] and I know we are PERFECT!
Reaction: Some of my Gentleman Emailers seem convinced that all women are imported to the planet Earth from another dimension, where communication is conducted solely though bee-like dances and antennae-waving. Therefore, they may rightfully ignore any so-called "words" that I "type."
For example, a Gentleman Emailer who currently serves in the clergy of [Deity redacted—let's say Cthulhu] sent me an introductory message telling me that he just knew I would make a wonderful partner in [Cthulhu] and that he had begged [Cthulhu] to send him a [multi-tentacled Handmaiden of the Great Old Ones] and he just knew it was me! He would show me the glory of [Cthulhu]! Oh, how he wanted to meet and talk about [Cthulhu]! And, babies.
This, in response to a profile that describes religion as a private matter and specifically forbids conversion attempts.
(Reader, I fear you know his fate. It begins with "p" and ends with "k", and a shoggoth lies in between.)
As I ponder these Unfortunate Cultural Narratives, and these emails, I contrast them with the Positive Principles of Productive Emails. The ones that make me actually want to meet said Gentleman Emailer for canasta and croquet, or to further discuss my extensive collection of Mad Max-themed tea cozies.
What's the different between "productive" and *plonk*?
Individuality, Boundaries, and Respect.
Positive Principle 1: Individuality!
All the above-referenced narratives assume that "women" are a certain way. But women are individual humans. Some humans like video games, some like needlepoint, some like books, some like golf. Some like Fabio, some like Brucio, some like Juicy-O. Some humans like men. Some like women. Some both, neither, or a totally differently-defined subset of human. Some people might LOVE any or all of the approaches described above. I did not, and a fairly simple read of my profile should have communicated this. If you're looking for that special someone, that implies paying attention to who the person says zie actually is. Emails that mention my interests and self-descriptions tend to be received positively.
Positive Principle 2: Boundaries!
Everyone has boundaries about what they want to do when and how. Boundaries about who they wish to date. Boundaries about how they wish to date. Boundaries about a whooooole lot of things. In my profile, some boundaries are right there in the open. Not everyone communicates boundaries easily, so the best thing is to ask if in doubt. But when zie has clearly stated boundaries, you don't get to decide that some are optional. Emails from those who observe the boundaries I've stated are usually productive.
Positive Principle 3: Respect!
Respect is the verb that makes Individuality and Boundaries complete. Respecting a fellow human means treating that person as inherently valuable and real. The Lady Emailer at the other end is a breathing, thinking being, not a two-dimensional fantasy or disembodied voice. It's not assuming anything beyond the information one has; it's about demonstrating that, whether or not the Lady Emailer turns out to be your True Love, zie is still human with the right to self-determination. Emails from GE who follow this principle...well, I think you are getting the idea.
And so, dear Reader, I leave you with my (highly subjective) experiences, and wish you the best always in any Romantic Adventures you may pursue. May your heart be full of Positive Principles, and your email free of pesky *plonks*.
Dan Savage: Please Stop
by Shaker Fannie, author of Fannie's Room, who, when not hanging out at her blog, can probably be found planning the homosexual agenda, twirling her mustache, plotting a leftist feminist takeover of the universe, and coordinating the recruitment effort of the lesbian branch of the Gay Mafia. Her days are busy.
[Trigger warning for fat hatred, fat shaming, dehumanization, bullying, suicide, and child abuse.]
In September 2010, Dan Savage founded the It Gets Better Project in response to the recent suicides of gay youth who had been bullied. About founding this project, Savage wrote:
"I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better."It's a great idea, to have adults who have lived as children in a homophobic society telling kids that life might not always be as difficult.
But does Dan Savage think the bullying of gay kids is the only type of bullying that counts?
I don't write this as anti-gay activist who, like those Peter LaBarbera types, claims that anti-bullying campaigns are secret Homosexual Indoctrination Programs.
I write this as a progressive who doesn't think that the oppression of gay youth is the only axis of oppression that warrants the public's deep concern and sympathy. I write this as a lesbian who finds it's profoundly hypocritical for the founder of a prominent anti-bullying campaign to perpetuate bullying against another class of kids (and adults) who are widely bullied, ridiculed, and mocked: fat people. (Note: Gay and fat are not mutually exclusive groups. Indeed, many fat gay, bisexual, lesbian, and transgender people are widely shamed within the gay community).
Item: Less than four months after he founded a campaign to address the bullying of gay youth, Dan Savage posted a Tim Minchin video entitled "Do Not Feed Donuts To Your Obese Children." Underneath the video he joked: "Yes, it's harsh, brutal even, very nearly bullying. But... um... you gotta admit that there's a
Sample lyric: "Boombalata kiddie-stuffer / Your kid's a fat, have you noticed that? / And you oughta be ashamed / For you have only got yourself to blame / Your 5-year-old princess in her size 14 tutu / Only eats pizza like that because you do." The lyrics also explicitly mock women with polycystic ovarian syndrome and exhort parents to abuse their children in an effort to make them thin: "Tell them they have to jog / Until their jogging shorts fit 'em / If they hesitate, ask firmly / If they still resist, hit 'em."
The best that Savage, our apparent arbiter of all that does and doesn't count as bullying, can do is call it "very nearly bullying"? Gee, ya think?
Now, discussing the ways that such a song perpetuates the false notion that fat people's lives basically consist of sitting on their beds all day long stuffing their faces with whole entire chocolate cakes or, say, Cinnabuns, is beyond the scope of this post. Others point out these false narratives better and more regularly than I do, but the Cliffs Notes version is that fat does not automatically equal lazy, unhealthy, and immoral and thin does not automatically equal hardworking, healthy, and moral.
Item: Back in October, I criticized a Box Turtle Bulletin (BTB) writer's use of an "edgy" rhetorical device that invisibilized the bullying of fat people in order to make a More Important Point about gay rights. In response to the criticism, the BTB writer said that he tries "not to worry about offending people" because he "hate[s]" the "increasingly popular notion that to offend someone is to do them harm."
The message there was clear. In fact, the message is clear in many spaces of the white, gay, male-dominated "LGBT" movement. To offend LGBT people, or a subset of the community anyway, is to do harm; to offend Others by playing the Oppression Olympics, not so much. (The Advocate's provocative "Gay Is The New Black" issue also comes to mind).
Take Dan Savage, employing a similar rhetorical device, one that I like to call, Performing "Social Justice" Satire While Standing on the Shoulders of Other Oppressed Groups. He jests, in a post entitled "Ban Fat Marriage":
"Iowa should ban fat marriage. There are, according to the state of Iowa, more than 1.4 million obese people living in Iowa. That's nearly 30% of the state's population, and those numbers just keep rising. The social costs of Iowa's obesity epidemic are pretty staggering—and those costs include including premature death and lower average life expectancies for Iowans.I get it. He's not seriously in favor of banning fat people from marrying (um, right? *looks around at others to see uncertain, hesitant nods*). His totally edgy point is, Well, why single out gay people when other groups also live unhealthy lifestyles?" Yet, a big problem with the device—one of many problems—is that, much how anti-gays present homosexuality as a lifestyle choice that people make that they should not make, he takes it as a given that being fat is a lifestyle choice that people make that they should not make. When...it's more complicated than that. (See eg, above links.) Savage's former fatness may have been attributable to "lifestyle" (i.e. disordered eating), but he's extrapolating his individual experience to an entire population, and generally being hostile to the concept of autonomous choice, which is a key element of any equality movement.
Since we know that obesity is "contagious"—someone with an obese spouse is 37% more likely to be or become obese—then we shouldn't permit the obese to marry. If an outright ban on fat marriage seems too draconian, then we shouldn't permit the obese to marry the non-obese. The odds that the skinny spouse will be ultimately be seduced into the risky obese lifestyle are simply too great and the potential health consequences too severe."
Now, I can already predict some reactions to this piece. I'm being the PC police. I just "don't get" satire. I'm too sensitive. I'm a femi-nazi. I'm probably a fatty fat fat man-hating lesbian who hates white dudes. Yes, yes, I know. I've heard it all before, even in "LGBT" spaces like BTB, where it's abhorrent that these battles even have to be fought.
For such folks, I'd like to emphasize. My overall point is that Savage is showing some big-time hypocrisy by perpetuating the bullying of fat people while decrying the bullying of gay kids. It is a hypocrisy that is perhaps grounded in a privileged worldview where (a) most gay people are primarily concerned with gay oppression; (b) there are no fat queer people; and (c) gay oppression is the Most Important Oppression Ever (or, as The Advocate called it, "The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle").
Back in January, a white gay man wrote a "Defense of the Gay White Male" at Jezebel that mostly displayed ignorance of the concept of white male privilege by addressing "arguments" supposedly made by those radical non-white-gay-male types of LGBT people. He asked, "Can a nontrans, white gay man ever truly leave the comforts of his own identity without having to make frequent and loud apologies for the crimes of his ilk?"
Like this man, Dan Savage is a thin, white, cis, not-poor, gay male, and to my knowledge able-bodied (I have not seen them write about being disabled, but that does not exclude the possibility). Accordingly, he has the relative privilege of his sexual orientation being his only major axis of oppression. If we understand this, we see that calling out the privilege of such people isn't about asking them to make "frequent and loud apologies" for anything. What we are asking is for them to understand that other members of our community—and of the general public—are oppressed based on other aspects of identity and that this oppression is just as real and legitimate as oppression based upon sexual orientation and gender identity.
I want equality as a woman and a lesbian. But do we have to obtain equality by Making Things Worse for other marginalized people?
[Related Reading: Hello, I Am Fat.]
Return of the Monolithic Ladyvote
Actual Headline: Would Women Support Newt Gingrich for President?
At least the author, Jill Lawrence, specifies she's talking about "moderate and independent women," thus acknowledging that women are at least TWO separate groups—progressive women who would never vote for Gingrich in a million zillion biebillion years because of his politics, and "moderate and independent women" who might vote for him, if they don't object to his being a serial philanderer who cheated on his first wife then dumped her while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery for uterine cancer, who cheated on his second wife then dumped her over the phone on Mothers' Day after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, immediately marrying the Congressional aide with whom he was having an affair, who is now his current wife.
I'm going to go out on a lady-limb and suggest that there are some people who will vote for Newt Gingrich if he is the Republican nominee, and some of those people will be women.
Some of them will be women who don't care about his personal life because they genuinely believe it's none of their business and/or doesn't reflect on his ability to be president; some of them will be women who don't care only because there's not a D behind his name on the ballot—and they want to make quick with the federal marriage amendment to protect the sanctity of straight marriage. Ahem.
Either way, of course some women will support him.
It's not like Lawrence doesn't know this. Nor any of the other hundreds of journos who wrote similar pieces about the Monolithic Ladyvote during the last election. It's just that "will women do X?" is a lazyass way of creating a justifying frame for a piece on Gingrich's personal life. Or to implicitly condemn female candidacies by pointing out, as if it's a scandal, that NOT ALL WOMEN will vote for any single female candidate. Or whatever.
There's a legitimate story to be written about the relationship, if any, between a politician's private ethics and public ethics. "Is the personal political for Newt Gingrich?" examining how privilege inoculates straight white male politicians from that reality. (Are you reading, Newsweek?) It doesn't have to be buried beneath yet another reinforcement of the pernicious idea that women are a hivemind.
The silly season has begun.
Open Thread
Hosted by Wadsworth.
"I'm the butler. I butle."
This week's open threads have been hosted by characters from the movie Clue.
