The SmackDog Chronicles

Breastfeedinggate Update: Maggie Mayhem FTW!!

2011-08-19T00:15:00.000-05:00

Maggie Mayhem just posted at her blog a comprehensive and powerful rebuttal to Furry Girl's vicious smear of Madison Young for the crime of using her breastfeeding of her child as a "porn prop". The entire piece is worthy of a read because it gives the important background for the event in which Madison was maligned for, and a complete analysis of why it's not just a matter of she said/she said.

I will simply requote the final paragraphs of Monica's blog entry, because they say what needs to be said about this matter far better than I ever could say them.

If we want to be totally logical about it, someone with a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children isn’t hanging out on an adult porn star’s twitter stream hoping for the golden chance that they might see a glimpse of a child. Pedophiles are going to be hanging out in the family friendly spaces like playgrounds, swimming pools, child beauty pageants, churches, etc. It’s an odds game. If you are into children you’re going to go where there are a lot of children. Pedophiles aren’t heading out to the strip clubs to kidnap victims, they’re going to Chuck E. Cheese. People aren’t suddenly converted into dangerous pedophiles lusting after infants from watching a woman breastfeed or shall we go arrest the romantic partners of breast feeding women for watching a breast feeding and fucking immediately after? Human beings are perfectly capable of holding these concepts together without children being harmed for it. It is not “pedophile courting” behavior to share these pictures on personal blogging and micro-blogging services outside of a XXX porn site. Boogeymen don’t advance the argument, credible threats do.

The number of people fighting back are listening to those words, recognizing their significance, and unwilling to allow them to be used as synonyms for “my opinion is that this person is annoying.” I am deeply concerned about the sex worker revolution and that is why I’m not going to perpetuate the myth that the children of sex workers are in constant and unending danger of sexual exploitation and should be governed under a special set of laws about what they can and cannot depict when the set is closed, safe, and protected and no harm came to the child.
This has nothing to do with anyone’s affiliation or non-affiliation with feminism, it isn’t because Madison Young is getting a special pass, this doesn’t even have anything to do with San Francisco other than that it was largely people from the Bay Area who were present at these events and can speak up about their context and non-sexual nature. We have to respond. If we do not, then we are allowing an allegation that we are sexualizing an infant to go unchallenged and be accepted as truth. Speaking as though there were people openly masturbating to this infant is not a matter of opinion or perspective. You can’t state and imply that it is or does and act baffled when people correct the record. Putting that infant at risk of being taken away by police and subjected to that process to express a personal distaste of someone’s politics or PR is a far, far greater expression of child exploitation than posing for that photograph ever had any reasonable potential to be.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t put that child in danger to express your opinion about the mother. It’s not just the hypocrisy of using the machinations of a system you are trying to erode to hurt someone standing beside you in the battle. It’s the fact that it carries on to someone who didn’t get a say and chills a group of people into hiding for no good reason. Don’t throw another sex worker under the bus as a lesson of the power of the system posed against sex workers. This is not a claim that you should not disagree or challenge people’s beliefs. Pedophilia means more than Gail Dines writing a shitty article in the Guardian. Accusing Madison Young of hosting erotic breast feedings is not merely “pissing off the mommy bloggers.” It is suggesting that a child is being molested and that compels action. It’s like fighting for a sensible drug policy and planting crack cocaine and a machete on another activist but worse. I can’t sit back and let an accusation that extreme stand without correction. I cannot.

It's one thing to say that you don't like a performer using breastfeeding a child to promote her website. It's another thing altogether, though, to throw the charge of "pedophile" at her and explicitly throw her under the bus and call on the very same authorities who would no sooner go after you as well next to sacrifice her merely to fit your personal pique. But to sacrifice the innocent child and separate her from her mother based on an obviously false charge?? That is the lowest form of viciousness you can go...and anyone worthy of those depths does not deserve to be called a progressive sexual rights activist or a sex worker advocate. In fact, it is one degree of separation from Melissa Farley....or Laura Schlessenger.

Memo to Furry GirlL Breastfeeding Is NOT A Sexual Fetish; It Is Nourishing A Child!! A Definse of Madison Young

2011-08-18T15:07:00.000-05:00

[Note: this is a mirror of a post I originally published on Saturday to my Red Garter Club blog, expressing my personal opinion on the controversy between sex worker activist blogger Furry Girl (of Feminisnt and SWAAY.org) and alt.porn performer/feminist Madison Young. The issue that has FG bunching her panties was that Madison had posted a picture of herself breastfeeding her young infant daughter that was used for an art exibit.

I am reposting it here because my original blog is now temporarily inaccessible for viewing due to a lapsed subscription with my webhost (my bad), so in order to make the post accessible, I am reposting it here.

Since the time I originally posted this, Furry Girl has responded with a post of her own defending her opinions, and I have posted a rebuttal thereof. -- Anthony]

It’s never easy when you have to be critical of someone you respect and admire…but so sorry, Furry Girl, but you are waaaaaaaaaay out to lunch here.

The background, for those not knowing: Furry Girl — of Feminisnt and SWAAY.org — has several burrs up her butt because alt.porn starlet Madison Young had the termidity to promote her pregnancy and her birth of her daughter, Emma, as a means of supporting the somehow still radical idea that porn performers were human beings and not just sperm receptacles or sex dolls. Madison had been including pics of her pregnancy and of her daughter at her site (in vastly asexual.htm” class=”sspg term” title=”Look up this term.”>asexual positions, of course), and even included her in an art exhibit…which also had a photo of Madison breast-feeding Emma.

Apparently, that is too much for FurryGirl to handle, because according to her, using a child anywhere near a porn scene is essentially the equivalent of kiddie porn…or at the very least, an enabler and trigger for pedophiles and other “creeps”.

Now, FG hasn’t yet posted anything at Feminisnt on this little smack war yet…but oh, has she been using up her Twitter stream to lambast Madison Young for her heresy. Some examples:

Am I the only one in the perv community who is creeped out by those who fetishize breast feeding? Since when is an infant a sexy accessory? (Aug. 11th,)

I am so happy I don’t live in San Francisco. I would hate to have to pretend that borderline pedophilia is transgressive and revolutionary. (Aug. 11th)

@nuwishas_tail Adult women who breast feed their infants for the sexual gratification of other adults. That’s fucking creepy. (Aug. 11th)

@madisonyoung That’s funny coming from a semi-pedophile like you. Infants aren’t butt plugs or a kink accessory. (Aug 12th, response to this)

I’m so glad I live in conservative uptight small-town Seattle where the kink community doesn’t involve small children in their turn-ons. (Aug. 12th)

I am SO PROUD of being a prude when it comes to the issue of involving non-consenting babies in one’s kinks. BIG TIME PRUDE. Loud and proud. (Aug. 12th)

Some other sexpro celebs and limelights have rallied to Madison’s defense, including Maggie Mayhem (whom has used her own Twitter stream to rebuke FG), and Epiphora, who today linked this blog post from an unrelated site defending Young as a pioneering sex+ artist.

I’m not going to speak for them, or for Madison, whom has spoken quite eloquently and defended herself well.

All I’m going to ask is this to you, FG:

If a pic of a woman breastfeeding her child in a non-sexual format at a non-sexual art show is enough to get your panties bunched up like Bill O’Reilly at a Playboy Club dinner, then how in the hell can you call yourself a sexual rebel??

Even if someone may get sexually aroused by the sight of a woman nursing her child, as long as (s)he manages to treat the nurser with enough respect to respect her space, there is NO issue. Most pedophiles aren’t going to go after 2 year old kids, you know.Besides, it’s not the kid they are sexualizing, FG..it’s the WOMAN’s BREASTS and NIPPLES. You have got it totally bassackwards.

And this “San Francisco kink values” crapola?? Gee, like they don’t make porn in Seattle?? Like, women don’t breast feed there, too? And, how the hell would you know if men looking at women nursing their children are walking around with instant boners going after them?? As if there aren’t enough legitimate sexual triggers there to begin with??

And, really, Furry Girl…we get it that you don’t like feminism. Fair enough. There are plenty of women who call themselves feminists who aren’t so likeable. But, who the HELL are you to smear everyone you don’t like as pedophile enablers and “feminists” merely because they get under your skin?? Spoken like a true MRA enabler.

You can squawk all you want about “consent” and “using a baby as a sex prop” until the cows come home….but I don’t think that Madison’s child will suffer any bit of damage foe wanting to get her dose of mother’s milk off her mom. Actually,, I really don’t think that Emma, not being ol enough to even comprehend anything than “Feed me, Mommy”, is the least concerned about much of anything. I mean, do you ask your vibrator for its consent when you shove it up your orfices??

I’m sure that right-wing fundamentalist sex fascists around the world will be praising you, FG, for doing their dirty work for them in slamming women who breastfeed their children as mindless sluts deserving of being treated as less than human. Well freakin’ done.

Another example of how sex workers need to put aside petty bullshit and work together.

And understand that a woman’s breast is more than just the sum of her nipple and her cleavage.

Why Breastfeeding Is STIILL NOT A Sexual Fetish: My Rebuttal to Furry Girl Re: Madison Young

2011-08-18T14:48:00.000-05:00

[Note: This a mirror of a post I did over at my Red Garter Club blog involving a rebuttal to sex worker activist blogger Furry Girl (from Feminisnt), who laid what I consider to be a highly wrongheaded and outright libelous attack on porn performer/sexual rights artist Madison Young over a photo of the latter breastfeeding her daughter. As you will read, I got pretty heated up at the end, because I find FG's response to be simply unconscious nonsense.
My original post was kinda nuked because my webhosting account is currently under suspension (I let my sub lapse too long, go figure), so I am reposting it here thanks to Google Cache. -- Anthony ]

Well…Furry Girl has finally seem fit to respond over at her Feminisnt blog to the firestorm of criticism raining upon her for busting Madison Young for allegedly using her young child as a porn prop. I will go ahead and break down her rebuttal line for line.

To her credit, I guess, FG’s not backing down one bit from her fundamental beef of Madison that she is dead wrong to use her baby in that way.

The big take-home point that some people are missing: It’s all about context. I am against breast feeding in places where people go to masturbate. Madison’s posting of breast feeding photos and videos in her Twitter stream and on other sex-themed web sites is appalling to me. It’s no different than breast feeding on stage at a strip club. Madison has spent her career making everything she does about sex. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. I’m a sex-loving pornographer myself! But you can’t spend most of a decade purposefully building an environment where people come to masturbate and then feign confusion when someone like me “mistakes” that environment for being sexual.

Now, that would be a legit critique if Madison Young was using her child as part of her live sex shows, or making explicit content including her child. Problem is, that;n not what Madison has been doing. The only time she has even featured her child was in the explicitly non-sexual context of an art show, or in non-sexual general posts about her life. That hardly counts as exploiting her child to sustain her career…unless you happen to think that no mother should ever even be in porn to begin with. Or, they should keep their life as a mother totally separated and private from their porn personas.

Funny, but I really don’t think that people going to Madison’s website or blog to get off on her nude pics are going there to gawk after her child.

It’s hard to plead “there is absolutely nothing sexual about these photos/videos” when they are posted in sexualized spaces and/or crafted to look sexy. The most famous image shows Madison as a Marilyn Monroe knockoff. I’ve seen photos of other women breast feeding, and none of them bothered to put on a sexy dress and get their hair and makeup done first. For most moms with breast feeding photos, I bet they’re probably wearing yesterday’s sweatpants and looking exhausted, not trying to liken themselves to a famous sex icon.

So, an art gallery where no sex is happening automatically becomes a sex space now?? Merely because a porn starlet decided to breastfeed her child there?? Or, she decides to emphasize a fundamental aspect of her life as a woman outside of her sexual persona?? I guess that according to FG, if you are a porn star, you must BECOME a porn star 24/7, and any other aspect of your life must either be shunted aside, hidden in private and apparently in shame, or completely segregated to a point that no porn fan ever finds out.

And…so funny that Furry Girl goes straight to the “Marilyn Monroe knockoff” card as a knock on Madison. Goodness..she’s doing a freakin’ ART EXHIBIT. What does FG expect her to dress up as…Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz??? I reckon that you just can’t look sexy when you are with your child, then, because people will say stuff..and impressionable newborns might get infected with…THE SLUT GENE!!!!

Oh…I’m guessing that real live porn starlet mothers like Holly Halston or Cindy Taylor (aka Jesse Jane) or Stormy Daniels would probably want to have a word or five with Furry Girl on the realities of being sexy and still managing to raise a child while doing porn. Considering that FG is in fact still single, and is NOT an active porn performer, she’d probably learn a thing or two.

I’ve been told that it’s beyond Madison’s control if sick people are aroused by her sexy breast feeding images. But if she would never want to encourage people to jerk off to photos of her baby, she should stop posting them in a place where she typically posts porn. Aside from all the innocent masturbators who clicked a blind link because they thought it was going to be kinky sex pics, who wants to see sexy breast feeding? Most of us would call them pedophiles. Best case scenario, Madison’s sexy breast feeding schtick is an attention-getting ploy to sell her persona’s “realness” so people will buy her “real” porn. Worst case scenario, Madison is knowingly creating masturbation material for pedophiles. Either way, it’s revolting. (At what point does one cross over from sexualizing having a baby to sexualizing the baby?)

Uhhhh….Furry Girl?? You do know that children are usually made through sex, right?? Therefore, it’s kinda hard to say that Madison is “sexualizing” her daughter any more than anyone else.

But here’s the stupid part: a person who masturbates to the image of a newborn baby being nourished by her mother naturally most certainly has some personal issues. In nearly all the cases, though, the sexualization is NOT of the baby; but rather of the WOMAN nursing her. It is the nipple, the breast, of the woman doing the feeding, that is the real sexual stimulant, and the desire to suck on the nipple of the woman, which is the center of arousal.

And, I’m pretty damn sure that Madison’s website is clearly marked so that those who are expecting to see the usual kinky sex pics and videos will be gracefully sent to the appropriate place, Those who merely surf through to see other aspects of Madison’s life as a mother who happens to be porn as a side hobby, will be able to tell the difference between adult sex play and respect for a mother caring for her child. Or….does Furry Girl always treat her own paying clients with as much disrespect as how she assumes Madison treats hers??

This issue is also about consent. The baby is not consenting to being used as a marketing gimmick for her mother’s porn persona. There is a huge difference between consenting adults engaging in exhibitionism, and forcing creepy, pedophile-courting public voyeurism on a non-consenting baby. I am an exhibitionist myself, but I would never drag anyone into my kinks who isn’t consenting to be a part of a scene. For all anyone knows, Madison’s kid will be traumatized by her upbringing in public, and end up feeling extremely violated by the sexual attention Madison subjected her to as a child. Would you have wanted your mother breast feeding you for attention from horny adults, and for evidence of that to be online and linked to you forever?

OK, so it squicks the hell out of Furry Girl to see a porn performer “use her baby” to promote herself and her website. Fair enough…and actually, there is an honest concern here abuut the welfare of the child being served…or at least there would be IF the child was used in any explicit sexual nature. But, since the only confirmed use of Madison’s daughter was for the art exhibit, in an mostly nonsexual context, I’d say that FG was seriously overdoing her concerns. As far as I know, Madison has NEVER used her daughter as part of any sex scene, so that argument is simply bogus on its face.

And as for the concern about the emotional well being of the child: well, newborn children probably aren’t that interested in anything other than eating, sleeping, and dirtying their diapers for the first year of their lives, so I’m guessing that unless the sounds of live sex is that disturbing to her, she’ll probably make it out OK. Most of those who subscribe to Madison’s site are there to see her first, not her child.

I am against people using their children as props to serve an agenda. Madison’s use of her daughter to push her politics is no different than when anti-abortion protesters or the Westboro Baptist Church uses their own unwitting small children as props. Kids aren’t political tools to leverage for shock value, they’re actual human beings who will one day be adults with their own set of opinions. To assume that Madison’s baby will grow up and be thrilled that her mother used her to get attention for her porn persona is offensive and sad to me. Several have pointed out that I’m “no different,” since I tweet photos of my cat. But, here’s the key nuance they can’t grasp: my cat will never be a sentient adult human with his own beliefs and a non-interest in being caught up in my pervy internet trail.

Oh, really??? You mean that breastfeeding your daughter at an art exhibit is the full equivalent of rounding up your kids and going to a protest sponsored by Westboro Baptist Church protesting that God really hates homosexuals that much that even good people who do no harm deserve to die and should not be celebrated for their life on earth?? Or, having your kids carry placards saying “Get A Brain, MORANS” in order to defend troops who are paid to kill others in battle?? Now, kids can be persuaded or even brainwashed into some very nasty political groups and causes…but other than learning through osmosis that sex can be pretty damn neat, just how in the HELL is a toddler harmed by being exposed to the IDEA of nudity? (Note: I said IDEA of nudity.)

I can’t predict what will happen to Madison’s child when she grows up to be a talking, breathing sentinent being, but I will assume that Madison is enough of a responsible adult that she will teach her basic fundamental morality and critical thinking skills so that she will be able to make informed decisions and avoid harm. That’s what being a parent is all about.Again, I’m not sure why Furry Girl, who is single and has not raised a child (or, at least, she hasn’t publically said so), thinks she can lecture anyone else on that effect.

Having dispatched Madison, FG now goes after those whom have defended her.

The sexy mommy mob doesn’t like these “anti-sex worker” and “sexist” arguments, so they’ve turned it into a matter of rebutting things I never said.

I never said that no woman should be allowed to breast feed. I am not against breast feeding in public or private, I am against doing it in sexualized contexts. I would feel the same way if someone whipped out a baby at a swinger’s club, so it’s not just about the internet or porn.

I never said that sex workers (or kinksters) should not be allowed to have children, or that mothers can’t be sexy. I have a number of kinky and sex working friends who are parents, and I know some sexy moms. They, however, possess good sense and boundaries and don’t force their offspring to be a part of their exhibitionism and work. The kinky and sex working parents I know create separation between their lives, they definitely don’t seek to combine them at every turn to prove how transgressive they can be. Not because my friends are prudes, but because they understand that it’s deeply inappropriate to mix small children and horny adults.

I never said that no one should be allowed to photograph their kids or photograph breast feeding. I didn’t comb through the Flickr pages of strangers until I found a random mother to criticize. I’m specifically talking about a porn star who is using her baby as an attention-getting prop in sexualized contexts.

Riiight…the “I’m not really a racist, since I have lots and lots of Black friends, BUT….” card. Some people might then think that this is merely a slightly more personal grudge due to prior dealings between you and Madison, since you give many of your “friends” the benefit of the doubt that you simply won’t give Madison…but I’ll leave that thought for others to decide on their own. (And NO, FG, I use the racism analogy only in a figurative way here, I KNOW that you are not a racist.)

I hate what stuff like this does to the credibility of sex workers and pornographers as a whole. People like me try to tell regular folk that porn and sex work is about consenting adults, not weird stuff with kids and/or the non-consenting. To the sexy mommy mob, Madison is the greatest hero of her generation, but what about the other 99.999999% of America, the majority we need to get on our side in order to make any advancements for sex workers? If you seal yourself in the safe bubble of San Francisco, surrounded by adoring fans, then of course you’re not going to care how you might be damaging the movement for acceptance of sex workers and porn.

So now Furry Girl switches over the the issue of credibility of sex workers in public, because Madison’s actions, if not her very existence, is such a cosmic threat to the makings of sex worker/porn activism that she must be ostracized, stigmatized as a dirty slut and pedophile enabler, if not a pedophile herself, in order that the other “normal” sex workers (like, I assume, Furry Girl) can get on with the business of destigmatizing sex workers alike. Yet, why should it be the need for sex workers to justify their existence to the other 99.999% of society…many of which will never be convinced of the full humanity of porn performers or sex workers even if they performed acts of super human strength or cured all diseases?? Indeed, the very goal of what Madison Young is doing is as much a part of the destigmatization process as any billboard or protest; by showing that porn performers and sex workers are capable of being far more than the sum of their sexual personas.

You would think that a devout activist and libertarian like Furry Girl would understand that and give at least some bit of respect to Madison for being upfront about attempting to balance the scales between being a mother AND being an active and activist sex worker. Alas, it seems that FG is either more concerned with imposing her own narrow constrictions about what sex workers should be..or this is just a continuation of a personal vendetta.

But, it’s this concluding graph that has me climbing the walls with stunned open-mouthed astonishment:

I’m surprised that people like Gail Dines and Melissa Farley haven’t seized upon Madison’s baby fetish as yet another way to attack all of us. This is exactly the sort of thing they live to hold up as a non-representative example of how we’re all horrible people. Anti-sex work activist Donna Hughes threw a fit a year ago when a small sexuality conference apparently allowed in a high school senior. For this, the organizer was branded, basically, a dangerous predator going after America’s helpless children. If letting a consenting 17-year-old hear about sexuality is enough for the antis to launch a campaign that says kink bloggers are basically child molesters, I wonder what they would think of a porn star sexualizing the breast feeding of a baby? But of course, if the antis get wind of the controversy that Madison and her fans are so desperately trying to publicize, she will not be the one addressing the hard questions. She has her feminist porn “revolution” to worry about, and the rest of us – especially her baby girl – can go eat cake.

WOW…just plain freakin’…WOW.

Here we have a supposed “sex-positive activist” and sex worker advocate, someone well respected and prolific and supporting to back to the hilt the fundamental freedom of women to explore their own sexuality, openly and deliberately throwing another sex worker under the bus and offering her to the most bitter reactionary fascist enemies of her own values….merely out of personal pique and pettiness out of merely prejudging minor offenses. And all that on the basis of…a two year old child.

Damn, Furry Girl, what fucking GALL have you to say that another woman should have to give up her right to tell another grown woman that she must live her life to your narrow standards just to keep her livelihood?? Who the FUCK made you the judge, jury, and executioner of how another sex worker should care for her child? And, most importantly.. HOW FUCKING DARE you invoke the words of Gail Dines and Melissa Farley (hell, FG, why not go for the gold and invoke Michelle Bachmann or Anita Bryant or Maggie Gallagher or Laura Schlessenger??) .to shame Madison Young for the mere crime of choosing to express herself as a full woman and a human being??

That “feminist porn revolution” that you so decry happens to be the legitimate right of women to be seen and respected as complete and full human beings, and not to have their personal sexual lives and experiences used against them to deny them their full human rights. Yes, yes, FG, we know how much you hate and despise feminism; that’s why you named your blog “Feminismt”, and I can see why you pit your home base of Seattle against the supposedly “leftist” insanity of San Francisco (and that in and of itself is a whole other issue); but that is still no excuse to demonize a woman or her infant daughter and project your own myopic fantasies on her out of personal vitriol.

I do not know Madison Young that intimately, except as an prolific alt.porn starlet, a progressive feminist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the erotic genre. I do know, though, that she does not and did not deserve the kind of absolute slanderous, hate-filled, and fundamentally untrue nonsense that Furry Girl unleashed on her Twitter stream…and this attempted reply has only reenforced my view that if anyone represents the true positive nature of sex work activism, its Madison Young, not the pretender and chameleonic double agent known as Furry Girl.

He's BAAAACCCCK!!!!!

2011-05-27T19:24:00.002-05:00

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (Online Edition): Worst Persons of the Day for 5/27/11 (via Current's official Countdown website)
.

And some have said that the move from MSNBC has mellowed and humbled him.

Yeah, right.

June 20th can come too soon for this 'Dog.

The Media's Sexual Irresponsibility

2009-02-02T22:07:00.001-06:00

Excellent essay, Rachel....and sad to say, what you, Tracy Clark, and Violet Blue experienced is only the tip of the iceberg for those who challenge the traditional conservative sexual mores in this country.

Somebody needs to remind Mr. Atkinson that it's mostly the "moral" and "responsible" folk who are leading us to death and economic ruin; while it's mostly the "rebels" and the "sinful" who will ultimately lead this country out of such darkness.

Anthony
About Sex
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Ahhh...Lookee Here....."Yvette Doll" Exposed

2009-01-13T09:50:00.007-06:00

Turns out that our "all sex pozzies are pedophiliacs" troll isn't quite what "she" says she is.

Actually, "she's" more like a "he".

An anonymous poster to Renegade Evolution's blog commented that she had done some research on the style of "Yvette Doll's" mass posts, and found it to be particularly similar to a male antiprostitiution activist out of Ireland named Gregory Carlin.

Well...I decided to do some Googling of my own; and oh, look what I found.

This is from a thread from a UK legal message board called Legal Banter, from October of last year. The subject line was "CEOP make a claim".

On 2 Oct, 01:59, Robbie wrote:
Blah wrote:
wrote:

CEOP claimed to me on the telephone that they campaigned against the
use of the term 'child pornography' on legal advice ( they actually
said that) and that it was not a legislatively defined or enacted or
ratified (UN) term.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/

That has a search engine.

Ishtar 4?

He certainly sounds like as fruit loop...

--
Robbie

I'm a reformed cult musician. I'm the fruit loop formerly known as
Yvette Doll.

http://www.abalis.co.uk/sudetencreche/archive2_5.htm

Who is Ishtar 4?

Gregory

Hmmm....formerly known???

Now, following the link above goes to an article about an 80's British pop group that "Yvette Doll" was cited as a former member of (which also included two other members who broke off later and became part of the successful US pop group The Thompson Twins. Whether Mr. Carlin really was "Yvette Doll" back then and simply reverted to his original name for his latest activism, or whether he just borrowed that pseudonym for jerking people off, is not mentioned anywhere.

Nevertheless, the style that Carlin uses in his own rants posted in his own name match perfectly with those done of late by "Yvette Doll" in his recent troll farts. Meaning: We have a WINNER!!!

Gee, Mr. Carlin....why not use your real name??? Afraid that the radfem womyn will see through your nonsense?? (Certainly Cath Elliot has; she has now publically repudiated and exposed him, and basically told him to fuck off.)

On the other hand, some of the more wingnuttier abolitionists aren't so willing to repudiate him.

Take, for instance, this woman named GreenConsciousness, who is your typical GenderBorg radfem activist; she recently re-posted some of the F-Word thread over at her place...and added one particular comment that might give you some notice:

"Where on our website does it say anything about having sex?" asked
Douglas, one half of Newcastle's premier executive escort agency"

So no sex, and therefore no sex worker credentials!

I targeted Jerome Brennn for years, and eventually he went to prison
for trying to procure children for a le chic enterprise in Spain.

I target all the pedophiles and pimps using Jobcentre.

"Douglas's attitude to the cover story seemed to be one of weary
exasperation. Of course they're going to have sex, his expression
said, but if we talked honestly about it I might be busted for
immoral earnings and the police would have to waste time pushing
working girls back on to the street. John's denial, though, was much
more interesting: an odd hybrid of legalistic game-playing and
genuine psychological resistance to the notion that he was selling
sex. It wasn't that he didn't know perfectly well what was going on
(otherwise why squirm so uncomfortably about the headmaster who rang
up requesting the youngest escort on the books to dress up as a schoolgirl?"

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n16657627

I congratulate the radical feminists on this blog who are following
in the footsteps of Andrea Dworkin

A pimp has to be lucky always, we only have to be lucky once.

In solidarity

Gregory Carlin
Irish Anti-Traficking Coalition

Notice...no "Yvette Doll" histrionics here, just his own real identity.

Gee....projecting much, Mr. Carlin??

And what does that say about the GenderBorg and their attitudes about men...I guess that some men are less evil than others....especially when they march in perfect goosestep with their ideology???

Typical. So damn typical.

-----------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:

Here's another example of how so far off the batshit Gregory Carlin is regarding his obsession with pedophilia.

This is from an education listserv in Great Britain called SafteyNet. The respondent, a John Hackett, is attempting to debunk some of the more classic claims of Carlin regarding pedophilia and the Internet.

I have read Mr Carlin's last five messages with interest and a growing sense that
he has a very anti-European stance where everything in the US is good and we are
obstructive and perhaps a little simpleminded. This may be from the best of motives
but it does little to advance his case. I will not go though all the messages in
detail but there are some points that i think worth putting forward for debate.

All forms of child pornography and exploitation are to be deplored. That said,
Mr Carlin's seeming anti-British and anti-European rhetoric will do little to
protect the children he clearly feels passionately about.

Of course most abuse is by adults on children and no one would say otherwise - but
the original post could have been read as saying that most abuse was taking place
in schools. If that is not what was meant (as you have clarified) then just say so.

Serious offending via the internet as it relates to British educational
 establishments is almost exclusively connected to adult employees.

Just so. And clearly (potential) offenders will gravitate to the type of activity
(employment, hobby, etc) where they are in contact with children - this is
obvious and needs no explanation. But the next sentence -

The British have problems, and they are apparently not
 getting any better.

- is to both to state the obvious (we ALL have problems) and to imply that this is
something particularly British. What evidence is there for this? I do not have any
evidence for or against but I would be very surprised if it were so. And I would
also be surprised if many - if not - most pornographic sites are just as "popular"
in the US as they are elsewhere. What proportion, for example, of sites are hosted
and/or mainly funded from US sources and customers?

It was obvious to some of us that the pornography industry ( US & Europe)
 and pro-pedophiles ( Europe) were trying to damage Senator Shelby's career,
 it was a trick.

So the US does not have any pro-pedophiles?

So, don't discuss it. To return to the point, to complain of children doing
 X, Y or Z, on the internet, and to apply funding, public relations, and a
 raft of measures to address that particular problem is one thing.

To what "raft of measures" are you referring? The ones that try to educate them about
the dangers of the internet? Or cyber-bullying? Would you NOT fund such project to
help PREVENT child on child bullying?

In relation to the criminal use of the internet as it relates to the
 educational establishment, then for every schoolchild arrested for child
 pornography etc, there will be quite a few teachers. To put it as mildly as
 possible.

'Luton Crown Court heard Graham Conridge, 59, admitted posing as a teenage
 boy to contact 261 girls aged 11 to 15 through MSN and
 chatrooms.'<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/6552437.stm>

Mr Carlin implies here that Conridge was doing this in an educational institution.
However, as the article cites makes clear, he was actually banned from teaching
five years previously by Beds CC "following serious allegations of misconduct." and
is described in the first paragraph as a "former music teacher". So to imply that
this shocking case is related to the eduction system is simply wrong. While I do not
know the full facts of the case it may be that although there was not enough evidence
for a criminal prosecution five years ago he was prevented from teaching. And he was 
finally brought to justice by CEOP who Mr Carlin seems to deride.

'Fred Brown, incoming president of the NASUWT teachers' union, claimed it
 would not be long before a teacher was "raped, filmed and on the internet",
 and he called for all mobile phones to be banned from schools across
 Northern Ireland.
 '<http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2356788.ece>

As the president of the NASUWT one of his concerns is rightly the protection of his
members from physical abuse whether it is filmed or not. Whatever you feel about the
internet and/or banning of mobiles this is a legitimate stand for him to take. This
does not mean he does not care about child abuse any more than your concern with it
implies (I hope) that you are unconcerned about teachers being attacked by pupils.

This type or argument is both fallacious and damaging to your case.

Japan is awash with images from British schools.  I can leave you with that
 thought.

What is you evidence for this? And what, exactly, do you mean by "from British
Schools"? Saved on their servers? Photographed there? British students or teachers
taking part? And what about the demand for "asian" pornography? As someone involved
in web-filtering I know that there are lot of sites featuring Japanese models.

Lets just face up to the problem - it is international. International co-operation
is required. The problem will never be "solved" - all forms of abuse have been going
on for hundreds of years as a superficial study of history and literature will
confirm. Child abuse was not invented by the internet - it is just one more
communication channel.

I do not know Bill Henson's work but I did go to the link - perhaps Mr Carlin would
like to read this posting on the thread:

i think bill henson's work is fabulous. my school went to the national art 
        gallery in sydney along with other schools and he answered all our questions 
        and he is really nice and had interesting answers. his main answer was that 
        his artworks were how the individual saw it. so therefore, the indiviadual 
        could decide whether the art is porn or art. i love his works because they 
        are so raw and naturl.[sic] his other works captivate me as well because 
        they leave me wondering about the story behind them.

This is just one of the positive comments - in fact reading all the comments the
one Mr Carlin quoted was BY FAR the most negative. Most of the comments (many from
yr11/yr12 students) were thoughtful and positive about his work. Perhaps more
thoughtful tha Mr Carlin's knee jerk reaction. I wonder if he has seen them? As I
haven't I am not in a position to say much about them as works of art/porn but the
reactions certainly lead me toward the latter view.

--
Regards,

John Hackett

Consider yourself outed, Mr. Carlin.

[Now crossposted to the WordPress SmackChron]

The "NAMBLA'izing" of Douglas Fox, ISUW, and Opponents of Jacqui Smith

2009-01-12T10:44:00.004-06:00

It's a tactic that most reactionary propagandists simply can't help themselves to avoid.

When you are losing the argument intellectually, paint your opponent as beyond the pale.

Such is exactly what is happening with the most recent debate on sex work coming out of Great Britain.

It all started with the brave and yeoman work of Caroline Shepherd, who has dedicated plenty of sweat, time, and bandwidth to her belief that proposed changes in sex work legislation proposed by the likes of Jacqui Smith are simply wrongheaded, counterproductive, and even dangerous to the women whom this legislation pretends to want to protect.

Well, that didn't sit very well with certain radical anti-sex work abolitionists, who have been all over the Internet countering Caroline's obvious facts with nothing more than the usual claptrap about "pimp enabling".

But baiting Caroline as an "enabler of pimps" is a softball as compared to the radioactivity that is thrown at any MAN who dares to challenge abolitionist ideology....and woe to him if he happens to be a sex worker himself.

Such is what is happening to Douglas Fox, who happens to be the spoken representative of a group known as the International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW), a group dedicated to protecting the rights and safety of existing sex workers, and who have been active in opposing Ms. Smith's legislation from the start.

He also happens to a gay man whose partner happens to run an English escort agency.

A fact, of course, that is now being exploited by a few abolitionist radicals to smear and demonize him as a "pimp"...and that's just the beginning.

One such article comes from Cath Elliott, who used the pages of the Liberal Conspiracy blog to all but call out D Fox as a pimp profiting off the suffering of sex workers and claim that he cannot represent all sex workers due to his position (or simply because he happens to be a man, I figure).

According to Elliot, the very existence of D Fox's escort agency using clients to protest the laws (funny, isn't that just like consumers defending legal agencies who do them no harm to resist legislation that would wipe them out for no reason??) should disqualify him and justifies the legislation sought after:

And it gets worse. In another recent discussion forum, this time over at Punterlink International, a contributor named Elrond posted this suggestion when discussing threats to the sex industry:
I would again suggest all write and complain to your MP. You all should either donate and join the IUSW as an escort or a friend if you are a punter.

And it’s as simple as that.

"Punters", BTW, are the English slang for clients and others who patronize sex workers.

Indeed, according to Elliot, the mere inclusion of agency owners, "punters", and "pimps" in advocating against her favored legislation should disqualify their attempts, since apparently only sex workers themselves (at least, only those who favor Elliot's ideology" should be allowed to represent "sex workers" overall:

If you look at the GMB IUSW membership application form it’s easy to see how anyone claiming to be an escort or claiming to work in any area of the sex industry can take up membership. Confidentiality is obviously at a premium when signing workers up from such a sensitive industry, but as the comment on Punterlink shows, this also means that membership of IUSW branch is open to abuse: anyone can join.
If the the IUSW is populated with pimps, agency owners, and punters, then it shouldn’t have any credibility in the prostitution debate.

Yeah. Right. So, the people most affected by this legislation should have no right, according to Ms. Elliot, to even have a voice or to protest in this debate. But, this isn't really about censorship, isn't it??

But even Cath Elliot is dwarfed in the myopia department by one Yvette Doll, whom has made it her personal trolling campaign to taint anyone who dares to challenge the Smith legislation with charges of "pedophilia". Basically, she has used the pages of almost every blog debating this topic to go off on tangents that would make even the "9/11/01 Truthers" take notice. Some examples of her Tin-Foil Hattery:

[from the thread at Shriaz Socialist]

January 12, 2009 at 9:19 am

“From reading this and other threads, it seems clear to me that if sex workers are going to make any gains in terms of rights and safety, it’ll be done without the help of radical feminists.”

With all those creepy and pervy web-sites and people pretending to be schoolgirls,

or other doing child age role playing, I think the IPCE, PNVD or NAMBLA may be more reliable allies.

I’ve never met a pimp who wasn’t a pedophile, if we are talking personal experience.

“I really like the plain grey skirt,white blose, small chest in a training bra, black tights and M&S white knickers look. Anyone any suggestions?”

I think that is far too sick for feminist acceptance.

Yvette Doll

---------------------------------

Yup...that was a NAMBLA reference she brought in....and in case you don't get the point:

January 12, 2009 at 11:41 am

In the USA, pro-sex feminism is in (open) alliance with pedophiles, it is the same in Britain and it was certainly the same in Holland. The most vile & violent pornographers are supported by Douglas Fox’s union.

------------------------------------------------------

And then, she breaks out the Max Hardcore case in the US as proof of complicity of porn with pedophilia. Never mind that Hardcore was convicted not of pedophilia but of classic obscenity on the basis of scenes performed by consenting adults (not one of them underage or illegal), and that some of the members of the jury openly stated that their guilty verdict was forced on them by the prosecution (and that the case is currently under appeal).

January 12, 2009 at 11:49 am

“Although the actresses in Little’s movies sometimes appear to be under the age of consent and even as young adolescents, it has never been proven that any of them actually were. In his film Max Extreme 4, an actress stated during one verbal exchange that she was 12 years-old, according to Adult Video News magazine.”

School uniform territory - that is were the money is. He lost his web-site to our friends.

Ahhhhh.....yeah. Right. And Brooke Shields played a 17 year old prostitute in the movie Pretty Baby. Which means....nothing to you and me. Acting out a scene is probably not the same as actually having sex with an underage performer, which is already a crime....but why let truth and honesty get in the way of a good rant??

And..."our friends"??? I thought that radicalfeminists didn't want anything to do with the Bush Justice Department and the Religious Right??? Except, of course, when it suits their agenda.

Oh. but there's more...when Renegade Evolution decided to chime in that not all (or even most, or damn few if any) "sex-positive" writers think of Max Hardcore as anything more than an asshole with a cracked view of women and sex who nevertheless was wronged as a means of sexual censorship, Yvette responded with this crap:

January 12, 2009 at 12:57 pm

His endorsement is via a lobby, iincluding pro-sex feminism

As it happens, in the USA, UK and Holland, pro-sex feminism is in cahoots with pro-pedophiles. They go out together.

But the pornography industry ( in the USA) was using children for years and 2257 is after 1990 if I recall.

In Europe using kids was completely normal.

Even Larry Flynt and Hustler is brought into Yvette's conspiracy theory (what?? No "Chester the Molestor" toons??)

January 12, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Do you think that happened?

Recurrent cartoon and composite photo themes picturing blood-soaked castration are seen in the reality of child rape and mutilation. In October 26, 1990 a nine-year-old boy in Norman, Oklahoma was raped, his penis cut off and eye gouged out causing Hustler to be removed from local stores — where a current Hustler depicted a young boy similarly tortured.

And, in response again to Ren, she makes the point as explicit as you can get:

January 12, 2009 at 12:24 pm

“Oh look, the nazi comparision again. You know, as a Jew and a Sex Worker, I find that damn odious” [Response by Ren Ev]

I meant it, pro-sex feminism is in cahoots with pedophila, there are tens of millions of child porngraphy transactions in Britain and that scale of abuse is an unfixable atrocity against the children of the world.

So they’re as bad as Nazis, pedophiles and their supporters. And ( anyways) sex workers are always calling the Pope a Nazi

A pro sex feminist is a Jew the Nazis allow to live to trap other Jews. I mean look at the sex worker web-sites, they’re degrading, a crime against women.

So I really meant that, absolutely and for sure.

So special that it justifies bolded emphasis.

That just about says it all, doesn't it??

Well....not quite.

There is this bit about US child porn prosecutorial history, regarding the infamous Traci Lords case (again, in response to Ren Ev):

January 12, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Traci Lords.

That’s a dime a dozen in Europe, the Brits just leave it on the shelves. If you ask the Brits to take U18 child porn out of retail, they just can’t see the point.

The customs work OK, the age-checking is three years behind. The other thing is, Brits, well nobody wants to do it.

You have a heap of agencies, none o them will do it, it stays in retail or whatever.

It is not the USA, the Brits also have areas of immunity. It can take a decde to get one child pornographer and the FBI will probably have to do that for them.

A teacher for example, will have a long run. So 261 schoolgirls proxy child porn or whatever, is not going to zilch too many myspce accounts.

The USA does more teachers in a day, than the UK wants to do in a year.

The feminists (of all shades) allow the teeachers [sic] to get on with it. It is their culture & history.

And she quotes in that same comment a case of a 61-year old man using MySpace to generate a fake ID/profile to befriend 15- and 16-year olds....as if that proves that "child porn" is so pervasive in "their culture".

And so on, ad nauseum. And pretty damn nauseating, too.

I'll just let Yvette close it out, since she does more damage to herself and her cause than any reasoned arguments to the contrary could ever do.

January 12, 2009 at 12:46 pm

So pro-sex feminists, who like Max Hardcore, and that is seemingly most of them, are not really feminists. They use the tag ‘feminism’ but really they’re just in the pimping junior league.
January 12, 2009 at 12:49 pm

I’m giving you a lesson anyway, I think you need it.

Lesson duly noted.....asshole.

OK....I'll just post here until Bluehost gets its act together...

2009-01-12T10:40:00.002-06:00

It seems that Bluehost, who is the host for my regular SmackChron blog, is having some issues; I can't even log into my control panel there or post anything.

So, for the time being, I will use this Blogger space to post what I need until things clear out over there.

So nice to have a backup plan.

It's About Damn Time!!! Feminist Sex-Poz Carnival #1 @ UnCool

2008-04-01T12:32:00.002-05:00

How I managed to miss THIS I'll never know....

Great job, Lina....and thanks for the love and the linkage. (Original post here.) I promise you, I'll have something fresh for the next one.

Oh....and Ren, IACB, Belledame, Ernest Greene, Amber, Dacia, the Bound, Not Gagged syndicate, Daisy and all the rest of the "Sex Pox Brigade" gang are well represented. Not to mention, Kim's all time righteous blast of the Not-So-Great "My Little Pony" Pornification Conspiracy, some excerpts from the recent discussion of sex work from Sex in the Public Square....and so, so many other goodies.

Just go there and check it out....like, yesterday.

Any Port In A Storm....

2008-04-01T12:29:00.000-05:00

OK...I'm having some major issues with the SmackChron at WordPress.org...so until further notice, this will be my main domicile where I will post my new stuff until further notice.

Now, An Even NEWER Location For The SmackChron!!!

2007-11-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

OK...so here's an update:

I went ahead and updated the SmackChron at a new address, because WordPress wouldn't allow me to export all of the links from either here or the old WordPress.com site over to my new host.

The link title here should lead you to the new location of the SmackChron..but in case you are lazy, I will repost it here:

http://ajkenn-rgclub.com/SDChronBlog2dot3/

Feel free to adjust your blogrolls accordingly.

New Location For The SmackChron

2007-09-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

For those of you who haven't gotten the news, I have found a new host for the SmackChron (Bluehost.com), and have set up a new blog over there:

http://ajkenn-rgclub.com/sdchronblog/index.php

I will still be keeping this blog and the old blog at WordPress.com open as archives, but for the most part, I will be posting exclusively at the new location.

Just adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

Because It's Always Good To Have A Backup Plan...

2007-01-26T22:28:00.000-06:00

I noticed that Blogger has now totally rebuilt itself with their 2.0 version; since they were the ones to offer me space to begin with, I'm going to test their new version out.

I am going to attempt to export some posts from the WordPress version of the SmackChron over here; if it works, then I may decide to use both blogs simultaneously, or at the very least use this one as a backup in case WP fails me.

Cross your fingers and wish me luck.... :-)

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!

2006-08-06T02:20:00.000-05:00

And unlike our selected President, my accomplishment is for real!!!

I was finally able to get my Laughing Squid web hosting account set up properly so that I could install the blog publishing package from WordPress.org (I had originally installed the set from WordPress.com which only allowed for the publishing of a blog); so now both my Red Garter Club website and this blog will be hosted on Laughing Squid's servers...with significant advantages to both me and you.

Not only will I be able to take full advantage of WP's full features (as well as some kewl plugins that will enhance the redability of the blog)...but now I will finally be able to completely upgrade the Red Garter Club site to make it look a lot less spartan than it now is.

Just go over there and check out the results:

The new Red Garter Club addy: http://redgarterclubwebsite.com
The new SmackDog Chronicles blog: http://redgarterclubwebsite.com/SmackChron_Blog/index.php (for now)

With that, I will probably shut down this Blogger account for good and do all my updates at WP from here on out.

UPDATE 8-7-06: I have updated the link to the new SmackChron blog to a better site that actually works (thanks, Belledame!!!). I have adjusted the link in the previous statement to reflect the change.

The SmackChron @ WordPress NOW OPEN!!!

2006-07-30T13:24:00.000-05:00

I went ahead and opened up the WordPress.com version of this blog...I will be keeping this Blogger version and the WP version open and updated for a while while I decide which one to keep.

You can reach the WP blog by clicking on the title of this post...or by clicking the following:

http://anthonyk.wordpress.com/

Check it out and tell me what you think.

:-)

Doubling Up The SmackChon: Coming Soon to Wordpress.com

2006-07-26T23:02:00.000-05:00

Begging your patience, but I want to try something a bit different.

I am NOT shutting down this blog AT all...but I want to see if it will work in another venue. So I am in the process of getting an account with WordPress.com, and will open up a version of the SmackChron over there.

For a while I will be updating both the WP and this Blogger version, to see which one is superior. Note that I am NOT moving the blog, just hosting it in different locations to see what will happen.

The reason; I'm a bit jealous that Kevin at Slant Truth has gotten all these cool new widgets, like the one that automatically turns words into embedded links (Bitch Lab has that feature, too)..and I want to test them out myself.

When the WP version opens for business, I will give out the addy. And I will be updating BOTH of them for a short time while I decide which to finally choose.

So...pardon the construction here...just experimenting, as usual.

:-)

The (Renegade) Evolution of an Unapologetic "Pornstitute" (Who Just Plain Kicks ASS!!)

2006-07-26T20:48:00.000-05:00

There are many women who are in the sex industry or women who simply defy the sexual double standards who would crumble from the weight of massive loathing, disgust, fear, and shame thrown at them like pure cow dung from feminists and conservatives (and conservative feminists, too) alike.

Thankfully for us, Miriam (aka Renegade Evolution) just isn't one of them; she believes in giving back in kind to those who would throw hate at her for being an openly and unabashedly sexual person...and her latest blog is one of the finest defense of sex positivism from an individualist female standpoint this side of Wendy McElroy.

One of her entries there ( "The Language of Radical Hate" ) contains a nice collage of all the "endearments" that she has had thrown at her by antiporn "feminists" when she attempts to defend herself as a pro-"pornstitution" woman. Some of these are simply mind-bending.

First, there is this on the issue of women producing porn)

"No. I think you expect me to take you seriously, so let me placate you by repeating what you have/will hear/heard from the others. On top of feminist reasons for opposing pornography, there is a greater humanitarian reason that stands for the sexuality of humans being treated as in-depth and whole, not just objectified jerk-off material. As for female pornographers, I would go as far as to say that they are more to blame and be held accountable, since they are traitors to their own sex and gender when they capitalize off of the objectification of feminine sexuality, homosexual or heterosexual.”

Funny, but I thought that sexual desire and "jerking-off" was in fact part of being human and in-depth....but I'm a man, I guess, so what do I know??

Then there is this series of responses when Miriam makes the mistake of revealing her desire for rougher sex:

“You call yourself a woman? You are a pig.”

“It’s people like you that are a disgrace to females everywhere.”

“You do not act the way a woman should, and at that, MEN shouldn't even do the things you do. You don't act like a human being, you act like an animal. You enjoy being degraded, you enjoy being a piece of meat, that is what makes you a disgrace. REAL women do not enjoy being called names and ejaculated upon, REAL women do not allow just any guy to enter her, and finally REAL women respect themselves and their bodies. None of these apply to you.”

“You should be ashamed, but "shame" is a word that is certainly foreign to someone like you.”

“You shouldn't ever be allowed to breed.”

My, my, my...you'd think that Miriam was calling for bombing the New York Times building from all that bile??? But Ann Coulter is antiporn and female, so she gets more respect from such "feminists" than an independent woman like Miriam??? Eeeeeeeee-yeah.

And dig the response when Miriam breaks out that she actually LIKES porn and sex, and chooses to strip:

"How clichéd and simplistic are you?”

“You make me ill. Everything about you is just wrong. You have this great mind & skill at writing and you choose to be a slut? Why? Do you have antisocial personality disorder or something? It sounds like it. You have an education, could work wherever you want, make good money, but you would rather take off your clothes for a bunch of idiots or let people fuck and objectify you on film? Not normal. Even your friends on your blogs are shocked and somewhat disgusted by you. They may not say it outright, but you can tell. They may be pro-sex or okay with sexually eager women, but you are beyond that. You’re a whore. You’re not strung out on drugs or short on money, you have things other people wish they had, except a soul and ANY sense of decency.”

WOW. Don't you just love teh sisterhood??? I especially loved the part how the shitthrowers not only deem themselves able to psychoanalyze Miriam for her "illness" of being a slut, but also determine her friends' reactions as well.

Oh, but there's plenty more in the original piece, including where Miriam is even accused of not just pandering to men, but BEING a man!!!

“By the way, this may be common knowledge, but I suspect that you're a man hiding behind a woman's given name. That would explain a few things, such as:- Why you feel that _______ responses to you are "uncivil" (how dare a woman talk to you like that!?)- Why you aren't hesitant to share your e-mail with strangers- Why you didn't think that ______ would be leery to give you her e-mail address by sending you a message, or...- Why you've attempted to trick _______ into giving you her e-mail address by e-mailing you- The bullshit you're making up to defend porn ("Oh, my precious!").”

Oh, yeah....never mind that antiporn activists share email addies all the time to promote their messages, but when SHE....uhhhh, HE...does it, it's nasty solicitation, or even stalking!!!!

Oh!!! The (w)horrrah!!!

Thankfully, Miriam just laughs her ass off at such insanity and keeps on keeping on being the woman she is.

Bottom line: Just go to her blog and learn how an unapologetically sexual woman should respond to the Puritan haters. She does it well, she does it right, and she does it with class and kick-ass.

Brava, my dear....way to layeth the smack down on those fools. I kneel down to you.

And while I'm down there.... ;-)

(She's racked in the Blogroll, too, in case you don't know.)

Sex Positive Radicalism 101 -- (Smack)Doggie Style

2006-07-24T00:23:00.000-05:00

Since many of you who view this blog may not know or understand the underlying philosophy that underlays this little blog project; I will take time out from the Sex Wars and entertain you with a post that I placed at Bitch | Lab a few minutes ago. It was in response to Miz K sweetly and with much jest suggesting that my advocacy of porn and sex positivity as a litmus test for feminism was "annoying". Since I do happen to have a reputation to uphold; I sent this post in response (actually, it was broken down into three posts, but I am consolidating them here for brevity's sake. Hopefully, it will give you a inkling of the methods of my madness....or the other way around.

Just try and blow this one, Ms. Bitch. heheh :-P

Adapted from the "Erased" thread at Bitch | Lab, which can be found here.

Perhaps a clarification of my fundamental views on sexuality and feminism is needed so that people can understand why I can get really annoying…..errrrrrr, passionate at times about the issues:

I’m not an academic like B|L; I deal in the empirical world with regular working people. (Not that you don’t, Miz B; I’m just saying that I’m not academically trained.)

My belief as a sex radical and a socialist and a free-thinking feminist is that people should be given all of the resources and all of the leeway to make informed decisions about themselves and their bodies based on factual and non-judgemental information…and that the masses should be willing to accept that individual’s decision (whether it be based on an individual or part of a collective decision process) as long as that decision doesn’t negatively impact, injure, or irrepably harm others. To me, a free and equal person is more than able to make informed and capable decision; and whether you like that decision or not; as long as it doesn’t affect you personally, it shouldn’t be really any concern to you what (s)he does.

Now, there are limited conditions to that basic belief where I do think that government or the state can step in in the name of the common good and intervene in personal behaviors that may become ultimately destructive to others..but the burden of proof lies with the government or the other institution to prove that they are acting in the proper interest and that their actions are limited to the scope of the danger, and not just to increase government power for the mere sake of power itself.

Therefore, I have no problems with government inducing citizens to pay their fair share of taxes to fund infrastructure improvements or public health care or living wages or supporting legal and fair unions to improve the well being of the working class and the poor, because that represents a common, collective good of equality and social and economic justice.

On the contrary, I have a really BIG problem with using tax dollars financed through regressive taxation to fund a overbloated military and a repressive social structure (jailing citizens for “victimless crimes”; using prisoners and undocumented “illegals” for cheap labor to undercut wages and benefits for working people; repressive surveillance (sic??) used to snoop on people to use their personal failings against them; and other similar issues); as well as giving all sorts of benefits to the wealthiest portion of the population at the expense of the working class and poor majority.

[Note that I use the term "working class" in the traditional old-school Marxist sense of meaning anyone who depends solely upon their labor for their wages.]

In short, my belief in free will and self-determination has always been rooted in the ideas of fundamental Leftist notions of equality and social justice and redistribution of resources and popular control of the means and ends of production.

Similarly, as to my views on porn and sexual expression: I’m not arguing that porn is the utopia of ultimate personal sexual expression, or even that those who consume it regularly are the vangard of the new socialist (or feminist) revolution. Of course, all porn is not neccessarily asthetically pretty or promotes all love and peace and flowers; real live sex reflects the attitudes of those human beings who make it, and so does porn. (And like any other medium, porn is not immune from all the motivations and frailties of the profit motive; that more than anything else is the source of why so much of it really sucks (and not in the good way, either).)

Yes, most het porn is tuned to male fantasies of women; it is the collorary of romance novels and soap operas that are geared to women. (Ignoring, of course, gay male, bi, and lesbian porn or porn featuring transsexuals.) Yes, porn sells a certain hyperrealistic fantasy about a woman or man who is always ready to drop his or her drawers whenever (s)he desires sex (not to say that such women or men don’t or shouldn't exist, mind you; people who aren't afraid to follow their hardon or clit and enjoy sex to the fullest is definitely NOT a bad thing); that’s not that much different than lotteries which sell the opportunity for escape from middle-class drudgery into the level of the rich, if only for a while until the money eventually runs out. And yes indeed, porn can also be a reflection of the worst in people’s behaviors; it reflects the broader sexism and racism that exists in this unequal capitalist, racist, patriarchial society.

But just because sexist people may produce sexist porn to sell to other sexist people and make a small fortune on it at the expense of the talent (the male and female performers) who does all the “dirty work”, or that are some really nasty people who do exploit and abuse prostitutes or erotic dancers for their own purposes, does NOT neccessarily translate always into porn or sex work being solely the essence of patriarchy and "sexual slavery"; and that its total abolition through censorship and replacement with a “feminist” -made sexuality is the only solution to mitigate for the negative effects. Here is where I particularly and directly part company with the radfems and their “leftist” allies. Human choices are indeed conditioned by the societies they live in; but intimate human sexual desires are not so socially constructed that they would totally fade away if the societies were transformed radically.

Besides, porn and sex work can be and has been used just as much as a tool of progressive, feminist, positive transformation as it can be and has been used for reactionary purposes; and in this world where sex is still treated as nuclear waste outside of the narrow definition of procreation for religion or monogamous “intimacy” within marriage, it is more than important that we understand why porn and sex work remain so popular, even in spite of their illicitity. As important as sex education books and reproductive freedom is to the progressive development of human beings (especially considering the issue of world overpopulation and women’s rights); learning about and understanding the functioning of their sexual bodies and their desires is simply essential….and how can people effectivly understand others if they are so ignorant about their own bodies and feelings??

This is where the traditional Right’s (and the Puritan Left’s) crusades against sexual discovery and enlightenment (and physical acts such as masturbation or non-procreative sexual acts or preventative measures against unwanted pregnancy) really come into focus; it’s as if an orgasm or a man spilling his “seed” is considered to be such a cosmic threat to the social order that huge institutional weight must be sent down to enforce the overall Puritan social order.

Now, I do not deny one bit that being sexually assertive and open doesn’t have its risks and pitfalls by any means, especially for women. There are indeed men who will take the generosity and openness of sexually assertive women as a license to do all kinds of harm to them (including rape, assault, forced prostitution, and even murder). Plus, there is the usual “slut’/”whore”/”harlot” stigma that has always been attached for ages to women who defy the traditional sexual standards of the “good girl/woman/feminist” pedestal; thusly earning them all the typical abuse and slander for “bringing women down”. And there is the threat of STDs such as HIV/AIDS, herpes, gonnorrhea, chimydia (sic??) cervical cancer, and other health risks that go with unprotected sex that those who choose to act out on their sexual urges have to confront.

Given all of this, it is not too surprising that within feminism and the Left there has emerged a counter-Puritan-like movement similar to the Religious Right to condemn sexual experimentation and greater sexual openess as damaging and harmful to women, and to revive all the restrictions of older, more conservative sexual morality as protecting women from “the patriarchy”. Their motives are true and they mean well…but their tactics still do not allow for the basic fact that sexual media and other sexual institutions can be reformed and transformed for more progressive goals, that the primary sex institutions do serve a legitimate social need of venting sexual desires; and that total and complete abolition of sexual services would not in any way change the attitudes of men prone to reactionary beliefs about women and sexuality.

Plus…their open hostility and elitism and sheer disgust towards women and men who don’t share their absolutist views about the innate criminality and rapicity of male sexuality or the absolute equivalence of “pornstitution” with rape and violence, serves to divide and polarize and ultimately weaken progressive activism in general at a time when such activism needs to be more consolidated than ever. This isn’t to say that there is absolutely nothing true about antiporn activism or radical feminism; but their explotiation of certain realities to manipulate emotions and slander their critics (while collectively indicting and punishing innocent men as rapists merely because of their erections, or women who disagree with them as “sluts” and enablers of rape) ultimately does as much or more damage to the cause of women’s rights than any antifeminist Rightist could ever do.

The point of all this, Miz B, is that however I may place my defense of consensual sexual expression and media under the guise of “determinism/free will”, as you so put it; my more fundamental underpinning lies not in the mere defense of free choices, but the radical notion of sexuality being a progressive and a positive force for human empowerment and equality, and that people of the Left should not overpoliticize human sexual desire merely to proscribe human choices that do not coerce or physically harm others. In other words, sex and the erotic shouldn’t be taken too seriously that it becomes an obsession at the expense of more fundamental issues of institutional inequality, but should be taken seriously enough when it is used as a source and a media for enforcing inequality and injustice. Merely attaching sex media, sex work, and the study of sexual desire as the pinnacle of racism, sexism or capitalism, then promoting an essentialist model of “transformative” sexuality as an alternative that has no relation to the reality of women’s or men’s desires and actual behaviors is simply insufficient; one must interact and analyze the real world with real people as they exist; not in the utopias invented in some fantasy world of the future. (Although, such fantasy worlds can be genuine motivations and targets to push for.)

In the real world, men and women will dance, kiss, grind, grope, suck, lick, and fuck; that won’t change one bit one day, one month, or a thousand years after “the revolution”. Maybe it’s time for Leftists and progressives to acknowledge that fact and stop attempting to ape the Right in attempting to put down legitimate sexual urges and desires; and instead work to make sexual relationships and outreach more humane, more equal, more progressive, and more mutually pleasurable for all.

That, sister K, is my fundamental belief on sexuality. Call it “annoying” or call it whatever you wish; but it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

-- Dedicated to Nina Hartley, Shauna O'Brien, Vicky Vette, Avy Scott, Susie Bright, Dr. Susan Block, The Real Violet Blue, Theresa "Darklady" Reed, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Tristan Taormino, Dr. Carol Queen, Dr. Betty Dodson, and all the other sexy and intellegent ladies who helped me to shape my sex-positive pro-feminist radicalism to the fullest.

Feminist Elitism (The Series): The Lynching Of Nubian

2006-07-23T19:49:00.000-05:00

Oh, lookee here....just when I thought that the blogosphere was safe to venture out, here comes another hit-and-run on the White Elitist Feminist Ain't-Got-A-Freakin'-Klew Train...and one more time, it's Nubian of Blac(k)ademic who gets the "honors" of being the chosen victim.

The setup: Nubian agrees to do an inpromptu interview for Feministing in which she specifically clears up her ennui about the past couple of weeks, where she has been taking all sorts of potshots from White feminists who don't quite understand her beliefs that "woman of color" feminists need their own space away from the noise of traditional feminist space. (Remember: first there was the rumbling over her story about being accosted over whether Black skin burns easier; then there was the crackbacks over the last Women of Color Carnival where some White feminists were put off by her comments that they shouldn't complain about not being a part of the WOC space.

Some tidbits from the interview:

Do you feel that this is true of the blogging environment in general? Or do you feel that if you were a White woman or a White man, you’d receive a different kind of treatment?

Oh, no. I noticed this treatment is coming to a lot of women of color. For example, I was on Feministing, and Samhita wrote something about the Duke [rape] case and people were just hurling: “You’re the most unintelligent blogger on this site!” The attacks were about her character, and “you’re a horrible writer.” I’ve gotten called a horrible writer, whiney, and a token. I don’t see that kind of attacking towards White women bloggers or White male bloggers. People would disagree and say that they disagree. But they don’t say that you’re stupid and you’re unintelligent.

But I also think that this is possibly the blogging world in general. It’s the way it’s set up. It’s just so anonymous and you can write something and not have to have someone protest your argument in real time. So, you have the time and the media to be rude, or what they call “snarky.” [Laughs] Or whatever that word is. [Laughs]

Do you think this kind of attitude comes from all around, no matter what race the commenter is? Have you received “snarky” comments from people of color readers as well?

Not really. There’s this one guy who comments, and he’s always challenging what I say. I think he just does it because he’s this Black Nationalist that believes that women have their role and basically, Black women, and Black lesbians, shouldn’t say anything. So, his comments will call me out on what I say, but it’s still very respectful. It’s not condescending or rude. And maybe I’m biased in saying that, but I really haven’t gotten that negativity from readers who come out and say that they’re people of color.

Do you think these comments also reflect what you face in academia, and in your life in general?

Most definitely. When I started blogging, I noticed that the big popular feminist blogs are run by White women. They’ll have this discourse about the same issues—like abortion or sex-positive—or whatever everybody else is talking about. And so when someone comes out and challenges them and says, “Hey, you didn’t include a race analysis. Or you didn’t include a class analysis. Or what you’re missing out on…” My guess is they then feel offended, or say, “Who are you as a woman of color to come and tell me, a blogger, what I’m missing?” And that happens in academia as well. You’re supposed to know your place.

Do you have any examples from academia?

I took this class last year called “Black Women Feminism.” The title alone represented what was going to be discussed in the class. And there were quite a few White feminists in the class who wanted to control the conversation. There was a specific example where we were discussing what exactly Black feminism means. And this one White woman in the class said, “Well, as a White feminist, I feel that I should be able to call myself a Black feminist because the tenets of Black feminism center their analysis around the lived experiences of Black women in a White supremacist society.” And I challenged her, and I said, “No, but that’s not all of what it is. There’s a special lens through which you view your life that can only come from living your life as a Black woman.” Then it turned into this huge argument of what exactly is Black feminism, and who is allowed to be what. I felt like I couldn’t really say much because the argument got heated and if I raised my voice then I would take on the stereotype of this, you know, angry, loud Black woman. [Laughs]

I have to figure out how to navigate trying to get my voice heard, and trying to explain to some people that certain things apply to certain people. That doesn’t mean it’s exclusive or racist or anything like that. It’s just that some things, other people, no matter how much they want to [Laughs], will never be able to experience. Even if, out of respect, they allow certain people their own spaces. But it just turned into this argument of me coming out to look like I’m angry and loud and I don’t know what I’m talking about with all my emotions [Laughs] and not being capable of intellectual engagement.

[...]

There's so much more that she says in the full interview.

Now, you would think that that would be as simple as that. No controversies, no flaming, everyone agreeing to disagree.

You would be wrong.

Seems like the ambush was lying in wait, and about 3 comments in, the attack begins.

[From nubian in the original] I don’t see that kind of attacking towards White women bloggers or White male bloggers. People would disagree and say that they disagree. But they don’t say that you’re stupid and you’re unintelligent. [/nubian]

I have to call absolute, complete and utter bullshit on that one.

I could point you to a zillion examples but it seems pointless as they are so easy to find you'd have to be deliberately avoiding them to miss them.

Posted by: xyz | July 22, 2006 07:09 AM

----------------------------------------------------

What is "complete and utter bullshit" is that the only person to "get it" so far is a woman of color. It perfectly illustrates what Nubian is talking about.

When are we, white liberals, going to understand that the change we are looking for cannot be achieved by looking at issues narrowly? If we want wage equality, for example, the solution cannot be found without looking at how class and race play into wage inequities. We can't fight one type of discrimination without seeing how they are all interrelated. Let's not do what the blue states have done and say "things are black and white" and never allow any questions that complex or threaten our view of the world (and the privileges that go along with it).

True equality requires giving something up: our privilege. Until we're ready to do that, forget equal wages or any other equality.

Why are we (white people) so defensive? Why do we refuse to listen to what we are told (but should be able to see on our own)? Because we can't accept the personal responsibility that comes along with it. We don't want to take responsibility for a world of so many inequities and so much waste.

Nubian and Celina, until you are finally heard, I hope you will keep blogging/interviewing/writing.

Posted by: luci33 | July 22, 2006 12:33 PM

Actually, luci33 was NOT part of the ambush of nubian...she is listed only responding to xyz.

Then our old friend Alon Levy decides to add more kindling to the roast:

What is "complete and utter bullshit" is that the only person to "get it" so far is a woman of color. It perfectly illustrates what Nubian is talking about.

The problem is that (white) radical feminists have no trouble giving you examples of how people take race more seriously than gender, and of how men in general don't really listen to them, regardless of race or class. A few months ago there was a kerfuffle on, I think, the comment pages of The Countess about how men freely comment on women's writing style instead of on their substance.

Now, I don't really think that gender trumps race, or anything like that. Nor do I buy Nubian's claim that race trumps gender in a way, because everything she says in the interview about race has been said by other people about gender.

For example, let's consider the point about the racial wage gap. It's true, a lot more people talk about the fact that American women make 77 cents on the male dollar than do about the fact that African-Americans make about 79 cents on the white dollar (don't quote me on the latter figure - I calculated it from gender-differentiated figures).

But that's not necessarily because the blogosphere is insensitive to racial oppression. I've seen several times the figure that on average, an American with a black-sounding name has to send half again as many job applications to get called in for an interview as an equally qualified American with a white-sounding name. If I wanted to sell affirmative action to my readers, I'd concentrate on that figure a lot more than on the racial wage gap, simply because it's harder to contest.

Posted by: Alon Levy | July 22, 2006 01:48 PM

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Later on, Alon elaborates:

Prairielily is right, I meant blacks have to send in 1.5 times as many applications as whites do in order to get an interview.

BlackAmazon, I'm not saying Nubian's wrong because other people have said the same thing. My criticism of her boils down to two things, really.

1. It's possible that she mistook plain assolishness for racism. If the same white idiot writes the same caustic comments on my blog and on Nubian's, it's possible she'll interpret it as a sign of racism whereas I won't. Of course, it's just as possible that she encountered real racism and that Steve Gilliard, who has attacked people who claim that the blogosphere is a whites-only club, was simply lucky not to encounter any.

2. The interview gets dangerously close to race-trumps-gender. I know that Nubian's had to deal with gender-trumps-race shit in the past, and I know the feminist movement has a race problem. But at the same time the civil rights movement has a gender problem.

Posted by: Alon Levy | July 22, 2006 05:43 PM

At this point, nubian comes forth to respond initially:

at first, before this interview was gonna go up, i almost cancelled it. it was done over 2 weeks ago, before i decided to throw in the towel.

alon, you are taking my words and saying something that i din't say. don't bring in that race trumps gender bullshit. did i ever say that? i could have talked about how most of the big white feminist bloggers are also straight---then you would have just pointed out that i'm complaning that straightness trumps queerness or whatever. you disgust me. instead of appreciating what i had to say, you just go an nitpick, manipulate and take the negatives out to once again, make kortney look like a racist, complaning, angry black woman. criticize me all you want, really, i don't care.

Posted by: nubian | July 22, 2006 06:36 PM

Which motivates this response by xyz:

Nubians' argument is argument is corrupt. Unforuntately that is the way things seem to go.

Stick to the facts, present issues clearly and you'll find that the majority of people will listen to you,(that's if you want them to).

Don't exagerate, don't bullshit, just make coherent arguments. It can be as simple as that if you want it to be.

Posted by: xyz | July 22, 2006 08:02 PM

Yeah....way for a White feminist to lecture a Black woman on her blogging abilities.

But hang on...here's where we inject the blowtorch....in the form of a post from a "msjane" with obvious issues with nubian from the WOC carnival:

Not to be "snarky" (I agree with you, I have no freakin clue what that means either)...but I'm sorry Nubian, I have just one word for you:

Hypocrite.

Here's a quote from this interview:

"I’ve gotten called a horrible writer, whiney, and a token. I don’t see that kind of attacking towards White women bloggers."

Really?

Here's you on July 10th attacking white feminist Winefreid Breines:

"the professor ignored the history of black womens activism that existed WAAAAAY before the white womens feminist movement.
how arrogant is it of her, to claim that women of color, specifically black women, started a movement after white women did. Isn't anyone else upset by this interview??
-- Posted by: nubian July 10, 2006

I think you just called her arrogant. In addition, you negated her individual experiences, as you complained others do with you, and you proposed an outrageous claim that black feminists came "way" before white feminists.

Here's you and Rossana complaining that white feminists talk about Reproductive Rights apparently just way too much for your liking:

"...the big popular feminist blogs are run by White women. They’ll have this discourse about the same issues—like abortion or whatever."

"Why is the anti-choice movement being talked about so extensively?

I don't agree with that position. I think it is very, very important. Enough to be talked about, enough for people on this very blog to march in Mississippi for. But as you said, everyone should be respectful of other people's experience and priorities. Why can't you do that?

It's very sad that you're so educated, young, interested in making a difference, bring to the table unique experiences of being black, female and gay, and you choose instead to create divisions and make mocking statements. When you made this comment I was floored:

"I’m tired of people writing, “I’m a White feminist and I’m learning so much from you.” And I want to write back and be like, “I’m not here to teach you!”"

That is so pompous, and very nasty. What a waste. We are all here to learn from each other. We are all teachers. Although some of us need to grow up first before we can teach.

Posted by: MsJane | July 22, 2006 10:47 PM

Which elicits this fire-breathing response from nubian:

msjane....

i am not here to teach white feminists about race and racism. i don't like being put into that position. it puts more responsibility on me and less on them--my goal in blogging was not to be someones teacher. sorry. yes we all learn from one another, but i think it is telling that i have been postioned as the "race teacher"--how is that fair? it isn't.

second, i did not attack the professor. her research was shoddy and i pointed it out.
people do not point out my shoddy arguemnts, mainly, because i go to great lengths to make sure they are logical and coherent. her argument wasn't.

mrsjane, really, what is sad is you. you just want to embarass me and like i said, everyone wants to just point out how racists i am to make themselves feel better. but honestly, you just make yourself look foolish.

Posted by: nubian | July 22, 2006 11:23 PM

Which is then followed by this reenforcement from BlackAmazon:

Ms jane first off show me why teh claim black feminists came before white feminists is outrageous with honest facts and examples and then maybe you can be rude and dismissive of nubian.

Also pull quoting one or two lines from thousand word essays that had to do with multi lyaered issues doesn't prove your point. Especially if one of them is a question. Rather than engage nubian in maybe answering or discussing you choose to stage a n underhanded un supported attack.

ANd its sad you are a condescending women who would rather try and instruct someone else on their responsibilities to you and others than actually adress the issues they have and are discussing.

Finally it is most intriguing to me that in a post about a FEMALE blogger whose unique experience illustrates something about the workings of the blogosphere almost any and every tactic is being used to avoid engaging and treating her experience with actual respect both intellectually and emotionally. INstead peopel want to get there " i knwo how we should be talking to each other" condescension and talk about anything but this diversionary tactics.

yet we're all here to learn form each other right

Posted by: BlackAmazon | July 22, 2006 11:32 PM

But now comes the post that brings the house down...from someone called "Eshew Obstration" (and I've bolded the money phrase):

Wow. This got really weird really quickly.

BlackAmazon, could you please explain to me in what way Winifred was arrogant?

I was thankful to Nubian for adding information to an informational article, but at the same time there was no evidence provided as to how Winifred was being arrogant.

To be fair, Nubian hasn't been blogging for very long. I wouldn't say that six months experience is anything to bow down and worship or even truly respect.

As far as her writing is concerned, I'm almost 110 percent sure that you, BlackAmazon, are in fact Nubian trying to ghost up support for her in this commentary. You both have the same atrocious writing style (misspelled words, incoherent grammar and shoddy support for your arguments). That has nothing to do with your politics, point of view, race, gender or sexual identity and everything to do with your writing style. A blogger, by nature should be prepared to defend their writing style and their arguments if they allow and encourage comments.

And I'm sorry that you are sick and tired of white women learning from your blogging, if education isn't part of the reason that you were inspired to blog, I'd like to know what is? When information is exchanged people are always teaching and learning, and for you to be frustrated that someone was learning from your thoughts, emotions and experiences is confusing at best. And, if I allow myself to dwell on the implications of your frustration it becomes rather insulting.

Are you be similarly frustrated when black women write you to tell you that you've educated them about your politics, beliefs and their historical implications?

If not, perhaps you are missplacing anger. I'm not a psychologist, however, so probably not.

Posted by: Eschew Obfuscation | July 23, 2006 12:55 AM

WOW. Just freakin' WOW. Just because of a few misspells and typos, and some irregular punctuation, BlackAmazon isn't really human....she's just nubian using her race to artificially inflate her standing and intimidate Whites into submission. After all, we all know that all those nig.....errrrrr, uppity Black women sound the same and are quite inferior to us experienced White feminists, now do we??

Uh-huh.

Eschew then attempts to crawfish himself away from his nuke shot a bit:

Oops my bad.

Upon rereading comments, BlackAmazon has a distinctly different (and in my opinion poorer) writing style than Nubian.

Sorry, they are probably not the same person.

However, if you're going to complain that people complain about your writing, it might be wise not to unintentionally make grammar or spelling mistakes. Then, you can't tell if referring to "Ms.Jane" as "Mrs.Jane" is an honest mistake or a bitchy passive agressive put down.

Posted by: Eshew Obfuscation | July 23, 2006 12:59 AM

Absolutely. Because only racist jackasses who are grammatically correct matter, eh.

Obviously, nubian seen this act far too many times before, and chooses to bail out:

I'm almost 110 percent sure that you, BlackAmazon, are in fact Nubian trying to ghost up support for her in this commentary.

wow.

now i'm being accused of lying and posting as an alternate identity, because no one could possibly REALLY support my ideas.

are you fucking kidding me?

where are the moderators of this blog? where are the readers who are suppossedly anti-racist feminist who are sitting and watching this spectacle take place?

can someone please remove this interview? i am ashamed that it is even on this blog.

Posted by: nubian | July 23, 2006 01:28 AM

And it gets even better (or worse)....I'll just freepost a series and let you read for yourself:

Nubian, is your friend 12?

Anyway...in response to your post:

I am not trying to embarass you. I was calling you out on your blatant misrepresentations.

I didn't recognize who you even were at first, then I remembered your posting from the other article. You attacked not just Winifred but me too. And I didn't write a book, or ask you to teach me anything, or claim that I'm a black feminist, or do anything to justify pissing you off. I was having a dialogue and you went in attacking.

You have to take some responsibility, and if you're under stress because of being black or gay, then find a way to deal with it. Do workshops, write a book, talk to people, network, or blog. But getting an attitude and saying you're not here to teach anyone is useless.

If you're not willing to listen, not willing to learn, and not willing to teach, then what good are you.

What else can you do other than say stuff like this:

"people do not point out my shoddy arguemnts... because i...make sure they are logical."

And this:

..."maybe I’m biased in saying that, but I haven’t gotten that negativity [condecending or rude] from readers who...say that they’re people of color."

When you make unbelievable statements like this, that you are mistake-free in your blogging and that no person of color on this planet has responded back to you in any negative way, that black people are apparently incapable of being rude,....you will have people wondering what planet you are on.

Posted by: MsJane | July 23, 2006 01:30 AM

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1.where the hell did i attack you msjane. because i disagreed with you? i never attacked you.

2.black people do not equal all people of color.

3. why are you so condescending and rude. my friend [BlackAmazon] is not 12. SHE IS A GROWN ASS WOMAN.

4. from my own personal experiences in blogging, yes i have gotten the majority of shit from self-identified white people (an example is from you and a number of other people on this blog and other blogs like it). i never stated that black people or other people of color are mistake-free. stop taking my words and twisting them around.

Posted by: nubian | July 23, 2006 01:41 AM

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Yes you did attack me. You falsely claimed that I was bragging that I started the thread when a blogger obviously wrote it. I never claimed that I did that. I was the first to post to it. A whole day in fact went by to my recollection. You didn't post to it and you didn't post to Jill Scott's thread either. No experiences to share or words of wisdom. Just complaining.

But you want the last word, so go ahead, get the last word. I won't perpetuate this by responding to all of your numbered points.

You already did enough damage by making me and EO agree on something!! aaahhh.

Have a nice day.

Posted by: MsJane | July 23, 2006 01:51 AM

---------------------------------------------------------------

You falsely claimed that I was bragging that I started the thread when a blogger obviously wrote it.

i didn't falesly claim anything. you explicitly stated that you started the discussion thread:

No one posted on this thread, so I went ahead and started the conversation. I opened it up to discussion - not competition.

does that ring a bell?
yeah have a nice day to you, too.

Posted by: nubian | July 23, 2006 01:58 AM

------------------------------------------------------

This has gotten really, really insulting on so many levels. EschewObfuscation, what the hell are you going at accusing BlackAmazon & nubian of being the same person? Two black women are saying the same thing and you can't wrap your head around it so you accuse nubian of being a sockpuppet? WTF???

Anybody who's reading this thread is getting an object lesson in what nubian and blackamazon and dozens and dozens of other women of color bloggers have been saying about trying to dialogue with white feminists.

Immediately throw your hands up and deny racism, deny its impact, deny that there's any double standard, and then put on your 3rd grade school teacher's hat and nitpick grammar and typos.

This is disgusting.

Posted by: kactus | July 23, 2006 02:30 AM

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Alon, you can actually follow the link and find the data. Read the title of the post, the second box (especially the first and third columns) and click on the 2005 Census data link at the bottom of the post?

Ms. Jane, I don't know what to say to you except you're a racist second wave feminist. There is so much wrong with what you said on that Breines interview thread it's not even funny and your misinterpretation of what was said there and on this thread is not even worth discussing. Read a book. Not on white feminism but on intersectionality. Perhaps the one I recommended above.

Posted by: nonwhiteperson | July 23, 2006 02:31 AM

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Oh, and nubian I think this interview should stand, if only for the thread's validation of just about everything you've been saying. Don't let your words be stolen from you.

Posted by: kactus | July 23, 2006 02:32 AM

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Kactus, where did I say or even imply that? Your defensiveness speaks volumes about your attitude and your skewed perception (I'd imagine). The reason that I was so sure that they were both the same person was because both posts
contained a number of unintentional grammar mistakes and both posts occured within 10 minutes of each other.

I then reread the suspect comments (like I said), and not less than 4 minutes later offered a retraction.

It had nothing to do with the fact that someone agreed with her and everything to do with the fact that the person that agreed with her featured grammar and spelling mistakes that I had thought I saw nubian make.

I see you've conveniently used this strawman to ignore the rest of my post which points to the combativeness and hypocrisy displayed by Nubian in the course of this discussion.

Of course, it's much easier to accuse me of racism (which couldn't be further from the truth).

Posted by: Eshew Obfuscation | July 23, 2006 02:59 AM

-------------------------------------------------------------

I see you've conveniently used this strawman to ignore the rest of my post which points to the combativeness and hypocrisy displayed by Nubian in the course of this discussion.

this will be the last thing i say here:
this has been no discussion. there has been little room offered for any discussion.

i am not a hypocrtite. no one here has actually logically pointed out any specious statements on my part. instead, they have presented themselves as hypocrites. funny how that works.

i think what's happening here, is exactly what i mentioned in this interview, i won't even go into further explanation.

peace

Posted by: nubian | July 23, 2006 03:37 AM

It does goes on and on (even Bitch | Lab gets her licks in..and she elaborates further in her own blog here)..but you get the general picture.

What strikes me most of all about this exchange is the utter hubris and arrogance of these folks who think that being so "liberal" allows them to lecture Black feminists on their blogging skills or whine about how they are being so "persecuted" by WOC feminists. It's kinda like the old "We've done so much for you nig---s, so why are you all up on us, when the Right is doing so much damage to you" mantra that is used so often by "liberals" to keep Blacks and other POCs in the Democratic/Liberal fold when the threat of a more radical critique is raised. It's as if they are really afraid that most Black women really do see through their nonsense and do see establishment feminism (both in its "liberal" and "radical" variations) as completely irrelevant to the actual needs of real-life working class women; so they get rather defensive about genuine criticism. But, I guess that they are so molded by their struggles against "patriarchy" that they fail to see the other privileges (race and class, among them) that they receive.

The main point of all this is that this simply proves nubian's main point about WOC feminists needing a free space of their own to work out their problems and issues; as well as the limits of mainstream "second wave/third wave" feminism in confronting direct issues of inequality not directly associated with gender. If White liberal feminists aren't willing to actually open their minds to what WOC like nubian have to say, then how in the living hell can they claim to speak for all other women...especially in a world where the majority of women are non-Whites??

In any case, the blogosphere needs more women like nubian and Blackamazon who are willing to call BS on the presumptions of White feminists to attempt to speak for their views. Silence them, and you don't just hurt WOCs; you hurt feminism and progressivism in general...and you give the Right just one more weapon in their arsenal that they just don't need.

One Last Side Note on Feminist Elitism and Sex Baiting

2006-07-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

In all my ranting and raving about R Mildred and the Feminist Sex Police, I missed a couple of links:

As is the usual, K at Bitch Lab is having a blast deconstructiong RM's slipshod analysis; you may feel free to check out her rebuttals here.

Also, on a related but slightly different angle; Bint Alshamsa of My Private Casbah has posted a very long but very succinct essay on her personal struggles with feminist arrogance, elitism, and snobbery; but of a slightly different kind than Teh Sex Wars. (She is more interested in how "establishment" White feminism tends to silence, coopt, and thusly silence and intimidate women of color; she channels all the grief that Nubian (of Blac(k)ademic took for defending her right to maintain a private space for feminist women of color, and how the ensuing firestorm of pettiness from some White feminist bloggers ultimately drove her (Nubian) out of the blogosphere. An excerpt to feed your brain:

[....]

Though they won't admit it, many white feminists resented the fact that women of color, poor women, and disabled women refused to settle for second-class membership in the mainstream feminist movement. After all, mainstream feminists weren't women who had just recently arrived from outer space; These were women who lived in a country that was only able to form and flourish thanks to the long-term subjugation of people of color. If they could obtain the rights that they wanted without having to give up their privileged status as white people, then that made their mission even easier to accomplish and left them with all of the perks that traditionally came with being able to stand on the backs of people of color. This option proved to be too tempting for some white feminists to forego.

If you fast forward to today, this situation has not disappeared and the blogosphere reflects that. There aren't many women of color who have feminism-centered blogs, so when people of color look for feminist writings that they can relate to and they find such a blog, it's a lot like finally reaching an oasis in the desert. Having sites like blac (k) ademic on the internet means that people don't have to settle for whatever bones white feminists are willing to throw at them. Some of us don't think that whether a woman keeps her maiden name or wears makeup matters nearly as much as figuring out how to navigate public assistance programs when you're working two jobs but still don't earn enough to make ends meet. To me, it seems like such a simple thing. Mainstream feminists can keep doing what makes them comfortable and people of color feminists can just write about and work towards solving the problems that we face. However, I've come to see that things aren't that simple.

Every time a non-mainstream feminist like Nubian dares to write about her reality, it challenges the notion that mainstream feminism is what all women need to subscribe to in order to fix the world. That's a problem because mainstream feminism is really faltering. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's a complete flop. The reproductive justice that mainstream feminists thought they had won now needs to be fought for all over again thanks in no small part to their complacency. Their justification for imperialism (e.g. We need to go and rescue those poor third-world women and bring them freedom) meets with increasing opposition from women that have their own ideas about liberation and see no reason to adopt American customs in order to feel free.

[....]

There's plenty more where that came from at Bint's blog....it is more than worth a visit.

...And Continuing On The Subject of Feminist Sex Radical Trashing...

2006-07-18T20:42:00.000-05:00

...since it seems that today must be the unofficial day for the Carnival of Feminist Sexual Reactionaries:

....Take a gander at Pinko Feminist Hellcat's contribution to the lynching party for RKB and all other sex-positives who apparantly are contaminating and poisoning the feminist movement:

Some of us are dog tired of hearing about how we've got problems if we're bothered by the fact that women are almost always put in submissive positions, degraded, and derided in the name of sex. Some of us are not particularly jazzed by the rigid and puritanical sex roles assigned to women--women sell sex (and get power! Whee! Nothing like that kind of power, George Bush, eat your heart out!) and men buy it.

You'll just have to forgive me for noting that it's practically unheard of for the reverse to happen, even though women do like sex, do like sex without commitment, and do appreciate hot men.

What's seen as sexual for women is a bore. Am I oppressive and mean for saying that? Tough. Cope.

A blog post by Twisty (who was trying to stir things up and succeeded) does not make this a world that forbids the kind of sex you want to have, though, as Amanda points out, it sure would be nice if "sex" for women included more than forgoing it or being submissive, enthusiastic about facials, or so male centered in the act that you may as well not have a sodding clitoris. That's the "full range?" How unimaginative. How stale. How boring.

Not that there's anything wrong with that! Oh, lordy, heaven forbid I maybe mention that many women are dissatisfied with the dearth of options available to us in the world of sexuality. But for once, I'd like to see an acknowledgment from supposed sex radicals that women can be sexual without being submissive, that it's okay to not particularly like or want to engage in some of the sex acts out there (facials come to mind), and that in fact, not liking them doesn't make you frigid, or anti-sex, or whatever, and that the diversity of sexuality should extend to women and our pleasure. Instead, we're treated to finger-wagging over oppressive and mean feminists who would take your right to get on your knees away from you. It's pretty telling that articles that focus on feminism and sex focus on submissiveness, and our right! hard won right! to be submissive and degraded.

[...]

Because, really, why acknowledge that some women--hell, a lot of women--are left unsatisfied, marginalized, and derided in the world of status quo sex? Since when is critiquing the small box reserved for women in the world of sex a bad thing?

I'd like to see some acknowledgment that porn is male-centered, the so-called "sex" industry is male centered (it's not like Heidi Fleiss is getting a warm welcome by Nevada brothels, since women paying for sex is just so! unheard ofl! but men paying for it is just ducky) that the sexual double standard is poison to women and influences our choices and desires, and that we'll never be truly open and sexual and free as long as sexual women are derided as whores, raped women are dismissed, and women who want sex on our terms (not Hugh Hefners, Larry Flynt's, or Joe Everyman's) are marginalized.

Wanna know one reason why [Heidi] Fleiss is having such a problem with her dog house for women (besides the brothel association flipping out)? Prostitutes are defined as she in Nevada. Think about that. Women as servers, men as consumers. That's not completely messed up? It's what, radical to accept this? To say that women serving and men consuming is the norm and acceptable and questioning it is oppressive? Forgive me for being feminist and calling BS on that.

All of this blathering on and on about frigid feminists out to oppress the free-thinking radical bohos out there--enough already. It's tiresome and stale. (As is the insistence that all feminists are total sluts--antifems, please get your stories straight. You scamps are funny when you froth, but the rhetoric is getting old).

This kind of pseudo-sex positivity is stifling. I mean, what are my options, exactly? Pulling trains, getting dominated, and getting facials, or celibacy? No thanks. It's getting a little stuffy in the box you'd like to lock me into. And you can bite me if you don't like it and want to declare me either frigid or a slut for looking askance at this messed up set of standards for women.

And the coup-de-grace comes from Witchy-Woo, who finally reads sex positives their pink slips from the feminist movement without the two-week notices (This nuttiness deserves a full reading in its entirity):

To all pro-pornstitution 'feminists' out there...

...The best way to stop the global scourge of sexual slavery of women and girls is not to reduce men's slavering for warm, wet fuck holes but to offer oneself to the task.

How does that feel....thinking about that? Would you?

Would you choose that as a way to feed your kids, pay your bills, keep your particular wolf from the door?

No?

Why not?

So how come you kind of 'elect' and hide behind those women/girls who don't have the same level of choice that you do? Poor women, women of colour, drug/alcohol addicted women, girl children, teenage runaways, sexually abused in childhood women, etc. Women and girls whose humanity you should actually be fighting for - as feminists.

Instead, it seems to me, you're saying it's ok that these women/girls are in sexual slavery because it's somehow their choice. They're somehow 'living their dream'....or is it your dream? The phallic dream? I don't know. Whatever.

All I know is that you're not fighting for them. You're complicit in their destruction. You're colluding with patriarchy in dividing women into 'them' and 'us'.

So.....

I want to see every pro-pornstitution 'feminist' put her money where her mouth is (hah) and do a six month stint in the job (or send her daughter in if she's 'too old') before she tells me that it's 'ok' for any other woman/girl to go through it. And I want a report about how great it is to command such power and how it's touched and released her innate sexuality and re-formed her as a woman and made her feel sooooo good about herself she does talks about it to girls in junior schools.

Actually, I don't want any woman on this Earth to go through it but, hey, seems to me that some women need to properly understand exactly what feminism means.

If you're pro-pornography or pro-prostitution you are NOT a feminist. These institutions are the props of patriarchy and have nothing to do with women's self determination, ergo they are NOT feminist.

And to think that at one time I thought that I could have a reasonable debate with some people. (I was once accused by the very same Witchy-Woo of "butting in" to a debate over at Antiprincess' Paleofeminist blog on porn and feminism because I dared to respectfully criticize W-W's basic beliefs. Apparantly, being a man attempting to defend a feminist woman's right to choose her own sexual habits amounts to defending "sexual slavery" and rape.)

I'm not going to speak for other sex-radicals, but you can consider this Black Leftist man to be considered finished with these people. If this is what liberal feminism is becoming, then I want nothing to to with it any longer.

Memo to Witchy Woo and PFH: just join your ally RMildred in the "Fuck you" section of this blog. If you can't respect our beliefs, then the hell with you.

The "Punkass" Bitchslapping of RKB (Continued)

2006-07-18T16:34:00.000-05:00

For those of you just joining in, this is Part 2 of my fisking of a particularly slimy blog post from RMildred of Punkass Blog savaging Rachel Kramer Bussel for her latest Lusty Lady column Fucking and Feminism. I have added my own annotations within the post where needed.

Let's get back to the fun now, shall we??

Oh, and then she blah blahs for a while, men are mentioned, this guy (who I assume is never giong to be invited around her parent’s place for dinner ever again) tells her he wants be fucked up the ass, because men are oppressed too you see.

Which is nice and all, especially as she’s spent the entire thing telling us that all the things that women do, including the various deeply self harming things, are all A-OK and nothing to worry about, because there is no patriarchal oppression, there is merely Twisty, oppressing women with her mean old cock mockage.

Yeah, all those "self-harming" things like anal sex and blowjobs and kissing other women and tattoos and clit piercing and breast enhancement and high heels (more on that later)....all that is far, far more threatening to the cult of radicalfeminism than one blogger spilling her loathing of women who like sucking a cock.

And let's not include the oppressive act of men wanting their girlfriends to fuck them in the ass with a dildo, because that is so oppressive and patriarchial...even when gay men do it all the time. (But that's because they are MEN, you know.)

Let's move along to the next bit of RM myopia:

anyway, here’s the next interestingly stupid bit;

Sara DeKeuster is one of my heroines. In 2005, in The UWM Post, an independent student newspaper, she ran a photo essay exploring her rape fantasies. The uproar was instantaneous. One blogger, Kyle Duerstein, wrote (but later deleted), “Sara DeKeuster ought be[sic] raped today. And after that, she ought be [sic] raped tomorrow, by someone else . . . she might be killed by her attacker. Maybe then, she’ll get it, and if not, she’ll be dead, and the world will be a less f*$!ed up place.” The Women’s Resource Center claimed the spread created a “hostile campus” and was “an active act of harm.” In response, DeKeuster evoked Cindy Sherman: “I am not sorry for my art! It would be like saying I’m sorry for being a woman and that I like sex (or to be fucked rather).”

Of course, while DeKeuster is pissing around with her, ahem, “rape” fantasies (which are nothing of the kind, they’re just standard BDSM roleplaying fantasies in which she’s an “abused” sub), there is a whole world full of men who, having been told by the patriarchy that no doesn’t really mean no, are raping and murdering and abusing women.

But have fun with your “Rape” fantasies, I mean, there’s no possible reason why people would find that offensive, especially not on a college campus (where 1 in 4 women ARE NOT raped, remember). I love how she basically just pulled the “I’m entitled to be a selfish asshole who doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but my own” justification after she got critiscised (but she dressed it up in “sex positivity” so it’s okay).

Now, here is where things may get a bit confusing. What Ms. DeKuester defines as her "rape fantasies" are really what I would call "ravishment fantasies", where a woman is willingly overpowered by a man or a group of men. The difference between these kind of fantasies and a real rape is the difference between night and day: a real rape involves direct force and coercion as well as serious physical and emotional injury and a deliberate intent to hurt and harm; while in the ravishment fantasy, the woman "gives in" to an extent, but there is no pain or injury, and the woman gets the full amount of pleasure in the fantasy. It may be a touchy issue amongst feminists due to the nature of the ravishment fantasy, but many women -- including some very powerful feminists -- are admitting publically to having and enjoying such fantasies; and some are even prone to enact such fantasy roles with their lovers in their "loveplay". It is similar but not quite the same as BDSM or D/s play in that it usually remains just a fantasy not to be enacted.

But, certainly, acknowledging ravishment fantasies is IN NO WAY an endorsement of rape, and even Ms. DeKuester acknowleges that much, even when defending her photo essay from people like Kyle Duerstein, who all but reccommended that DeKuester was enabling rapists....and even went as far as to recommend that she be raped to prove his point!!! Certainly, RMildred isn't recommending that women who act out or acknowledge having "patriarchial" fantasies deserve to be raped, is she??? Hmmmm...

Strangely enough, Amanda Marcotte, in her own critique of RKB, implied that Duerstein's statements (which basically match the criticism of both Amanda and RM) were an implication of a hidden compulsion to rape. I'll leave it to you the viewer whether that statement should be taken in whatever context was intended.

In any case, none of this has anything to do with Rachel's main point...which was that even powerful women and feminists can admit to having such submissive fantasies, and still remain strong enough to defend their rights as human beings in the real world.

Oh and next week I’m going to germany so I can goosestep through a few holocaust memorials while wearing an SS uniform, but it’s a “choice”, and therefore above reproach, and no one is allowed to critiscise me or I’ll call them “Politically correct” waaaah!

This would be actually funny if Rachel had actually even mentioned SS troops or the Holocaust or Nazis anywhere in her article. And a nice touch with comparing sex-positive feminists who disagree with RM's analysis with genocidal Nazis.

God, how old is this woman? Is she planning on growing up anytime soon you think? Or is she a baby boomer?

The feminist sex wars were largely fought before I was born, yet sadly, women continue to battle each other over what we do in bed, as if coming up with the most politically correct form of orgasm will automatically solve other inequities. I believe in advancing the cause of sexual freedom for everyone, by increasing our knowledge and offering room for fantasy and safe, nonjudgmental experimentation.

Of course, your vapid justifications for every single abusive sexual act possible, from rape to het women kissing each other has just enabled god knows how many asshole men to go out and abuse their partners and call it “liberation”.

Well done.

Well done indeed....from merely defending blowjobs and "submissive" sex and sex fantasies and......het women kissing in public, right to enabling sexual abuse and rape!!! And I thought that only right-wingers engaged in this kind of "slippery slope" illogic??

What I love about this sort of thinking though, is it’s totally disengenuous, why have feminists been critical of many of these sexual acts that bussel feels the need to defend? What’s the motivation behind such “attacks”? Who knows, because the unsourced strawfeminists presumably engages in total sophistry (as far as I can make out), which just handily means never having to actually engage anyone’s arguements about anything.

And there’s the problem with these “don’t mock the penis” types who have been trying rather lamely to kick Twisty while she’s dealing with her operation, they cannot admit that there’s valid reasons why all sorts of “choices” are wrong, the only important thing is that they’re “choices”, and as long as women choose something, including patriarchal oppression, well no one’s allowed to criticise because Oppression is Empowering (as orwell would say).

Now...this is a real laugher. Apparantly, Rachel must be a secret blogger at Twisty's site to know that she is dying of cancer (actually, Twisty has been posting about that publically), so Rachel chose this exact time when Twisty is near death to add the final nail in the coffin.....by attacking her supposedly brilliant innovative feminist ideas. Why, in that case, we must suspend all our thoughts of accountability and meekly accept Twisty's beliefs as proven fact (even in the abscence of evidence to back them up), out of sheer pity...errrr, solidarity...for her condition.

And as for the notion of "engaging the arguments": well, it's kinda hard to have a real engagement when one side chooses to lob stink bombs and ad hominens at the other, and professess their chosen views as THE ONE AND ONLY acceptable feminist view; while wrapping themselves in the skirts of "sisterhood" and rapping their critics as "girls", "dupes of the patriarchy", "oppressiors" and so forth. It's one thing to say that you don't like another woman's choices; it's something entirely different to impose those personal dislikes on others as "feminist doctrine" and disrespect other women for making that choice.

And the anti-fems do this because they have no real response to the charges of oppression, pretty much most of the examples Bussel provides of contentious sex is all heavily patriarchal, from strippers and the porn industry (both of which are unwaveringly demeaning towards women), to DeKeuster declaring that all women want to be raped (the other side to that nasty quote up there), Bussel, like wonkette before her, wants you to come away from her screed with the impression that, not only have feminists been simply declaring some things bad without good cause, but that you can engage in any sort of deeply misogynistic and self harming act, and not only is no one allowed to tell you that you are harming yourself (and thus stopping you from actually dealing with your problem) because it’s your “choice”, but you’re then allowed to go around telling people that the self abuse is “empowering” you as a sexual creature.

Note the nice channelling of the former Wonkette (Ana Maria Cox) and her review of Katha Pollitt's book that stirred up quite a shitstorm among the feminist blogosphere...as if Cox's review had anything to do with RKB's column or renouncing radfem either. But, with all the references to "self abuse" (does that mean that masturbation is also a plot of the "patriarchy" too) and "self harm" (as if an individual act of sexual arousal by and individual woman was a cosmic threat to the entire feminist Borg collective), I tend to wonder whether the kind of feminism that RM favors is more appropos of the ex-gay fundamentalist revivalists than any classic feminism I know. Oh, I forgot....feminism can't be linked with the right wing; that too is a fiendish plot of Teh Patriarchy and "the pornographers" to divide and conquer feminism!!!

Of course this is nothing new, all oppressive systems do something like that, usually masking the oppression with talk about “culture” or “tradition”, both of which are inherently “good” things despite the oppression and hate and violence that such words end up associated with them. In America it’s most obvious with the homobigot fundie types, but in the last post I added something that, I admit, was an intentional provocation, designed to probe harshly at the edge of the Highheel spot, that place where way too many feminists will fight for their right to fuck their leg muscles, tendons, toes, ankles and spinal column up, more often than not in the name of attracting the attention of objectifying men. That’s not why all women wear highheels, but it’s certainly why the abuse positive women like Dowd and Wonkette and Bussel wear them.

Now...does RM have any evidence that Maureen Dowd or Ana Cox or even Rachel Kramer Bussel wear highheels for any extended length of time??? (Funny, but MoDo doesn't seem to be the "slut" type, being quite busy with more earthy affairs like condeming Bush's wars and such.) Rachel might indeed wear highheels herself (even as props for her sex fantasies..but what the hell does that have to do with anything here...other than just another means for RM to smack down sex-positives???

Of course, with trolling comes people who get trolled, and Erica provided a perfect microcosm of the whole Bussel bullshitfest with this neato little comment:

I’m not sure what to make of this kind of attack against femme women. For one thing, it reminds me of men who make these claims against feminists. We must all be ugly sows for wanting equality. For another, it reminds me of anti-feminist prudes who say, “No, no. Nice girls don’t do that. Only bad girls with low self-esteem wear slutty clothes or sleep around.”

I used to have real self-esteem issues. I was worried about what everyone thought of me. Now that I’ve grown up, I believe that doing what you want, with little or no thought of the opinion of others, is a truly feminist act. It really disturbs me that at least one commenter on this thread has asked for R. Mildred’s permission to wear high heels. Fuck that.

Now you have here the problem, the paradox that allows otherwise good feminists to get shipwrecked on the craggy metaphors of anti-feminist rationalisations for patriarchal abuse, the first, most important step anyone under patriarchy has to do is say “goddammit, bullshit to hell yah, I don’t take no orders from anyone about my behavior!”, but this aspect of liberation does not mean that “I like this, therefore it’s not patriarchal” is a true statement.

So, in other words, just because some women say that they like certain things that some radicalfeminists don't particularly like, that allows the radfems to dump their myopia on them and call it "feminist theory"??? And to declare those other women's beliefs to be illegitimate and dismissable because....well, they're not "feminist"??? And they wonder why feminism is so marginalized and weak these days???

Highheels are painful and debililtating, they also are the only shoe in exisence that leave the wearer unable to cross cattle grids without getting stuck.

They’re patriarchal, objectively so, if you do wear them for non-sexual reasons that actually are kinda empowering, that still doesn’t change their harmful and patriarchal nature, and there’s probably an alternative out there somewhere that isn’t (though I’m already tall enough to loom over people who dare oppose me, so I’ve always gone in for floor level footwear and don’t know anything in particular to help you ks, sorry).

Wait a sec, RM....are you saying that wearing high heels is antifeminist because they can get rather painful to wear; or are they antifeminist because it turns men on?? It's not as if "the patriarchs" are requiring women to wear them all the time; or that even those women who do wear them don't get any pleasure from wearing them on occasion. I guess that wearing thongs and push-up bras and makeup should be condemned for elevating the "slut culture", too???

The lesson we can learn from highheels is that some objects and behaviors are just plain downpressing to women, you can fuck around and try to co-opt them all you want, but the patriarchy is laughing at you while you do.

This is true of Bussel’s “submissiveness”, it’s not roleplaying, BDSM, feminist freindly submission, she’s saying that women can be a man’s chew cum stress relief toy in the bedroom, and that is bad, because she invites the power differential on which all abuse and oppression exists, into her bed and asks other women to do the same because “I like this, therefore it’s not patriarchal”.

Got a newsflash for you kid; the patriarchy can trick you, no really, and sometimes what you think you like, is actually just a result of conditioning.

Because, unless it has the "feminist" seal of approval, it must be "patriarchial" and no self-respecting woman or feminist would ever do such self-abuse on herself and her sisters.

------------------------------------------

My goodness....what a journey into nothingness.

If this is what passes for "liberal feminism" these days, then from now on, count me the fuck out. At least Biting Beaver and Dim have the decency of being up front and honest with their antisex bigotry, rather than painting a "feminist" gloss all over it.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is as accountable to criticism as any other woman....but she does not deserve this bullcrap. Thankfully, she is classy enough and woman enough to rise above this.

I'll take a classy slut like Rachel over an arrogant, elitist, sex-hating, male baiting, proto-fascist hack like RMildred any day.

Two words in parting, RMildred, on behalf of all the progressive men who are NOT rapists or sex fiends:

FUCK. YOU.

/end of rant

The "Punkass" Bitchslapping of RKB (When "Liberal Feminism" Just Isn't)

2006-07-18T16:32:00.000-05:00

You know..it was my intention to keep my defense of Rachel Kramer Bussel's column on "Fucking and Feminism" to the high road, since Rachel is more than capable of defending herself from criticism from all angles....including the type lobbed by Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte that I fisked last night. And I figured that there was still some hope that the discussion would not degenerate into a flame fest on which sexual acts were considered poltically correct or "feminist" enough. At least Amanda tended to be amicable, if passionate, in her criticism of Rachel as a closet sexual submissive.

Apparantly, even that was not quite hostle enough for some feminists, though....because today while skimming through Bitch Lab's comments on the issue, I came across a link to what amounts to a virtual lynching of RKB which consolidates and distills every urban legend and strawwoman stereotype about sex radical/sex positive women as traitors of feminism and enablers of "patriarchy" into one massive fireball of hate, arrogance, resentment, and hypocritical elitism.

To save you the trouble of linkage, I will just repost the (long) essay in its entirity, and I will offer my usual annotations and emphasis as I go along. Trust me, Clones....it is more than worth the time to read this.

Oh Smug Sense of Cultural Superiority, How You Love Your Footbinding Female Circumcision Shoes

Published by R. Mildred July 18th, 2006
Oh baby, yeah that’s it.
In case anone hasn’t noticed, I haven’t actually tackled the OMGsporkitdeadSPORKITDEAD! Village Voice piece yet.
That last post, that was just my initial reaction to some of the comments in the various threads that the peice has spawned in the blogosphere, and now that the various threads have had an opportunity to mature somewhat, I have to doff my hat to Twisty again, the number of tools and straight guys who she offended is most impressive, she has earned her Oppressed Minority To Watch Out For status ten fold, and I can only parrot bitchPhd in the Boobalectemy ‘06! thread over at IBTP: Twisty, I would so mess (around) with you. (though my hetereosexuality would now doubt leave me unable to mess you properly). Any lesbian who can make so many heterosexuals so incredibly uncomfortable with two very short posts, deserves a crown and an ermin robe which she can wear as she rules over the earth as its queen.

But enough about Twisty’s amazing ability to turn the heads of easily swooned het women, what about the Bussel peice?

Well where should I begin really? The gawd aweful picture of a pasty white pseudo-goth crack whore wannabe, her eyes sort of not quite squinting at the camera, her body resting back on her elbows because her boobs are about to pop out of the butt floss she accidently put on the wrong end of her body.

Seriously, where does one begin tearing this sort of crap apart when that’s the accompaning photo? The caption to which is nothing less ironic than “no one has the right to tell you how to fuck”, which is precisely the sort of caption you should have under a photo of a woman who’s obviously been jammed into that faux-vampirella top (Cuz it’s sexy, bitch) and told to find the most ungodly uncomfortable position possible (cuz it’s sexy, bitch) by the photographer, who one can only assume had somewhere better to be that day because MAN, does it look rushed. But remember kids, being horribly abused and demeaned by the porn industry is “empowering”, a word that is quickly losing what meaning it once had thanks to its current use as prime anti-fem doublethink, doesn’t matter what it is these days, if it’s abusive and disempowering, some anti-fem is calling it “empowering”, as bussel is detirmined to prove over and over again

Oh sweet chocolate Cthulhu, I just wrote two paragraphs just on the photo that goes with the piece, God Help Us All…

Ah, yes...nothing quite like a highbrow criticism of Rachel's ideas, 'ya think??? We start right off the bat with a deconstruction of her faceshot (actually, part of a personal photogallery that Rachel did about a year ago). I mean, you'd think that RKB all but called out RM and other feminists personally with just the photo alone!!!

And the "pasty white pseudo-goth crack whore wannabe" smack is especially delightful in its insanity, too...I mean, it really strengthens your feminist critique of someone's ideas be referencing her looks....but I thought that was only what antifeminists and patriarchs do, ehhh???

Anyways....that out of the way, on to the main piece....but not quite yet:

No wait, can’t start on the actual piece yet, there’s more horrors on the page aside from the actual main peice.

For instance here’s two of the ads* in the side bar:

[Description of escort ads snipped by me for brevity]

*HeadDesks* yes folks, we have officially reached primo grade DEEP HURTING, a piece about how liberating sucking the patriarchy’s cock is, unsurprisingly, bracketed by ads for Prostitutes Escort Agencies, because whoring is fun and always entirely voluntary!

Of course, RM seems to ignore the fact that RKB's column happens to appear in the "SEX" section, along with other pro-porn and pro-sex columnists (including Tristan Taormino and Dan Savage); and that escort service ads are just a general portion of the VV's daily offings. But I guess that all that is just more worship to Teh Evil Patriarchy which warps women like Rachel to believe that sexual slavery is really freedom....riiiight???

Soooo anyway, on to the piece itself…

Let me jump right in at the beginning, but ignore the intial start where she plugs some books for what sound like some anti-fems who I neither know nor care about. They’re anti-fems, there’s twenty more money grubbing assholes for every one with an actual book deal, and they’re all very careful to be pretty interchangable, so it doesn’t matter if she does lambast them, they’re anti-fems, you’re supposed to lambast them, what do you want? A medal?

Actualy, the books that Rachel allegedly "plugs" are the Ariel Levy, Pauline Paul, and Rabbi Shumbley Boteach books which have been debated in the feminist blogosphere for months...and I hardly think that RM would cal Levy or Paul "antifems", either. Besides that, RBK doesn't even call them "anti-fem"; just points out their general criticism of women who pursue sex for its own pleasure. (Boteach is a bit more problemmatic, since he has written for Christian Right wingnut outfits like WorldNutDaily..but his critique is chock full of the usual antiporn boilerplate about how women have been "objectified" and "degraded" by the pursuit of sex outside of marriage and "love". Hmmmm...kinda like, you know, some liberal feminists I know??

This bit is the first bit that jumps out and pisses me off personally:

[quote from RKB's article] These well-intentioned prudes proffer a false choice: Be the next Jenna Jameson or support Hillary for president. There’s no room for a lusty woman in office (never mind Mary Carey’s political ambitions), and certainly no credence given to strippers or adult performers, who they see as airheaded sluts.

… now what bugs me is that Hillary is, and always has been, nothing more than an expression of the misogynistic left-of-centrists’ barely functioning sense of shame about their unwillingness to actually support feminist causes or politics, she exists as a candidate and politician only so that these Kos-holes can pretend that they’re treatment of women is in some way different from the repugs. She is in short the left wing’s equivalent to Condileeza Rice, a total tool who’s ownership of a vaginal token has gotten her to places that other toilet cleaners just can’t reach. She is in short, a perfect mirror image of Jenna Jameson, as both have achieved what they’ve achieved by being vaginas first and people second.

Funny, but doesn't much of Hillary's power come mostly from having been former President Bubba Clinton's vagina for so long??? At least Jenna actually gotten real pleasure from her pussy, and she's managed to even become quite a saavy and successful business woman...and she doesn't pander to right-wing fascists, either.

And no, having been a professional corporate lawyer and getting on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors doesn't change that fact that Hilliary's (and Condi's) power is mostly from the institutions she has exploited. A big difference between that and Jenna, who happens to be very much respected as a human being and a woman for her rise to the top of her profession...even by those who get the privilege of fucking her.

Oh, and Hillary is no Leftist by any means, but a consistent center-right Democrat, just like her husband....and is a consistent supporter of antiporn legislation, too...as is most Repubs....why bite the hand that feeds you, RM???

And the thing about giving credence to strippers and “adult performers” (of course adult performances often involve pretending to be jailbait in school uniforms, but hey! Nothing wrong there!), I mean, Wtf? They’re victims, even those who aren’t physically assaulted in their profession, I mean, come on! Their jobs involve being sexual objects who pander to the patriarchal sense of entitlement men have which tells them they all deserve pussy on demand, and how do they feed this sense of entitlement? By paying hard cash for pussy.

Nothing wrong there, so men are buying women like they’re inhuman commodities? So what? That’s normal isn’t it? Like honor killings in modern islamic countries, it’s a cultural thing, you’re not allowed to criticise it!

Oh, RMildred, where to begin??? For the last time (today): Men and women do not buy sex when they buy porn; they buy the right to watch men and women have sex with each other. And for someone who professes herself to be such a "moderate" feminist, as opposed to the Dworkin/MacKinnon school of eternal porn-as-primer-for-male-rape feminism; you certainly seem to have adopted their ideology in total about heterosex being nothing more than men forcing their hard dicks on "submissive" or resistant women.

And on this "modern Islamic countries" favoring "honor killings" nonsense...great to see that your bigotry and ignorance extends beyond sex; you can bash and bait Muslim culture with the best of neocons.

Still looking hard for any relevance of all this to what RKB actually wrote...keep reading while I search this dark closet....

Oh boy oh boy, I love this next sentence, Love it to pieces!

We’re in the middle of a culture war around sex, and it goes beyond left vs. right. Many of the voices quick to excoriate you for buttfucking, baring your boobs, having a threesome, or public sapphic smooching come from the left.

Emphasis mine.

Now why I emphasised that is for the very simple reason that I’m pretty certain that Bussel (named after a form of victorian asspadding for high society ladies, because it’s silly names month at Punkassblog) is not actually referring to lesbians kissing in public, because that would in some way not reinforce heteronormativity, and every single one of these would be counter-twistylutionary polemics are all about the heteronormativity reinforcing (except my ones of course, because I am the God Shi-halud, and free from heterosexual privelage of course, teehee).

No, what “public sapphic smooching” refers to in this case is two het girls (and with women this immature, the term girls is appropriate in this case) kissing each other in front of some het guys, to show them all that these two women are willing to do anything to display their unwaivering allegiance to the patriarchy, including gaying it up with their friends. It is of course crap like that that gives Bisexuals such a bad rep in the LGBT community, but I guess that if the act wasn’t hurting some women somewhere bussel wouldn’t have mentioned it.

Ahhh, I see...a 30+ year old woman is now reduced to an inmature "girl" for stating the obvious fact that some het and bi women might like the feel of kissing, sucking, or even fucking another woman without rejecting men outright. She may call it "unwaivering allegiance to the patriarchy"; most of us not blinded to radfem sophistry are more prone to call it personal growth and development. I mean, there just might be the idea that young women might be attracted sexually to other women simply because IT FEELS DAMN GOOD TO THEM, and not merely out of a desire to join a radicallesbianfeminist group or to "put out" for men..right??? Naaahhh, it's just the evil patriarchy warping girls' brains again to succumb to Teh Cock.

Levy argues that women have to (and want to) out-’ho ourselves to fit into our increasingly raunchy, male-identified sexual culture. She cites Paris Hilton as a lead “pig.” That the devil-may-care heiress wasn’t chastened for her slutty ways irks those who think women should never flaunt their bodies�even voluntarily.

Oh save us from the “voluntary” patriarchy victims! I’ve been thinking alot about multicultural feminism recently , and the thing I’ve stated to notice is a pattern that keeps reoccuring across all the various cultures that opress women, what happens is that a feminist will start talking about the nastiness in a foriegn culture and inevitably someone will whip out some variant of “but the women think that female genital mutilation is a good thing! Who are you to intervene?”, which of course instantly shuts down any discussion. Now of course western society is superior to all others, it is more enlightened, and of course feminism is no longer needed in the west for it has achieved its aims. This is bullshit, the “who are you to intervene” canard has kept large aspects of feminist critiscism silent all over the world, first and third world both, feminists are never allowed to actually criticise any culture for its abusive nature towards women, because there’s this culture and the women really want to be oppressed, really.

Do you know what? When a friend of mine turns into a total alchoholic, do you know what I’m obligated to do? Stage an intervention, irregardless of how much he really likes drinking til he pees himself, I’m supposed to stick my big fat nose into his “choice” to be addicted and gently kill himself with booze, because he needs help, and he needs to be made to realise that he has a problem.

But if it’s a woman, addicted to patriarchal self destruction, well that’s different, that’s a different sort of self-destructive “choice” all together, one she’s allowed to “choose” and if she’s being gently killed by her husband, well that’s an issue between man and wife and nothing for us to be concerned about.
Alchoholics get interventions by their family and friends, patriarchal abuse victims get bussel’s gentle rationalisations for their oppression.

Makes sense to me.

Me, too....I mean, we really shouldn't differentiate between a social drinker who dabbles in a couple of glasses of champagne or wine cooler and a stone-drunk alcoholic who could get behind the wheel of a car...so why should we do the same with a woman who "degrades" herself and her sisterhood by having "patriarchial" sex which by RM's edict automatically degrades and threatens her sisters??? (/snark) That's what feminism by RM's account should be, I guess; sort of an "Sluts Anonymous" that rescues women from their own evil baser instincts.

I really don't think that the phrase "We die a little with each orgasm" was meant to be taken that seriously....and WTF is "killed gently"???

And...it's so nice to see consensual sex acts be redefined as "patriarchal abuse", too.

Blogger Twisty of I Blame the Patriarchy (blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com) incited feminist ire when she wrote, “There’s a reason that deep-throating a funk-filled bratwurst makes a person retch.” Holier-than-thou pronouncements of sexual superiority don’t scream “sisterhood” to me.

Yeah, and you know what? Uptight little asswaste little heterosexual women doing their best to marginalize lesbian viewpoints doesn’t exactly scream “sisterhood” either, in fact the word “sister-fucker” comes to mind, along with the other term “anti-feminist”. FFS, Twisty is never Holier-Than-Thou, Twisty just doesn’t fuck around and pretend that she doesn’t mean precisely what she means. strange how when it comes to women sucking patriarchal cock, you’re free to do whatever but Oh. My. Gosh. As soon as someone actually blames the patriarchy for shit and Dares to mock the holy phallus no less, well, that’s just not on.

LOL, look at me getting all upset by this, like I’ve never seen a lesbian being marginalized before…

This is the most hilarious point of RM's analysis...I didn't know that Rachel was baiting and attacking all lesbians with the statement that ALL women should have the right to pursue sex for their own meanings and pleasure; I would assume that that principle would also include lesbians as well. But what do I know...I'm one of those evil patriarchial men who exist just to get into women's panties as often as possible. (Not.)

And this defense of Twisty's original anti-blowjob smack is fascinating, since it was this very blog that produced a particularly stong critique of Twisty's ambush. I guess that defending blowjobs is only legitimate when radfems criticize other radfems; but when those outside the charmed circle do the same, it's defending patriarchy?!?!

There’s a world of difference between being branded a sex object and choosing to be one under certain circumstances.

Umm, the net result if that you’re still a sex object, so that world of difference is not really all that different or good, is it?

Yup...only women who have sex with only one other partner for their entire life (hopefully only with a woman), and only in a certain "sisterly" kind of way without any mention of sex toys, lust, orgasms, or other "patriarchial" interference, can be accepted as a true feminist; any deviance from that and you fall from the pedestal into the profane world of "sex object". Tell me again, RM, that you are any different from the Religious Right or the MacDworkinites???

Recall Tad Friend’s classic 1994 “do-me feminism” Esquire article, in which Lisa Palac said, “Degrade me when I ask you to” (emphasis mine). Women’s true desires may not make for perfect propaganda, but sex is justifiably complex. I may like to get spanked until I scream, but I still deserve to be treated as an intelligent human being. Submitting sexually doesn’t equal becoming a doormat outside the bedroom.

Yes, except this brand of “there’s nothing wrong with being abused” sexuality does kind of require you being a doormat with a vagina.

So, it doesn't matter if you are respected in the real world as a human being; once you cross the line into accepting or even tolerating such acts, you have fundamentally sinned into becoming a "doormat". Who's objectifying whom here???

OK....so this will have to take two posts for a proper fisking. Just hang on, and I'll finish this. I appreciate your patience.

[to be continued in next post]

The Smearing of "Lusty Lady" Rachel Kramer Bussel: or, When Sex Liberationists Become "Anti-Sex" Submissives

2006-07-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

It's bad enough that those of us who are sex radicals get whacked from the Christian Right and the usual conservatives as being beyond the pale....but what can you say when it is supposed liberals who simply can't get the idea in their heads that women can be free to make their own damn choices in matters of sexuality??

Case in point: Rachel Kramer Bussel's latest Lusty Lady column in the Village Voice titled "Fucking and Feminism", whereas she lays out the defense of the full program of sexual freedom and liberty for women from the attacks from the latest round of neoliberal feminists such as Ariel Levy (Female Chauvinist Pigs), Pauline Paul (Pornified), and Rabbi Slumbley Boteach (Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex). (Actually, Boteach is more of a wingnut Rightist than a feminist, but he was included in Rachel's column.) Some nice excerpts:

There's a world of difference between being branded a sex object and choosing to be one under certain circumstances. Recall Tad Friend's classic 1994 "do-me feminism" Esquire article, in which Lisa Palac said, "Degrade me when I ask you to" (emphasis mine). Women's true desires may not make for perfect propaganda, but sex is justifiably complex. I may like to get spanked until I scream, but I still deserve to be treated as an intelligent human being. Submitting sexually doesn't equal becoming a doormat outside the bedroom.

Men are also unfairly judged—as brutish horndogs selfishly out to get as much sex as they can. The truth is, they're confused and constrained by the "macho" role too. Recently, a man asked me whether wanting to get fucked up the ass by a woman was "normal." Men have plenty of desires that aren't sanctioned by popular culture, leaving them to wonder if any woman will embrace such kinks as men wearing women's panties, getting tied up, or being penetrated with a dildo. On the other hand, women often question whether our dirtiest dreams (especially those involving BDSM) make us unfit as future leaders.

Feminists are just like any other women, with a range of sexual desires and practices from doggy-style to bukkake, and it'd be a shame for us to hold back in a misguided attempt to live up to the legacies of Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem. We can choose to be celibate or to have someone come on our face. Having a full range of sexual options should be a high-priority feminist goal.

[...]

I encourage all men and women to make the sexual choices that are right for them, regardless of what's "cool." I can't tell you how to fuck. Instead of looking to gurus, activists, porn stars, and how-to books, you'd be better off looking inside, spending some quality time with your fingers around your cock or pressed against your clit figuring out what sets you off. Forget about the judgments of your friends and neighbors (who are probably just as wild in the sack as you are).

The feminist sex wars were largely fought before I was born, yet sadly, women continue to battle each other over what we do in bed, as if coming up with the most politically correct form of orgasm will automatically solve other inequities. I believe in advancing the cause of sexual freedom for everyone, by increasing our knowledge and offering room for fantasy and safe, nonjudgmental experimentation.

Sexual freedom is not the only, or the most pressing, issue facing American women today, but it's vital to any true feminist movement. Excoriating other women and berating them for a host of erotic sins creates unnecessary divisions and puts people on the defensive. No one has the right to tell you how to fuck.

Sounds reasonable and radical, and definitely pro-sex, you think???

Apparantly not to Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, who decided to drop her supposed "porn liberal feminist" cloak to attack RKB in one of her latest entries as a not-so-closet "submissive" who only want to liberate women to serve men. Indeed, Amanda derisively retitles Rachel's essay "I Really Like Being Submissive" to prove her supposed point that RBK is really, like apparently so many sex liberationists, just another sellout to THE MAN and his penis. Some ~~low~~highlights:

[...]

...[RKB's] thesis is that feminists need to quit telling other women that we’re hurting the feminist movement by having sex wrong, and her evidence is that Twisty trolled her own blog, that a non-feminist rabbi wrote a book where he argued that women’s sexual freedom is hurting us, and that Ariel Levy wrote a book criticizing the Girls Gone Wild trend (particularly those manifestations of it where girls seem to be doing stuff that has a whiff of being less than fully consensual). But this column is an example of how not to convince people that you’re a pro-sex radical feminist. For instance, this paragraph:

[from RKB's column] Feminists are just like any other women, with a range of sexual desires and practices from doggy-style to bukkake, and it’d be a shame for us to hold back in a misguided attempt to live up to the legacies of Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem. We can choose to be celibate or to have someone come on our face. Having a full range of sexual options should be a high-priority feminist goal.

The full range of sexual options, from her examples provided, appear to vary from sporting a patriarchy-approved purity ring to sex acts that are about men humiliating women. Awesome. I feel so empowered. I hate to sound like a sex-hating strawfeminist, but when coming up with a bona fide full range of options, I’d like to at least imagine that there’s women who aren’t religious nuts or sexually submissive might enjoy. And not to sound like a man-hater, but it seems a little more fair if the range of options involves women who are dominating as well as men who are. She does include examples of men who like to be humiliated in bed, too, but otherwise, despite her claims to sexual radicalism, she avoids the larger issue of whose sexuality is actually considered a threat in this society—you know, the non-submissive sluts of the world.

That's kinda interesting, since nowhere in RKB's essay does she even mention that she in fact is that submissive, nor does she explicitly say that submissiveness is the only desirable thing in sexual freedom for women. All Rachel says is that women should be allowed the full freedom to engage in consensual sexual acts that provide them with much pleasure, while still insisting on their rights to be respected as human beings. But I guess that for Amanda, only "non-submissivess" who follow her "porn liberal" feminist analysis should be allowed to engage in sex for pleasure; all others are simply tainted by male patriarchy, apparantly.

But wait...that's not all. Not satisfied with smearing Rachel's personal sex beliefs; Amanda goes on to fundamentally distort RKB's beliefs on so-called "rape fantasies" (actually, more like "ravishment" fantasies, because the woman only surrenders out of and recieves only pleasure rather than violence or injury as in real rape).

(From RBK)Sara DeKeuster is one of my heroines. In 2005, in The UWM Post, an independent student newspaper, she ran a photo essay exploring her rape fantasies. The uproar was instantaneous. One blogger, Kyle Duerstein, wrote (but later deleted), “Sara DeKeuster ought be[sic] raped today. And after that, she ought be [sic] raped tomorrow, by someone else . . . she might be killed by her attacker. Maybe then, she’ll get it, and if not, she’ll be dead, and the world will be a less f*$!ed up place.” The Women’s Resource Center claimed the spread created a “hostile campus” and was “an active act of harm.” In response, DeKeuster evoked Cindy Sherman: “I am not sorry for my art! It would be like saying I’m sorry for being a woman and that I like sex (or to be fucked rather).”

(Amanda's response) Very selective quotes from the Women’s Resource Center that make me wonder what the full statement said. But more interesting to me is that she uses for evidence of some sort of feminist anti-sex crusade a blog post from a young man who seems to have rape fantasies of his own. I would point out that men who really get all wound up imagining raping women is indeed something that we feminists are concerned about. But generally speaking, our main concern is the large numbers of men who actually act on the fantasies and go ahead and rape someone.

Funny, but I saw Duerstein's commentary as more typical of a radical feminist attack on DeKeuster for making public and acceptable such "rape fantasies" and encouraging and enabling men to actually rape women....hardly a thinly veiled desire to rape anyone. But, since Duerstein is a man, and men are innately, according to some radical feminist doctrine, compelled to rape and attack women, I guess that I could understand Amanda's conclusions. Of course, Rachel's point was NOT to even mention Duerstein, but to defend DeKuester's right to explore and speak openly about such fantasies, which many powerful women -- even feminists -- admit to having without any harm to their feminist credentials or any assaults by men. Nothing about dismissing the problems of real rape anywhere.

And the fact that Rachel doesn't include female-dominant/male submissive sex in her analysis does not translate into dismissal of those acts; what I got from Rachel's essay is that a full defense of sexual freedom requires an acceptance of ALL consensual and mutually pleasurable activities, whatever the personal taste or variety. Unfortunately, that tends to cut right across the general radical/liberal feminist goal of regulating and controlling sex that doesn't meet their standards of non-"patriarchial" purity....not to mention the personal dislikes of women who use feminist language to justify and sanction their own personal sexual myopias.

Oh, but the real charm comes in the ensuing comments to AM's column, where her sister and fella feminists are wating in the wings to pile on poor Rachel as a evil male submissive who is also -- get ready for this one -- "antisex and anti-women's sexuality". Witness this series of gems:

Amanda Marcotte Jul 16th, 2006 at 8:51 pm

PR, let me make it clear. She was thrashing a strawfeminist. And the reason is because she’s extremely defensive of something that she couldn’t even find feminists attacking. If she’s so damn proud of her sexual submissiveness, then why is she defending it against imaginary attacks from fake feminists? I think sexual submission is fine, and indeed completely understandable in a male dominated society. It’s not my thing, but I certainly get it. But if it’s no big deal, why is she defending it against attackers that she couldn’t even find?

I should write for the Village Voice. “I think women should be able to have orgasms and I don’t care what all these imaginary feminists say!”

And PR, you’re the one selectively editing, as I say in my post that she does include examples of men who like sexual submission, but while she takes the time to praise men who have non-male-dominated desires, she can’t bring herself to mention women who do. Some radical. Women like me don’t even fucking exist.

14 sophonisba Jul 16th, 2006 at 9:11 pm

but there very much are real, flesh-and-blood women who claim the label ‘feminist’ and do sometimes advance arguments that seem to be very anti-’some women’s sexuality’

Damn right. Women who write and talk as though the only interesting and edgy forms of sexual exploration are the ones involving female submission are both lying and doing harm. Women like that, like Rachel Kramer Bussel, are profoundly anti-sex and anti-women’s sexuality.

And although Amanda’s absolutely right about this being primarily a gesture of contempt and erasure towards women who like to do non-submissive sex, it’s also anti-submissive-women’s sexuality even as it pretends to be supportive of it. It’s really shitty to be unable to know if you really like what you think you do, which is what happens when the entirety of the popular discourse is trying to push you into liking it. The slutty/kinky=submissive model for women fucks up sex for all of us, including submissive women.

15 Amanda Marcotte
Jul 16th, 2006 at 9:27 pm

Thanks, soph. I think there’s a weird issue of people thinking that discussing sexuality will somehow de-magic it, but I don’t find that to be true. I think you can be thoughtful about how power is eroticized in our society without destroying your ability to enjoy your kink. In fact, I’d think a thoughtful approach to any kind of sexual experimentation makes it hotter, because you are capable of articulating your desires so much more when you actually think about them, where they come from, and how you can repackage them for your own pleasure.

I was so moved by this piling on to post a rejoinder to the Pandagon board defending Rachel, which I will not repost here; but considering such Orwellian nonsense as the previous comments (sexual freedom is "anti-sex"; opening up oppurtunities for women to safely experiment for themselves is "anti-women's sexuality" and "submission to men"...I guess that that means that Andrea Dworkin is truely a sex-positive, then??), I think that I will seperate myself from such "liberal feminists" from here on out. I just find it really sad that those who speak so passionately for women's rights and freedoms in all other areas are so tone-deaf and blind and so reactionary when it comes to respecting women's sexual choices.

Sometimes a blowjob is just a blowjob; and a bratwurst is not the same as a penis....and some women really do love sex and can still remain feminists. Although, if this shit keeps up, there might not be too many feminists -- or Leftists -- around.

P.S. -- Rachel has some followup to her VV column posted at her Lusty Lady blog here...just to show that not all feminists or women are so ignorant or dismissive. Feel free to check it out.

UPDATE (7-18-06): Amanda has since posted a rebuttal that clarifies her position on RKB's article; and I hate to admit it, but I may have been more than a bit harsh on her originally. She sounds now a lot more openminded than I first figured, and she even made some legitimate points about how some women are forced into doing acts that they may not like..which I can't argue against. As much as she maddens me sometimes, she is usually more right than wrong..and I do respect that. So, she's back on the positive side of the wall here....though I'm figuring that she'll go off and say something to rile me up again...lol

St. Tammany Sheriff to NOLA Black"Trash": Not In My Parish!! (or, Why David Duke Really Won)

2006-07-06T15:35:00.000-05:00

Oh, but y'all are going to love this....this fool happens to be the Sheriff of St. Tammany Parish just east of New Orleans, which suffered a lot of the brunt of Hurricane Katrina last year. You would think that he would have too much on his mind for tending to his own needs to worry about the suffering in New Orleans proper...but noooooooooooo; he has to riff to the New Orleans media (in this case, TV station WDSU) on the threat of "trash" and "thugs" invading his fair parish.

Just listen to this clip, and tell me that David Duke still doesn't have any pull here in Louisiana.

(From WDSU-TV via Crooks and Liars, also check out Pam Spaulding's blog.)

I especially liked the "Chee Wees" and "dreadlocks" smack, along with the threat of "a visit from one of my deputies"...,funny, don't most NO gangstas wear do rags these days???

I guess that Sheriff Strain would much prefer all the "trash" to be left in NOLA to be washed away clean by the next storm, ehhh??

He better have more than a few Black deputies, because if he doesn't, I will make my journeys down I-10 or I-12 eastbound as brief as possible. Such bigotry already killed Black folk before (see the Gretna/Jefferson Parish police blocking the Crescent City Connection from Black evacuees attempting to escape Camp Abu Gumbo (aka the Superdome) during the height of Katrina); I'd rather not be a casualty now.

It doesn't ever stop, does it???

Because I Just Can't Shut Up: A (Detailed) Response To Heart (P. 2)

2006-06-29T14:11:00.000-05:00

OK...I couldn't stop myself....I'll take Heart's post on word-for-word:

Don’t trivialize my hatred of pornography.

Whenever you stop trivializing my hatred of antiporn fascists dressed in "radical feminist" drag, dear.

Don’t mock or laugh at or dismiss my hatred of blow jobs.

Why shouldn't we....especially when you so impose your hatred on everyone else and call it "feminist theory"?? When you are so dismissive and callous of other women's experiences???

Don’t trivialize my rage against — and yes, hatred of — men who violate little girls and little boys and women, my daughters, my sons, my mother, my sisters, myself, with and by these these things.

As if what you are doing in convicting innocent men and women of crimes they didn't commit isn't doing the same damn thing??

And do not make me wrong. On other days, I’ll talk about other things. I may even talk about all the ways that patriarchy hurts men, too, because it does. But don’t tell me patriarchy-hurts-men-too is what I ought to be talking about today, thinking about today, when blow jobs and rape and pornography are on my mind, when they are what I want to talk about, after days and months and years and decades and centuries of nightmares and screaming and still, fearful, deadly silences. Don’t tell me other violences matter more. Don’t tell me other voices matter more. Don’t tell me other people matter more than me.

Don’t shut me up.

My goodness....so now people who attempt to offer a different view than Heart's madness are now merely attempting to "shut her up"??? And now, she has assumed for herself the powers of goddesses in universalizing her experience as encompassing ALL women for ALL time??? What freakin' arrogance is this???

If you haven’t had cock shoved down your throat until you gagged and vomited and bled and could not breathe, with ”bitch” and “cunt” and ”whore” ringing in your ears, then maybe you don’t understand.

Gee, Heart..you do know that women can resist unwanted fellatio, do you?? You see, there are these things we call "TEETH", that can do much damage to a man's penis if you just bite down....

If you haven’t been forced, under threat of beatings with fists and belts and sticks and hoses and hangers to arrange your body like the porn star in the movie arranges hers so a man can fuck you like the men in pornography fuck her, and every day and every night there’s a new threat and a new film and a new position and maybe a new beating, then maybe you don’t understand.

Oh, please....not even Linda Lovelace ever had to endure that kind of ordeal; she was merely beaten by her husband.

If men have not raped you, raped your daughters, raped your sons, raped your mother, your sister, your friends, and so that valley of desperation and grief and rage and wanting to die is unfamiliar territory, then maybe you don’t see men quite the way I see them.

Which, of course, makes your opinion of men far more legitimate than those who don't agree.....right, Heart??? After all, we all know that ALL men (especially the liberal/Left men who most oppose wiping out erections and porn and blowjobs from the face of the earth) inevitably gravitate to raping and murdering everyone and everything that moves, don't they??? All because of having a penis, I guess???

I won’t ask you to. No woman should be expected, or asked, or ordered, or even begged, to enter into that hell. It’s been forced upon us, forced upon us, enough of us, thousands and millions and billions of us throughout history. Thank god, some have been spared. Thank god, you have been spared.

Wait a minute...you mean that porn and blowjobs has been forced on BILLIONS of women throughout history?? And yet women still managed to survive and thrive??? I guess that the Patriarchy isn't so powerful after all, then??

And remember, all this began over whether or not blowjobs are innately antifeminist (or simply gross), and whether any woman who enjoys the act of fellatio for herself can remain a feminist.

I won’t ask you to go there with me. You don’t have to hold my hand. You don’t have to hold me.

But I’ll say this. Don’t trivialize what broke me. Don’t call my suffering trifling. Don’t chide me for my rage. Don’t say it’s no big deal or others have it worse or think about my privilege or what’s wrong with you, all the evil in the world, damn ungrateful bitch talkin’ about blow jobs, what the hell is wrong with her.

Oh, yeah...so now Heart's elevated herself and her "universal' female experience above that of Native Americans, Jews, antiracist activists, and Black and Brown people who have seen the same or even worse suffering (and I would think that as bad as rape is, being strung up with your testicles cut off isn't that pleasant, either). But, she's a "leftist" radical feminist who isn't a Klan-supporting racist, so appropriating their suffering and discrimination to serve her elitist cause is perfectly OK...I suppose.

That’s what he said to me. That’s what men say to us. That’s what they have always said to us while they choked us with cock or beat us with fists or seared our minds and bodies and spirits and souls with images and acts we can never, ever forget no matter how hard we try, dear god, no matter what we do to make it stop, no matter how much we drink, or what part we cut or pierce or tattoo, or how well we starve or eat ourselves into invisibility, or what god or goddess we pray to, or work for, no matter the drugs, the pills, weed, it’s there, it’s there, god help us it’s still there, it never ends, it never ends. They told us we should be glad we had a man/a father/a house/food, what’s wrong with you, bitch, it’s just a picture, it’s just a weapon, it’s just a cock, stupid slut. You’ve got it good, you whore. You’ve got it good.

That’s what men say to us.

And which men (or women) would that be, Heart??? The ones who simply say that some women can enjoy blowjobs for their own pleasure?? The ones that say that not all men become brutal rapists and pimps merely for masturbating to a woman having consensual sex with others (or pleasuring herself)??? The ones that do their best to improve the lives of such women trapped in such hell through such things as strengthing spousal abuse laws, divorce reform, improving the options for single women and working women, and at least educating men to understand that NO means NO??

Oh, but I forgot.....they are all MEN..and thus, by edict of the newly endorsed Goddess of St. Andrea through the readings of the Book of MacKinnon, they are to be castigated and swept aside now and forever as enemies of all women, heretowith!!! And any woman who dares to question this edict should be sentenced to reeducation by the Ministry of Radical Feminism so that they can understand and change their "false consciousness" and really see how their bodies are lying to them, and that mutual pleasure and negotiated power is merely just another tool of the Patriarchy to rule over women!!!

Don’t you say it. Don’t you say it.

Don’t tell me not to grieve. Don’t tell me not to rage. Don’t tell me not to scream. Don’t tell me what to feel or think, or how to go about mending my world, saving my own life.

Actually, Heart, you can grieve and rage and scream all you want; it's your blog.

But when you use your space to smear, slander, and falsely convict other women and men for crimes they never committed; and exploit your status as an abuse victim for shaming your critics and promoting an essentially male-baiting, sex-hating campaign to impose your fascistic views on others.....well, let's just say that WE won't be shut up, either.

But, since this probably will just go through your brain, Heart, I will, on behalf of all sex radical Leftist men who have never and will never rape or abuse anyone, simply conclude with this salute in kind to you and all your antiporn fascist "sisters":

(UN)FUCK. YOU.

Don't Shut ME Up, Either: An Response to Heart(less)

2006-06-29T12:57:00.000-05:00

Let me see now: so now anyone who disagrees with Heart's notion (that any woman who likes giving blowjobs to men) is essentially a dupe of "patriarchy" and only "shamed" to like such acts, and is now dissing ALL women who have been abused by men???

And, of course, since she is a victim of abuse, she (and by extension, all who think like her) now absolutely must be representative of ALL women, now and forever, and anyone -- even those who have experienced the same kind of abuse , but who happen to disagree with any connection with that abuse and consensual sex acts -- are now by own her edict attempting to "shut me up"????

Oh, whatever.

Bottom line, Heart: Your personal experiences are YOUR experiences, and no one else's, and no one will hold that against you. But when you use your experiences as darts to sling like cowpies at those who merely don't want to march in perfect step in your sex-hating, male-baiting, elitist, protofascist crusades, then we on the other side have an obligation to defend ourselves in kind.

You want your feelings to be respected?? Try respecting the feelings of others.

Otherwise, Heart....kindly kiss where the sun don't shine, and make like Dick Cheney.

I'll just stop here before I really get ignorant. I am THAT pissed.

Back To Life; Back To Reality...

2006-06-27T14:35:00.000-05:00

Leave it to Brownfeminpower of Women of Color Blog to tear off the shades and bring us back to reality....and what really matters.

But don't take my word for it; get your candy ass over there and witness it for yourself.

(Warning: Contains some graphic war images that may be upsetting...and probably NSFW.)

"Can I Get A Drug Test For Jabba The Fat-Ass Pigman???"

2006-06-27T11:10:00.000-05:00

Back in the salad days of Jim Rome's radio sports talk show, he used to have a feature where his regular callers ("affectionally" known as "Clones") would start their calls with a request for a "drug test" (thusly cueing up the sound of a toilet flushing) in tribute to whatever athlete or caller or whomever made a complete ass of him/herself at that very time. Ultimately, like most of his old schitick, Rome got bored and pulled the plug on this feature.

Not that I'm particularly a fan of drug tests anyway (and before you ask, Clones, I am not only drug-free, but also alcohol-free and tobacco-free, so I don't have anything to hide), but I'm thinking that a particular popular right-wing radio talk show host might be a prime candidate for a drug test....or two....or five. It's one thing to get caught doctor shopping for Oxycontin...but WTF is up with you on this one, Rush???

Cue the latest from the Rush Limbaugh Criminal Files (Courtesy of KTLA-TV via Americablog via Pandagon):

Rush Limbaugh Detained at Airport with Viagra

Associated Press

June 26, 2006, 8:05 PM PDT

Rush Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.

Customs officials found a prescription bottle labeled as Viagra in his luggage that didn't have Limbaugh's name on it, but that of two doctors, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

A doctor had prescribed the drug, but it was "labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes," Roy Black, Limbaugh's attorney, said in a statement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection examined the 55-year-old radio commentator's luggage after his private plane landed at the airport from the Dominican Republic, said Miller.

The matter was referred to the sheriff's office, whose investigators interviewed Limbaugh. According to Miller, Limbaugh said that the Viagra was for his use, and that he obtained it from his doctors.

Investigators confiscated the drugs, which treats erectile dysfunction, and Limbaugh was released without being charged.

The sheriff's office plans to file a report with the state attorney's office. Miller said it could be a second-degree misdemeanor violation.

Limbaugh reached a deal last month with prosecutors who had accused the conservative talk-show host of illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping painkiller prescriptions. Under the deal, the charge, commonly referred to as "doctor shopping," would be dismissed after 18 months if he continues to submit to random drug tests and treatment for his acknowledged addiction to painkillers.

(Needless to say, Keith Olbermann of the MSNBC program Countdown was the first to get all up in Rush's drawers on this latest faux pas; Crooks and Liars has the video segment here.)

Now..I'm sure that you are thinking the same as I am....WTF is a highly popular right-wing talk show host doing in the Dominican Republic with enough Viagra to create enough hardwood to refurbish the old Boston Garden?? What...is Daryn Kagan not hot enough for 'ya, Jabba???

Ahhhhh, but here's where the real rubber (which I assume Rush didn't use, he being so opposed in public to "safer sex") hits the...errrrr, road. Do a Google search using "Sex trade" and "Dominican Republic" and you will find at the top of the list this article from Wired.com:

The Web, Where 'Pimps' Roam Free

By Julia Scheeres Julia Scheeres Also by this reporter
2001-07-07 03:00:00.0

PUERTO PLATA, Dominican Republic -- A slow tourist season has hurt the T-shirt and coconut milk vendors in this scenic beach town, but it hasn't put a dent in the body business.

Evidence of the sex trade is everywhere as men in shorts and sandals duck into rent-by-the-hour "love motels" with Dominican women in bright dresses.

"There is always a demand for sex," said one Dominican prostitute as she lounged at one of the town's waterfront bars. "Men will always pay for it, especially in here ... where they can get anything they want at a discount."

Indeed, the Dominican Republic is one of the biggest sex tourism destinations in the world, thanks in part to Internet sites that extol the country as a "single man's paradise."

When Christopher Columbus sailed into the bay here in 1493, the sun's reflection on the ocean made the water dazzle like silver coins, so he called it Port Silver. Nowadays, Puerto Plata still dazzles millions of vacationers looking for turquoise reefs and palm-strewn white sand beaches.

But this sunny vacation mecca has a dark side: The area's thriving commercial sex industry has given it one of the highest HIV rates of any region in the country, according to the World Bank.

[...]

(See also this Wikipedia entry on "sex tourism".)

So, to update this so far: Apparantly, El Rushbo the Oxycontin Addict got a bit too horny this past weekend, and decided to blow off some steam with a weekend red-eye (via his private jet) to Hispaniola to get his rocks off...and to further enhance the experience, got his docs to string up a "prescription" of Viagra to get him through the weekend.

Problem is, the docs forgot to put his name on the freakin' bottle (apparantly for "privacy reasons", according to Rush's lawyer, Roy Black); and when he returned to Palm Beach after his adventure, he ran afoul of the US Customs Service, which discovered the prescripts during their normal search of individuals on return flights.

Uhhhhh...OOPS. That would be, if one of us regular folks...and did that, a Class 2 misdemeanor crime, subjected to fines and some jail time; not to mention a violation of the agreement that Limbaugh originally reached on the Oxy "doctor shopping" charges earlier.

Then again, Rushbo's not regular folk; and he'll probably find some way to beat this rap as well.

And you would think that his prime audience of Dittoheads would not be so thrilled with the hypocrisy of him taking his sex tour roadies while lecturing the rest of us about the absolutness of abstinence and sexual "modesty". You would think that..but from some of the responses of one particular Freeper site (freerepublic.com), you's be wrong: (from Pandagon, again):

Actual Freeper Quotes™
"No harrassment here! I wonder how many hollywood types get treated like this! Sue the pants off ‘em Rush!"

"This was leaked so that the MSM could ‘leak’ the fact that Limbaugh uses Viagra, and thus mock him for it. I would suspect that it will be hard for them to do so when he owns the CBS affiliate in Miami, as I suspect he soon will"

"[...] you can bet Rush is on a special watch list because of what he has gone thru. He most likely has been advised by his lawyer that he will be a target for searches and he probably had a letter from the doctor explaining why the meds were labled differntly. Someone leaked the story to embarass him. It’s no big deal to me but it will be a big deal to those who will ridicule for it. So what…it won’t cause people to not listen to him and if anything, it might cause people to have more sympathy for him as it shows the left will stoop to any level to destory a person."

"The libs cannot hide from the truth, so they harass those that expose their criminal, lying, cheating, Godless ways. Give ‘em Hell Rush!!!"

"To win the War On Drugs, some eggs must be broken."

"The sleazoid lib war on Limbaugh continues. Can you imagine the thermonuclear ‘privacy’ uproar if this kind of leaking of personal, confidential medical info was inflicted upon a liberal, say Pinch Sulzberger???? I’d guess that ol’ Pinch needs lots of viagra with his boy-toys, but if any CUSTOMS official ever leaked that info to the media we’d have a frickin’ constitutional crisis on our hands. The hypocrisy and double-standards of the libs never ceases to amaze me, even if it no longer surprises me."

(Pinch Sulzburger, incidentally, happens to be the owner of the New York Times; whom most Freepers would love to roast (literally) as the typical "left-wing elitist" who sells his country down the river for cheap thrills.)

Uhhhh, dewd in the last sentence...if the docs had simply placed Rush's name on the prescription, then he would have gotten off free and clear...but last time I checked, it was still illegal to possess non-OTC drugs without a prescription. (I believe that the charge is called "possession with intent to distribute"???) But I guess those laws should only apply to "liberals", shouldn't they??

Either way, I'm sure that Jabba's blowing it away (no pun) right now on the mike, as I type this; dismissing the brohaha as just another liberal/Left stunt to divert attention from the great appeasers and sellouts and traitorous Democrats who want to "cut and run" from total victory in Iraq, among other sins.

Right-wing sex freakery.....just like left-wing sex freakery, but more....you know, right-wing. Gotta love 'em.

Let's All Go To The Carnival...

2006-06-21T21:46:00.000-05:00

Just for your viewing pleasure, Bitch | Lab has announced that the 17th Carnival of Feminists is now up at her site.

All sorts of information and goodies for your brain...and that includes the two entries I referenced in my last post on the Feminist BJ Wars. (That would be Rachel's and Black Amazon's posts, BTW.)

And Miz B's not the only one throwing out beads of knowledge, either...Jay Sennett is hosting the second Erase Racism Carnival over at his blog, too. (Big ups to Kevin at Slant Truth for honing me in on that one.)

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: More BJ Kerfuffle Reaction

2006-06-21T11:26:00.000-05:00

As much as I would just love to put this really dead horse of The Great Feminist Blowjob Kerfuffle to rest once and for all....two wonderful essayists have decided to add their quarter's worth into the fray; and they are more than worth your attention, I should say:

1) Black Amazon brings fists and fire to smack down the pretentiousness of the anti-bj radfems:

[...]

You're not fucking cute and I'm not amused.

THe BJ brouhah is full of women who go its sex we shouldnt talk about it versus don't take it to seriously shes playing and radical feminism is teh act of

HORSESHIT

THIS IS RADICAL feminism. Heteronormative crtique, random asshattery, and patronizing oh ignore her calm downs.

My problem with this is wheere does this shit end , what is the point .

Oh wait they dont have one. This hasnt been about actually making headway or you kow fighting patriarchy its about one small section of women ONCE A FUCKING GAIN swearing on a stack of theory that an issue can be defined and isolated only using binary terms without any thought to PEOPLE while constantly attacking their PERSONAL choices. This debate was framed in the teh purpose of saying fuck you I can make you dance to a whole group of people while tellinga nother group that their fuck you was implied.

If you suck cock your oppressed and a tool. YEah but what do you want to do about it ? Or do you even care . Riiigh t. You jsut wnat to call us names and be on your way. WHats funny is what pepople got awya with up until THIS . When they came for the Communists...

RADICAL FEMINSIM HAS NO PLACE IN MY BED IF IT DOESNT CARE HOW I GET TO THE POINT OF MAKING IT.

(Excerpted from Having Read The Fine Print: You're not fucking cute and I'm not amused; Double-plus hat tip to Belledame)

2) "Lusty Lady" Rachel Kramer Bussel provides a more intellectual, but no less progressive, POV in her latest blog entry:

[...]

At its heart, not only is the sheer contempt for the very idea of blowjobs anti-male, anti-penis, and anti-sex, it’s judgmental and hypocritical. I agree that sex is political, but that doesn’t mean that there’s a superior way to have sex. Because if we’re gonna say blowjobs are inherently degrading, what’s empowering? Women topping men? I’d be very wary of making some kind of argument that picking up a paddle to whack a guy’s ass furthers feminism in any way, and would not want to be the guy on the receiving end of a “punishment” where he’s taking the rap for all of men’s bad behavior.

[...]

I am as loathe as the next person to further stereotypes, and I honestly don’t care about whether I’m considered “feminist enough” (or feminist at all) or not—we spend so much time playing word games when there’s real life going on—but it seems to me that if you see feminism as being a battle of women vs. men, then yes, anything that praises men or gives them pleasure might be seen as a negative. But if we step back a moment and realize how our highly judgmental sexual culture actually makes many people feel guilty, confused, and ashamed of their sexuality, we see that it’s not just women who are bombarded by messages about how to be sexual. Why I think there’s something to Tucker Max’s defense of being a “man’s man” is that I do see a trend where women are allowed to go on and on and on about our every sexual fantasy, but when guys do it it’s sleazy. But we can’t defend sex work and still be judgmental about those who patronize sex workers.

(Excerpts from Lusty Lady: Feminist blowjobs and other oxymorons)

A visit to both these blogs would be worth your time and effort.

"What 'Cha Gonna Do With All That Junk...": The Radfem Crusade Gets (Dip)Stickier

2006-06-19T17:51:00.000-05:00

Oh, WOW.....

So now, the Radicalfeminist Crusade against Patriarchial Sex has turned its wandering eyes to anal sex, I see. Get a load (no pun) of this analysis from P0ny (via Heart's Women's Spaces Blog), relayed through Bitch Lab in comments to my earlier edict:

didja know? anal sex is an invention of the patriarchy so they can fuck women without have to go near a vagina. already, men only want drive-by PV sex anyway. Oh hey, we can call it dipstick sex: in and out. They don't have to do that anymore. They can just bend you over, fuck ya, and feel pure b/c they never had to actually dip it in a pussy. LMAOROTF

Oh, yeah...so much for gay men and the "Bend Over Boyfriend" phonomena, I guess.

I believe that I'll pass on this one, thank you very much...since Miz B's rebuttal does the trick so much better.

Forget Net Neutrality (Please Don't); THIS Is Why We Should Save The Internet

2006-06-19T16:50:00.000-05:00

I thought that we were fighting to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Silly me.

Tip of the paw to Antiprincess of Paleofeminist.

Saudi women unveil opinions online

By Rasheed Abou-Alsamh, Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
Mon Jun 19, 4:00 AM ET

In this country where women are forced to completely cover themselves in public, are barred from driving, and need permission to travel abroad, it's small wonder many are embracing the freedom of anonymity on the Internet.

As Internet usage continues to climb here, so do the numbers of women who have started Web logs, or blogs, to express themselves in ways they might never do in public.

"I love blogging because it helps me to express myself and I like to write in English," says Farah Aziz, a translation student at King Saud University in Riyadh who started blogging in January 2005.

The content of Ms. Aziz's blog (http://farahssowaleef.blogspot.com), which chronicles the life of a college student, would probably do little to cause alarm among government censors. But other women bloggers are drawing the attention of the state as well conservative male bloggers who have taken to policing the Internet for bloggers acting in ways that they perceive as inappropriate according to Islam.

Saudi Eve, who regularly writes about her love life and religion, and who declined to be identified by her real name because of the sensitivity of the issue, woke up on June 2 to find that her blog (http://eveksa.blogspot.com) had been blocked.

"Back and blocked," she wrote on her blog on June 2. "I'm temporarily back in Saudi only to find that 'Saudi Eve is officially blocked in Saudi.' "

The closure of her site signals the beginning of a cyber battle between liberal Saudi bloggers and their more conservative counterparts.

Blogging under the name Green Tea (http://www.g-tea.com/), Riyadh law student Mohammed al-Mossaed recently formed a conservative group of Saudi bloggers called the Official Community of Saudi Arabian Bloggers (OCSAB). "I am not responsible for the blocking of any website," says Mr. Mossaed. "OCSAB also has nothing to do with it. Maybe [Saudi Eve] broke [the state's] rules by sometimes talking about God and sex."

Response and sympathy from fellow bloggers was swift, with many urging the Kingdom's Internet watchdog, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), to unblock the site.

Deeply conservative, Saudi Arabia is among the most restrictive countries in regard to Internet access in the world, with most traffic going through a central hub at KACST in Riyadh. The biggest number of sites blocked are pornographic sites, followed by sites that discuss drugs, religion, and terrorism. But KACST itself admits that it sometimes blocks benign sites by mistake.

"The blacklist we use is a combination of an international commercial blacklist and a local blacklist," says Mishaal Al-Kadhi, the head of KACST's Internet Service Unit, in a phone interview from Riyadh. "Ninety-five percent of blocked sites are pornographic. But we do make mistakes sometimes and urge people to e-mail us with their unblock requests."

Saudi Eve, who is in her late 20s, single, and often travels abroad on business, says she was singled out for being female and for daring to write about her love life and God in the same post.

"My blog wasn't blocked because I wrote about romantic escapades, for as you know there are so many blogs on the Internet – both Saudi and non-Saudi – that write/blog about 'romantic escapades' among other Saudi taboos but aren't being blocked in Saudi," she said an e-mail exchange.

"In my opinion, my blog was singled out and blocked because I – a Saudi female – wrote about romantic escapades in Arabic, plus I committed the 'ultimate sin' by mentioning the name of God in those posts," she explained. "To a Saudi male, romance is only allowed if written in English or by a male. It definitely isn't tolerated if it's written by a Saudi female, let alone in Arabic."

Saudi Eve is not the only blogger to feel the wrath of conservative bloggers. Aziz, too, has had her run-ins with OCSAB and Green Tea, saying that they have threatened her in comments left on her site.

"First, they say that a blog cannot disrespect Islam in any way in order for it to be included in OCSAB," says Aziz. "Second, they say that they don't accept blogs that are personal diaries, which is ridiculous as most blogs are just that."

Yet Aziz admitted that OSCAB's aim to spread the culture of blogging among Saudis was working, though perhaps not to her liking.

One female blogger (http://www.classic-diva.blogspot.com/) said that she was stopped from using the Internet at home for several months after her conservative brothers grew suspicious about why she was spending so much time online.

"I've been blogging since April 2005. It's a way to vent out my frustrations and to write," said Jo, who asked only that her first name be used. "My family knows that I have a site, but they don't have a concept of what blogging is."

Jo was forced to sneak out of her house to use the Internet at the house of friends or at a local Starbucks, and still has limited access to the Internet at home. She says that the blocking of Saudi Eve signals a battle that has already started between liberal and conservative bloggers in the Kingdom.

"We have this clash going on between us liberals and the conservatives in the blogosphere. I think that OCSAB is trying to scare us," says Jo.

For her part, Saudi Eve has not decided yet whether she will start a new blog to overcome being blocked in Saudi, or whether she will send KACST a request to unblock her site.

"I haven't decided yet whether to react to this block or just to ignore it. There are readers in the rest of the world you know!" she said in an e-mail shortly before leaving the kingdom on yet another business trip abroad.

Good thing that Riverbend of Baghdad Burning is actually in Iraq rather than Saudi Arabia, since she doesn't have to worry about right-wing fundamentalist censors..what with our liberating their country.

Oh, but not so fast, 'Dog...get a load of this newsflash from ABC News Online:

Iraqi Shia leaders demand sharia law

Senior leaders in Iraq's Shia Muslim community are demanding the country base its laws and new constitution on the principles of Islam.

The main Shia coalition is expected to be the biggest winner out of last month's national election.

A representative of one of Iraq's most powerful Shia leaders, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Fayad, has issued a statement demanding that the Koran be the reference point for all government legislation.

The statement says the national assembly should reject any law contrary to Islam.

A spokesman for the supreme leader of Iraq's Shia, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has told the French news agency AFP that he endorses the statement.

The US administration has reacted cautiously to the demands by the two Shiite leaders.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney says Iraqis will decide their own future.

"This is not going to be an Iraqi version of America, this is going to be Iraqi, it's going to be written by the Iraqis, for the Iraqis, implemented and executed by them, and it's absolutely essential that that be allowed to happen," he said.

Members of Iraq's minority Sunni community fear that the Shia want to see the country turned into an Iranian-style Islamic theocracy.

Hey, hold up a sec, Big Dick....ahhhh, I mean, Mr. Vice President, sir...wasn't one of the reasons we were fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan (well, other than revenge for 9/11 and control of their oil) was to liberate women from the extremes of such Sharia law???

And if so..then how come you aren't recommending the next big invasion to go to Saudi Arabia, rather than Iraq?? And...why aren't you using those forces we have right not to prevent Sistiani's thugs from imposing this theocracy on Sunnis (not to mention the women)??

Oh, I forgot...we're too busy torturing and killing innocent civilians and wiping out whole cities to worry ourselves with spreading some REAL democracy and freedom.

And what about this snooping in on private Internet exchanges and shutting down blogs because women might communicate with them??? Isn't that a bit contrary to conservative doctrine about government interference in private affairs???

Oh, I forgot, again....thanks to President Dubya, we need it for "national security".

And we gotta shut down those evil kiddie pornsters and those terrorists (more like, sexbot sluts, queers, and political opponents of "conservatives") before they become a threat to our divine rule...errrr, to American freedom!! What are 'ya, 'Dog, some kind of Commie fag-loving Moooooslim terrorist???

My guess is that the only opposition that our Christian Right has against this is one of jealousy that the Saudi censors beat them to the punch.

War on Terra?? Looks more like War on Women in my view.

When A Conservative Right-Wing Democrat Is Just A Conservative Plain Old Right-Wing (With Update)

2006-06-19T11:48:00.000-05:00

It was people like her who made me an Left Independent to begin with:

Blanco signs abortion ban into law

6/18/2006, 4:30 p.m. CT
The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed a strict anti-abortion ban into law and a group supporting abortion rights condemned the move as an example of "misplaced priorities of politicians in Louisiana."

The ban has no immediate effect — it will only take effect if the U.S. Constitution is amended to allow states to ban abortion or if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down its own 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that provides for a right to abortion.

Blanco signed the measure on Saturday. Planned Parenthood of Louisiana issued a statement saying the new law "endangers women's health by criminalizing abortion at a time when the state is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and scrambling to prepare for the start of the new hurricane season."

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, includes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. It would allow abortion only to save the life or the health of the mother.

Doctors found guilty of performing abortions under other circumstances would face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $100,000.

The law is similar to one passed in South Dakota earlier this year that is expected to land before the Supreme Court. A majority of the high court's nine justices has voted to uphold Roe v. Wade in the past.

Let's recap this, Clones:

The act was sponsored by a Democrat, passed in a majority Democratic legislature, and signed into law by a Democrat. It is just as strong as the bill signed in South Dakota which is designed as a trigger to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

So...will we be seeing mass protests from the usual women's groups on this law, and the restriction of women's basic reproductive choices??

Oh, but I forgot...Kathleen Blanco is a DEMOCRAT..and a woman to boot!!! We can't put basic principles above the need to keep women in power...and besides, the Republicans are so much worse!!!

Hey, Kos and the DLC: Is this the kind of "swing voter" Democrat that you want us to "compromise" with???

And they STILL can't make up their damn minds on rebuilding MardiGrasLand.....errrr, New Orleans, or adequately fund our crumbling infrastructure; or provide decent pay raises for teachers and their support staff.

Tell me again about how we have to stay in the party and win these people over, Dr. Dean.....please???

No thank you....I'd rather vote Green and Left than stay in a party that allows this shit.

--------------------------------------------------

Update: R. Francis R. (an Alexandria native) does the best job yet of analysis on the political background behind KittyBlank's (my new gloss for our current neo-Repub governor) betrayal of "progressive? values:

[....] None the less, it is a disturbing move. It reflects a rightward trend for a state that is already so far right that Democrats here would be a Republican in any other state. But Democrats in the state have been a buffer to the more extreme David Duke Lite Louisiana Republican Party. Our Republican US Senator once won the endorsement of David Duke, and our Democratic Senator brags about voting with George Bush the vast majority of the time. But the one thing that kept Louisiana Democrats from morphing from kissing-cousins of Louisiana Republicans into their monozygotic twin siblings, was the overwhelming Democratic constituency in New Orleans. Mary Landrieu, in 1996, won her Senate seat in Louisiana by a mere 10,000 votes, but won New Orleans with 87 percent of the vote. Without New Orleans, Mary Landrieu would never have been elected Senator. In these post-Katrina days, the Louisiana Democratic Party is suddenly recognizing that fact. They acted as if they didn't know that before with their complete neglect of New Orleans.

But now that New Orleans has lost nearly 300,000 of its citizens to the post-Katrina diaspora, the likes of Blanco have realized that without New Orleans there is little chance of being re-elected. So, now she moves rightward (it is hard to believe that someone so conservative needed to move rightward, but such is the case in increasingly white constituency of Louisiana). To be fair, Blanco never said she was pro-choice. But she was more than willing to allow Louisiana progressives to believe she would never sign a sweeping abortion ban into law. She never pretended to be liberal or particularly sympathetic with progressive causes--- she simply allowed us to believe she wouldn't offend us as terribly as right winger Bobby Jindal. But, now she has. And it doesn't matter to her. Blanco never presented herself as anyone with any clear convictions on anything; she just wanted to live in the governor's mansion. She clearly wants to live there another four years.

[...]

The New Louisiana Political Calculus is this--- with fewer African-Americans in the state, Louisianian Democrats can rid themselves of the stigma of being the "black party" or the "New Orleans party". They can now be the white-lite party. Blanco sees this and will now free the Louisiana Democratic Party of any semblance of owing anything to those scalawags [sic] progressives.

(Excerpts from Truth, Justice, and the Progressive Way: Blanco Understands New Louisiana Political Calculus; click on link for full article)

Simply another case of how "lesser evil" candidates merely lead to greater evil than ever....and yet another signal that the post-Clinton (White) Democratic Party of the South will be far closer to David Duke and Jim Rarick (former John Birchite who was a pro-segregationist Congressman during the 60's) than to the delusions of the Daily Kos/Jim Hightower liberal populist crowd.

Makes me glad that I dumped this party 20 years ago.

The Feminist Fellatio Kerfluffle. Part Deux: A Defense Of The Lonely Hummer

2006-06-18T20:11:00.000-05:00

OK...enough dilly-dalling. Here's my one-time only thoughts and reflections on the debate on the feminist qualification of the lowly blowjob.

Now...my perspective may be a bit different from that of the ladies who contributed to the smackdowns, beatdowns, and throwdowns that took place throughout the feminist blogosphere, since I happen to be a man with a dick that, for all I know, still works well. That, as well as my stated position as a long time pro-sex radical and a fan of sexy, intellegent women who don't mind giving and recieving sexual pleasure, puts me from the very beginning in the camp of the pro-fellatio crowd. This isn't just because I stand to benefit from the prospect of more women not only doing fellatio, but learning how to do it wel enough to give metheir partners much pleasure....and hopefully, they will reciprocate and return that pleasure back, too.

But even if they don't, I simply don't see the point why a woman who likes giving blowjobs should be treated like she is iliciting rape. It's still her body and her decision, and her choice...and last time I read my Feminism 101 handbook, feminism was about allowing a woman the full option of freedom to express herself in any way she seems fit, without censure from men or other women, as long as there is mutual respect and mutual consent.

But...you ask, "But...but...but, SmackDog (or Anthony..I'm not afraid to out myself)...what about the notion of fellatio amounting to meek acceptance of patriarchy and male rule over women??? Certainly Twisty has a point that feminists should oppose male oppression in all its forms, and if men forcing fellatio on women against their will is a part of patriarchy, then shouldn't we be able to condemn it as a political act without condemning the women for enjoying it??"

Well, You...because I am a sympathizer of feminism, I will cede that point....but only to a point. Yes, there is such a thing as "patriarchy", it is the ideology which states that men should have greater power and resources than women, and that men should use that power to dictate to women what is good, bad, or indifferent. Yes, there are jackass men who abuse that power to impose stuff on individual women that they simply do not want. And HELL yes, women should NOT be required to give hummers to their significant others, or friends, or lovers , or even their husbands, if they are not in the mood for it. That is plain, simple, common-ass sense.

How Eva.....there is a point to which women have to be given the right of free will and consent and the ability to make decisions for themselves without censure....and if a woman actualy likes giving blowjobs to men she trusts, and if the men do treat such a woman with the respect she deserves as a full human being, then that's where the patriarchy smack ends.

Yes, Twisty, Heart, Ginmar, Professor MacKinnon, Elinor, Ms. Levy, Sam, and all you other radicalfeminists out there, you can tune me out and scream "Penis!!!" all you will; but the fact remains that "teh Patriarchy" is not so closed and so overwhelming here in these United States of America (at least, not yet) that women aren't free to make some choices and have them respected. Even choices to have sex with men. As much as some of us may do their best to prove your theories of male rapicity to be true, the overwhelming majority of men, in spite of being granted putative such powers by you to abuse women as a class, politely refuse to take up that offer and do their best to treat women with the utmost respect....even as we do admit to wanting to undress and fuck you in our minds. (At least...most of you.)

Now when a man crosses the line and forces his sexual choices on you against your will, then he is no longer merely a consenting horny guy, he is an attempted sexual harrasser; and if he goes to attempt to lay a hand on you against your stated wishes, then he becomes an attempted rapist; in which you now have my full permission and approval (like you need it) to crack his skull open, kneecap him in the balls, call the police, and/or report his sorry ass. No man with an ounce of decency or a working brain cell will ever deny that right, which has been won by feminists (including the radicalfeminists) with honor and blood and tears; and those who do are the ones who are truly deserving of the scorn and disgust and loathing....and if they happen to be in positions of power, the system that keeps them in positions of power deserves some criticism and reform, if not replacement by a better system that doesn't allow miscreants and misogynists to gain such powers to begin with. THAT. sistas, is the kind of feminism I am proud to be acquainted with and will support to the death.

Compare that, however, to the kind of "feminism" that allows the likes of Twisty Faster to mock, ridicule, and humiliate those who don't share her core views that women who merely like sex with men (or who consume pornography, or who engage in some form of consensual power play or BDSM, or those transgendered people who's only fault is being biologically born with the features of both genders in a world that doesn't allow them the decency to live with what God(dess) gave them) should be rounded up and shipped to the nearest radicalfeminist reeducation camp for "false consciousness"...and their feminist credentials thusly revoked for violating the cardinal laws of the Ten Commandments of Radicalfeminism, as assigned by Duh Goddess Andrea Dworkin (may she finally rest in peace), as passed along by the edicts of St. Catherine II (aka Professor Catherine MacKinnon) through her illustrious cardinals of Duh Faith (Shelia Jeffreys, Ann Simonton, Dorcheen Leidholdt, Judith Bath-Ada [aka Judith Reisman], to name a few).

To justify this entrapment and ambush as simply an attempt to merely "stir things up" or to further the analysis for a "political critique of fellatio" simply will not wash with me. And moaning and gripping that antiporn/radfem analysis is stifled and "censored" and intimidated into submission by the evil forces of Duh Patriarchy which control everything, including and especially "liberal feminism" does nothing to prove your case, either; it simply shows your desparation at reaching for strawpeople to justify putting down real people...and other feminists.

Finally, spending all this time on debating the feminist correctness of giving fellatio is not just a useless waste of resources at a time when basic freedoms for women are under such severe attack (Louisiana just passed another "no exceptions" antiabortion law, becoming the 5th state to do so since South Dakota started the trend); it plays directly into the hands of the forces of darkness and reaction who would certainly love to see feminist women rustle with each other rather than with them. Yes, there are times, as R. Mildred opined, that thrashing out opinions and discussions are good for social movements, and certainly the debate has been entertaining to say the least. But...if there is one thing that makes progressive movements progressive and not just a fake copy of the Right, it is the principle of accepting equality and free will, and mutual respect for the free choices of everyone..whether male of female, Black, White, Brown, yellow, or red (or any shade inbetween; gay, straight, bi. lesbian, male, female, transgendered, polysexual, asexual, or whatever your sexual preference may be. When a group of people calling themselves "progressives" and "radicals" use the label of "feminist" (or any other progressive label, for that matter) as a wedge to overpower and condemn others who don't follow their narrow, totalitarian agenda, and to impose a putatively restrictive, reactionary, and erotophobic agenda that is more appropriate for the Christian Right....then those genuine progressive feminists and progressives and radicals have an obligation to speak openly and loudly against such without fear.

The power is not in the erect dick, ladies. The power is in the institutions that allow the man with the erect dick (and those without erections, too) to ignore his partner's will. Rather than moan and bee-yatch about women who love sucking that dick, save your energy and change the overall system or build a better one.

Besides...if women can complain about men forcing fellatio on then; what can they say about men complaining equally hard about being forced to perform cullingus???
If the gander can complain, why can't the goose???

Oh..but the radfems will find a way to condemn men who like giving head to women, I suppose...they will say that the resulting pleasure binds women to support patriarchy..thus men who acede to eating out women are still just as oppressive as men imposing hummers!!!

Oh, well...you can't please everyone. Better to take the pleasures you can while the getting's good....and to hell with those who would lay pretensious guilt trips on you for that!!

To the women who willingly give pleasure to their male partners, I say, May Goddess bless all of you...and may your lucky partners always return the favor.

And to those women who screech "Patriarchy" at them, I will only say this: "Bite me." (On second thoughts, please don't.)

C'est finis on that one. (Whew!) We now return you to our regularly scheduled smackfest, already in progress...

We Interrupt This Diatribe To Bring You....Joe Lieberman Bears All

2006-06-18T12:21:00.000-05:00

I promise, I promise.....I will get to Part 2 of my thoughts on the Great Feminist Blowjob Wars momentarily..but in the internim, get a load of the latest crapola that Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman (HDIC*) is throwing at his Democratic primary opponent, Ned Lamont:

If the Flash player doesn't show up, here's a link to the actual ad (using YourTube):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jDn4McAXr4

Yep, you Connecticutians are right...that's similar to an "Bear Cub" ad that Lieberman used against incumbent liberal Republican Lowell Weicker to gain the seat to begin with in 1988. Apparantly, this is in response to Weicker endorsing Lamont's campaign to topple Fighting (for the GOP) Joe in the Dem primary come August 6.

I don't know what's funnier: The sixth-grade quality of the actual ad; or the balls of steel that Fightin' (for the GOP) Joe must have in attacking Lamont as a Republican plant...especialy considering Lieberman's proven record of aisle crossing and ass-kissing for Dubya and the GOP!!

Also, this ad was released just after Lamont pledged to be a good Democrat and support Lieberman if he managed to win the Democratic primary. By contrast, Lieberman has been dropping not so subtle hints that if he loses the primary, he would still run as an "independent" (polls are saying that if he did, he would still beat Lamont and Weicker, who is running by default as the Republican candidate).

And, to further the inanity of it all...the chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC), Senator Chuck Schumer (NY) has already pledged that even if Lieberman does go "independent", the DSCC would continue to support and finance his campaign...his GOP crossovers included. (No word on whether the DSCC would do similarly with Lamont.)

Yup....this is the Democratic Party that we are supposed to trust as the opposition to the Republicans. Why am I freakin' surprised...or not???

Memo to Ned Lamont: Please kick Lieberman's ASS....and then, please run as an REAL Independent and stick it to the DLC and DINOs, too.

NOTE on the Gloss:

DINO = Democrat In Name Only (used to describe your typical DLC/Dixiecrat who flaunts his Democrat label while voting with right-wing Republicans most of the time)

HDIC = Head DINO In Charge (used similarly as HNIC (Head Negro In Charge; preferably pronounced with the acronym "H-Dick"....LOL

The Feminist Fellatio Kerfluffle

2006-06-17T19:53:00.000-05:00

You know why West Texas is so windy?? 'Cuz the East sucks; while the West blows." -- (From a bumper sticker seen by me on I-10 going towards El Paso around 10 years back)

Ahhhh...nothing like a thermonuclear debate to start the weekend, no??

I'm sure by now that you have heard of the Cat 3 hurricane of a debate that was formed yesterday over the not-so-warm oasis of Twisty Faster's I Blame The Patriarchy blog over her personal disgust of blowjobs, as well as her belief that any woman liking such action is inherently a slave of Teh Patriarchy and should turn in her feminist card right away. Well, by this morning, Hurricane Hummergate had exploded into a certified dangerous storm, tearing a course through the feminist blogosphere, ripping apart presumptions and assumptions of unity and peaceful harmony amongst women....and all that because Twisty just got bored and wanted to stir stuff up.

Now, not being a woman and not having experienced the joys of a blowjob (not even a bad one), I'd normally not be one to intervene and offer my sympathetic voice in this debate amongst feminists. Being a sex-pos radical who believes in women's right of free will and choice, and her unmitigated right to seek and give consensual pleasure, on the other hand, I admit to be fascinated and amused by this not-so-small rumble.

For those who care and those who missed the fireworks, here's a summary:

1) Twisty, feeling bored and her occasional need to stir the pot, posts a screed about the absolute horror of blowjobs as a tool of Teh Patriarchy; she goes on and on about why any feminist or any self-respecting woman would dare resort to such a "fucking gross", disgusting, yucky thing as to put a "funk-filled bratwurst" in her mouth. She opens her blog for those who do hummers to defend themselves.

2) Several prominent feminist women take up Twisty's challenge and defend their right to be feminists while liking bj's, saying that their personal enjoyment of such activity should not affect at all their beliefs as feminists. A few even portray their particular skills at giving head as "liberating".

3) This really pisses off Twisty, who decides in her follow up post to tear the bj supporters new ones, essentially labeling them as slaves to Teh Patriarchy who are allowing their clits to get in the way of their ultimate submission to Teh MAN. And then, as a means of backing up her crusade, she does the seemingly impossible task of trolling her own blog (using the pseudomym Poffin) to declare that since bj's are automatically degrading and obscene and the ultimate surrender to TEH MAN, any woman who should dare defend her right to give fellatio is merely a "patriarchial sexbot" who should be retrained in rightful radicalfeminist education.

4) The debate explodes from there, with Twisty getting backup from other radfem stalwarts like Ginmar, Sam (remember her from the Stan Goff blog trashing of Nina Hartley???), and "Poffin"; and other feminists recoiling in disgust to Twisty's bait-and-switch antics.

5) Meanwhile....Amanda Marcotte -- self described "porn liberal" -- decides to make an attempt to square the circle and defend Twisty's antics while sympathizing with fellatio fans in a series of posts at her Pandagon site. Don't blame her for stirring shit up, sayeth Amanda, and besides, she does have a legit point about patriarchy controlling women's decisions. After all, all choice is an illusion in a society where men oppress women. That creates another firestorm there, which consumes three threads of the same debate.

Most of the response of the pro-fellatio crowd has ranged from general missives in defense of the act to the simple retort of "Blow me, beeyatch, I am my own woman and do not need your fucking permission to choose my sexuality." On the other hand, there are the more rounded and theoretical responses (see the irrepressible Bitch Lab for a nice, long deconstruction/personal narrative). For this sexrad feminist 'Dog, however, this debate reveals far more why radicalfeminism as a ideology is so late and so far short when it comes to reducing human sexuality to the essense of male rapicity and female weakness/submission.

In Part 2 of this thread; I'll elaborate a bit more. Just watch this space....

UPDATE: Oh, this is great...Heart of Women's Space decides to get her licks in (no pun) in in support of Twisty, moaning about how outnumbered the "antis" are, and how it's really all about genuine feminists challenging male supremacy. Right....and transsexuals really are men invading women's space, ehhh???

Like I said, my rebuttal to all this is forthcoming.

An Open Letter to the Krewe of The Biting Beaver (Or: How NOT To Send The Sex Police After Bad Google Searches)

2006-06-15T15:58:00.000-05:00

To BB, Dim, and/or Dubhe:

Iim sure that given my status as Public Enemy #1 for being an frequent critic of your basic philosophy of men being innate penis-wielding predators and women and children their eternal victims, you will probably ignore this letter (and more than likely, I won't be able to send it to your blog anyway due to your stated policy of not allowing opponents or critics of yours to enter comments)...but, since it is my blog and I really do want to elicit some kind of actual discussion across the feminist continuum, I will throw this out just for the sake of enlightenment.

You see, I'm a bit confused about a lot of things about you..but this recent notion of yours that somehow a Google search using a certain combination of words reflects not just a desire to consume child pornography (and I mean by that term explicit sexual media depicting children in obviously sexual situations), but a premonition to actually molest and abuse children..and thusly justifies reporting such interlopers to the proper authorities for prosecution.

For starters, you do understand, do you, that most Internet purveyors do not need or desire to search for the kind of material that you are so exercised about, since there is plenty of ADULT sexual material (that is, material depicting willing and able consenting ADULTS having lustful sex)...so the "sick fucks" who may be making these searches may constitute a rather small minority of Internet searches??? Oh, but I forgot...since it is your stated policy over at the Biting Beaver that the mere consumption of adult-oriented sexually explicit material and media should be prosecutable because even adult consensual porn is considered harmful due to its "degrading" and "objectifying" effects on women, and because it is a gateway to all sorts of horrible acts, up to and including sexual abuse of children....there's really no need to distinguish between adult searches and "kiddie porn", now is there??

Secondly, you are aware of the recent technological advances such as "spy bots", which are machines used by sex spammers to automatic comb through search engines and thus drive the relevant spam through unsolicited to certain customers, are you?? That would mean that many of those evil "searches" for those dirty words are in fact not done by people but by machines...and that would kinda weaken your argument a bit, now wouldn't it???

And I won't even begin to question the issue of using the power of the Federal government (one of the main tools of the PATRIARCHY, mind you) to attack people for their mere THOUGHTS, rather than their actions in actually abusing children.

But the most confusing thing about this, guys and womyns, is that you reserve yourselves the right as experts in the field, while simply dismissing genuine critics of your crusade as "pro-kiddie-porn feminists"..even going to the expense of distorting their views. Case in point: This (admittedly fervent) criticism done by my colleague K. at Bitch Lab on the nature of reporting Google searches to the authorities:

Sorry, but whatever someone may be typing in to their favorite search engine doesn’t rise to the level of investigation by some idiotic organization, asshole. Really, this kind of shit is such crypto [struck in original, replaced with] proto-fascist bullshit it makes me want to scream.

Whatever, uh, respect I may have had for this person just evaporated — not to mention she’s a fucking beanbraned tool for buying into whatever bullshit she read at some Web site. Patriarchy schmatriarchy. Fucking neo-con b.s. is what it is.

Here’s a clue [epithet struck in original] :) errrrr BeebDim, you can’t hunt down an individual on this basis, and to do so violates so many of our rights as citizens that you should be ashamed of yourself for fucking buying into it. Not to mention the number of people who can simply scam the whole system with anonymizing tools, etc.

Bitch Lab: Sick (Feb. 12, 2006 entry (excerpted)

I will just ignore the reaction and the comments that were generated there, particularly the personal attacks by your ally Ginmar, which were particularly interesting for avoiding the main issue of K's objection.

Fast forward to yesterday, when Dubhe decided to post to the BB blog an update to their crusade, refering obliquely to B|L's critique as a "feminist who is 'pro-kiddie-porn'" and adding this paragraph:

The ones involving children have all been reported to that nasty "crypto-fascist organization"* known as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Thanks,
Dubhe
*(and yes, that's a direct quote from a feminist who is also pro-kiddie-porn)

Now...if I remember B|L's original post at her blog, there was no mention of the NCMEC anywhere at all, nor did she ever refer to anyone but Dim and BB as "crypto-fascist" (indeed, she struck down the "crypto" part and changed it to "protofascist", even). Actually, the organization that BB originally wanted to turn in the miscreants in to was a site called Cybertipline, not the NCMEC.

I guess that I should say that when another blogger named Antiprincess of the Paleofeminist blog pointed out that error, Dubhe did have the decency to print an apology and a partial "retraction" and revise that previous comment above. But even that "retraction" contained a backhanded attack on B|L that attempted to smear her almost as harshly as the original:

I also stand corrected on the point of the comments thread. Although I still wonder about what a person thinks of child porn if that person thinks reporting child porn is cryptoproto facist and the organization that would investigate it is idiotic.

(Comment in Paleofeminist thread located here)

Question for Duhle: Are you blind or what??? B|L never even mentioned child porn, just your quest to report people for their website searches. Merely going on a search using certain words is no proof whatsoever of any connection with child porn, nor should it mark the sercher as automatically a pedophile. And you haaave heard of the presumption of "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law"??? Or the idea that people should be prosecuted for their ACTIONS, not their THOUGHTS???

And you should know that while the NCMEC itself does not deal with child porn explicitly, some of their chief spokesmen have openly and enthusiastically supported efforts to censor adult-oriented sexual material and target adults who consume and posess such material as innately "exploitatve" to children. One of the NCMEC's main spokesmen, Charles Taylor, current sits atop the Justice Department's Obscenity Task Force...and he has opinly opined that even softcore depictions of simulated sex is innately prosecutable under obscenity law as "harmful to children" and leading to sexual abuse of children. So perhaps even the original remark might not be so extreme after all.

All of this is so unbecoming of you, Dubhe, since you appear to at least have some respect for opponents (unlike Dim of BB, who simply dismiss them as enablers of the evil male penis); at least you acknowledged Bitch |Lab as a feminist while you smeared her, which is more than I can say of the others.

Bottom line here, in conclusion: If you are going to attempt to ilicit a debate with others on the hot button issue of child sexual abuse, you might want to use a bit more accuracy and a tad more common sense than you have thusly portrayed....and it would be a good idea as well to think a bit before you strike down your critics. You don't have to agree with them in the end, but at least interpret them in the correct and respectful way they deserve.

Like I said, I may by blowing into the wind on this one, but never say that I didn't try.

Thanks,
Anthony

UPDATE: Here's the revised version of the above post:

*(and yes, that's a direct quote from a feminist who, while emphatically not pro-kiddie-porn, believes that reporting someone being an accessory to child rape to law enforcement is "cryptoproto facist bullshit".)

Nice "retraction" there, Dubhe...Karl Rove might have a job for you in the future.

UPDATE #2: Surprise, surprise, surprise!!!! Turns out that Dubhe is really Dim under a pseudonym. Nice going....being a shill and a sexual McCarthyite isn't enough for you?? I thought that hiding behind a pseudonym while shoveling poop at critics wasn't your style, ehhh?

($10 and a tip of the hat to antiprincess for that breakin story.)

Breaking News: Rove Beats Rap; Liberals Get Punk'd..Again

2006-06-13T10:18:00.000-05:00

Well...so much for the liberal blogosphere's "Fitz-Mas" fantasies.

USA TODAY: Rove Won't Be Charged In CIA Case

So much as well for Jason Leopold and truthout.com's fiction of a "Sealed vs. Sealed" indictment, too....they just got punked by another classic Rove disinformation campaign.

But what did they expect...after all, Fitzgerald is still a conservative Republican, and Rove still has a great deal of power, even without his White House policy position.

My guess is that all the drama over a Rove indictment was just smoke and mirrors to solidify the case against Scooter Libby (and perhaps grease the wheels for indictments against other lower levels)...Rove (and by extension, Dick Cheney) were never really serious targets at all, contrary to rumor.

Congratulations, liberals...you just got owned. Again.

Combined with the Democrats' cave in and the death of Zarqawi, this all but cinches continued Republican control of Congress for the next two years..and perhaps beyond.

Maybe now we can discuss some REAL alternatives now??? Like, say, a REAL Left movement that speaks to REAL people???

Too much to ask, I'm afraid.

'Ye Ole Fantasy Meme

2006-06-02T00:16:00.000-05:00

Usually, I tend to keep my personal fantasies really personal.....but since Kevin at Slant Truth and Progressive Bloggers Kick Ass dropped the meme on me; I guess that I can do some revealing. So, here I go:

1. Are you in them? Or do you fantasize about other people without your being present? If you are in them, is it as participant or just spectator? If you are in them, are you truly yourself or different from yourself?

Generally a delightful mix....usually with me more watching other people watch, then participate; then, if all things turn out, I get to participate, too.

2. Do you fantasize another person’s point of view, desires and thoughts?

Certainly...since I tend toward the "slut goddess" point of view, I usually fantasize towards that perspective of a woman who just loooooooovvvessss her some sex, and isn't afraid to follow her nether regions. Of course, I can also play the "prey" of the hunter as well.

3. Is there a narrative, set-up, story? Or just a scene, without history or future?

I tend to rather favor some form of a set up to my fantasies; not too much so that the good stuff is delayed, but just enough for background.

4. Is there a sequence of events, or just images? If there is a temporal sequence, do you proceed neatly chronologically or with analepsis (flashback) and prolepsis (flashforward)?

I can go either with the sequential or the temporal...as long as I and my (s)heros get off early and often, it matters little with format.

5. Is there dialogue? Narration? Do words matter? Do you describe the fantasy to yourself in words as you have it?

I prefer some dialogue, and even some narration from the "slut goddess" POV, as I said before.

6. If you were to write down a typical fantasy, how long would the text be?

I would say probably around two to three pages...about the size of your typical erotic fiction fantasy story.

7. If you are in your fantasies, are you predominantly desired or desiring?

Given the overwhelming beauty of my goddesses, I'm more than likely desiring..but I wouldn't mind being desired as well.

8. Does atmosphere matter? How much detail - clothes, setting, room temperature?

Yes, indeed, the overall atmosphere matters much; comfort for all is a must. And the right clothing can be quite as erotic...especially when they fall to the floor.

9. Is there music in your fantasies?

If it fits the mood, yes.....otherwise, I prefer the natural music of enthusiastic orgasms.

10. Are there aromas in your fantasies?

I don't mind many scents and fragrances at the beginning...but ultimately all must yield to the aroma of natural sex.

---------------------------------------------

I could have gotten a bit more explicit..but not here.

OK...time to pass the baton on. 'Yo....Belledame, Lis, Doc Suzy .....where 'ya at??? ;-)

The Duke Rape Case: The Pile of Crap Grows Ever Higher

2006-06-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

Oh, this is just great (not really)...just when I think that I can get away from the ongoing case of the alleged assault at Duke University, I hear this:

It seems that there is an ongoing campaign afoot by defenders of the alleged rapists and the Duke men's lacrosse team (or probably just racist crackerhead wingnuts fresh off the droppings of Little Green Footballs or Free Republic or whatever neo-fascist KKK-like meeting place they sqirm from) to invade progressive blogs (especially blogs hosted by women of color or feminists) to shut down and completely distort discussion of the case; and to continually slander and villify the working-class Black accuser as a nut, a slut, a liar, and a anti-White racist who apparantly made her story up just to spite the good, clean, hardworking White players.

In an earlier post here I pointed out their little trolling campaign..but now it has gotten so much worse that entire threads have been taken over by these fools.

Case in point: Samhita of the blog Feministing posted an update on the Duke case, featuring the pathetic sight of the Duke women's lacrosse team deciding to show "solidarity" for their "fallen brothers" by wearing sweatbands marked "INNOCENT" for their playoff game against Northwestern University this past week. (They ended up losing anyway, FWIW.) For background, here's Samhita's full entry:

As if yesterday's post on the asshats that were dressed like Duke lacrosse players at Beta Breakers chanting "No means yes," was not enough, this just troubles me so much further. The women's lacrosse team of Duke is planning on wearing bracelets saying, "innocent" in their game against Northwestern. The complex system of issues this brings up for me is profound, but when it comes down to it, all I can think is how stupid of them. This is indeed the type of solidarity that often makes our culture intolerable for me.

via AP (via MSNBC.com).

In a show of solidarity with the Duke University men’s lacrosse team, members of the school’s women’s team plan to wear sweatbands with the word “Innocent” written on them.

The university canceled the rest of the season for the highly ranked men’s team because of a woman’s complaint she was raped in March at a team party where she had been hired to strip.

The women’s plan to wear sweatbands on their arms or legs was reported Wednesday by The Herald-Sun of Durham. The teams plays Northwestern in the NCAA semifinals Friday.

The university has no objection to this, but you know damn well if they were wearing armbands reading, "Kill those Nazi rapists," they would. But really, this is not only an example of how (white in this case) women are complicit in their own oppression but also involved in the silencing and vicitimization of women of color. I mean they are making themselves look so stupid to stand in solidarity with accused rapists. Have gender relations in upper middle class white world shifted such a small bit? I mean really?

Would David Usher tell us this is an example of feminism "taking over" Duke? My head spins in horror.

Almost immediately, the thread was invaded by the usual brand of rightie-Whitey trollsters brandishing the usual array of smears at the accuser, her attorneys, and anyone not believing in the total innocence of the men and the total evilness of the accuser and all who defend her right to redress.

Here's a nice sample of some of their commentary:

"Has anyone been convicted yet? No? Then stop whining.

What they're doing isn't baout issues of race or gender, but that they want to support their fellow teammates if they believe they're innocent. What they're doing is no worse than what you're doing saying "It's only because she's black and a woman! Because she's so oppressed, she'd never lie!" and wearing an armband saying 'guilty'...." -- Zaij

[...]

"You dont feel the least bit ashamed for using this case to perpetuate your anti-white agenda? They probably don't think much off the womens colour, but nice of you to make white people sound like a bunch of racists,all white team hey???? It is surprising to hear it said about women.

You dont think it is the press cashing in on the race story and you lapping it up?"
-- hujo

[...]

"I hope if I were ever accused of a crime, and the evidence was overwhelmingly in my favor, that my friends would stand in solidarity with me. Do you put your political agenda above your friends? If so, I guess we define “friendship” differently (also “accused”).

Did it occur to you that the women’s team might think the accused ARE innocent? Did it occur to you that the accused might BE innocent?

BTW, you forgot to trash the parents of the accused for standing behind their children in direct opposition to your politics. They are obviously racist and sexist."
-- noname

[...]

"Here's what I think: This thing smells fishier than OJ saying "I sure hope they find the REAL KILLER". And yet, SO many African Americans came to OJ's side, likely in response for past injustices, that a clear perversion of justice was carried out. I don't know if these Duke guys are guilty or not - I just know that when a rational human being hears allegations of phony 911 calls, an alledged victim who had sex with three men the night of the alledged sexual assault, etc, a rational person would say "I'm not sure WHAT to believe", not "Well she's a woman so we MUST believe her".

If you didn't like people rushing to murderous OJ's defense because of their political views, you shouldn't like someone doing the same just because it's a woman this time. Next time, that sort of mentality could work against women (as it did in 1994)." -- Felix

Notice how the last poster attempts to link O.J. Simpson's acquital of murder and the suppossed Black support of his "murderous ways" (as well as the apparant political backlash of the 1994 elections which brought the Republican Right to power)
to the present Duke assault case as merely a political case of White-baiting. It would probably not be kind to remind this fool that Simpson was ultimately found liable for the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown in the civil trial that followed and was forced to pay hefty damages to the Goldman and Brown families; and that even today he is still vilified as a murderer who got away. But, why let the truth get in the way of a lynching???

To continue

[...]

"You should spend more time teaching women not to make false claims of rape. If these strippers were told, this whole duke locrasse rape thing wouldn't have happened."

"Seems like if you even stray a little from feminist rhetoric, you're labeled biased against feminist and the miuse of "mysogyny" is thrown all over the place!

Seems that feminist don't like women who are capable of thinking for themselves." -- me again

[...]

"this thread is such a perfect example of feminisms uslessness, three men acused of raping one women means feminists are allowed to be as intolorant of white men as the kkk is of blacks.

I wonder what the women that run this site think of all this hatred and intolorance that they have inspired by taking a side and a race in this duke case? Mission acomplished?

I wonder if they feel any sort of guilt for inspiring young women to hate?

I wonder if samhita will fully explian herself, but that would show integraty and mean admiting to a mistake so i doubt it.

How can anyone say feminism is not a hate group after reading this thread?" -- hujo

[...]

"You want the truth?

The truth is, these guys had a party with some strippers. They got the strippers as a joke. The strippers were offended. The strippers decided to exact revenge on the party by claiming they were raped.

That's what happened." -- the truth

But the crowning jewel on this piling on of excrement has to be this post, which also happened to be posted by the same person to other blogs in a deliberate smear campaign:

The women of the Duke lacrosse are courageous for taking a stand for the lacrosse boys who didn't desearve to be treated so poorly by the public. The stripper lied and is a pathetic excuse for a human being.

Duke Lacrosse Rape Accuser Mentioned No Condoms Were Used
It seems the defense keeps finding more to support their side of things, with each new piece of information they get. Now from that stack of 1,300 papers, they have discovered that the stripper accuser mentioned no condoms were used. No condoms and…
The stripper’s body was completely void of any sign of a sexual assault (except for signs of recent vaginal and anal from her boyfriend). The alleged crime scene was completely devoid of DNA.

It is impossible that a crime scene with three drunk men in a small enclosed room with a fighting and clawing woman being orally, virginally, and anally penetrated not leave any DNA evidence of urine, blood, vaginal fluid, sweat, fecal matter, scat smears, saliva, tears, or semen... especially if condoms were used. How would they take off the condoms during all this chaos without spilling, smearing, or touching the content inside or outside of the condom?

When investigators questioned the stripper after DNA tests on the semen found inside her vagina and rectum didn’t match any of the Duke players, the stripper admitted to having had sex with at least three men around the time of the alleged rape. The stripper named her boyfriend and two men who drove her to Duke.

When questioned, the “drivers” said they would drop her off at several places, including hotel rooms.

It appears that the stripper has sex with men for rides to her strip shows…Nasty!

-- "Betty Friedan"

I should confess to something here...that last post was also attempted to be posted to this blog in response to my original entry on the Duke rape case....but I rejected it then due to my stated policy of not allowing trolls to overwhelm my comments section. I am only reposting it here to show the depths to which they will go to smear and distort this woman. BTW...the policy remains in effect right now, so any trolls reading this should save themselves the aggravation of throwing their crap here; because you won't make it past the moderation stage.

Needless to say, this episode shows once again not only the deep seated racism, sexism, classism, and (anti)sexual chauvinism that still infects this country so deeply, but also the basic fact of how women of color are still denied basic their basic humanity to speak out, to be believed. You would think that after Rodney King that such crap would have gone out of style...but as is most things reactionary in this Bush era, you just can't keep bigotry and hate down for so long.

Both Nubian at Women of Color Blog and browninfempower at Blac(k)ademic have posted powerful essays at their respective blogs on this issue; this 'Dog stands in full and unabashed solidarity with them and Samhita for their efforts.

Memo to all you racist, sexist, sex-hating fuckheads who print this pile of crap: You may think you've won this, but you are sorely mistaken; we are better, bigger, and badder than you, and we're not going away...ever. Deal with it!!!

(Tip of the hat as well to Vegankid for motivating me to reset this story...and for some unique ideas for controlling the trolls, too. He has a great reset as well here.

When Arundhati Roy Talks, People Should Listen

2006-05-29T14:46:00.000-05:00

If there are any of you who hasn't had the opportunity to read her words or see her in person, experiencing the work of Indian playwright/author/activist Arundhati Roy may be a bit of a shock to the system; especially considering how such a small (in stature) woman such as her can carry such a large punch when it comes to the subject of globalization, war and peace, economic and social inequality, and the efforts for human liberation against such.

Thanks to a newly published documentary, though, you will now have the chance for that experience.
The Lannan Foundation sponsored a lecture and a speech that Ms. Roy made on September 18, 2002, in memorance of the first anniversary of the 9/11/2001 terrorist bombings and the overall geopolitical situation in the world at large. The same event also included an open air dialogue with legendary activist and author Howard Zinn, who has been one of the most prestigious radical historians on his own behalf.

In inspiration for that speech, a group of progressive activists decided to create a rock-type documentary titled "We" which used the text and visual of her speech as a foundation for a stunning hour-long feature which includes vivid and truncant images, a kick-ass soundtrack featuring mostly British alternative rock artists, and some of the most truthful and compelling progressive commentary not to be seen anywhere within the mainstream media.

I've just seen and downloaded the full version from their site (http://www.weroy.org ), and I can certainly recommend it to everyone who is genuinely concerned about the state of affairs in this world.

You can listen to and even download the full documentary (it is totally FREE, BTW) from the weroy.com website; the sponsors include CounterPunch, MediaMatters, Democracy Now! and other fine progressive news journals.

Trust me on this one....you will be enlightened greatly.

"Big, Bad Malcolm X": His Legacy, His Impact, and The Unffullilled Mission

2006-05-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

For those who may not have noticed, last Friday would have marked the 81st birthday of the man born and raised as Malcolm Little; who lived his all too brief but enlightening life under the name Malcolm X, and who was taken from this earth 41 years ago under his Muslim name of El Hajj Malik el Shabazz.

Most of us living today would probably know of Malcolm X only because of what has been said in the history books (or from Spike Lee's original film X) about his progression from young petty criminal to firey Black Nationalist polemicist for the early Nation of Islam, to antiwar/antiracist Black radical militant. But for those who lived through the bad old days of the civil rights struggle, Malcolm stood as the human incindeary fuse that lit into the ticking time bomb of Black oppression; the enforcer whose message of independent self-determination and defense of freedom "by any means neccessary" was the compliment to his fellow activist icon Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" vision of non-violent disobedience. And strangely enough, even though Malcolm X and Dr. King developed from different backgrounds and perspectives, the two of them were slowly but surely reaching a consensus, if not a agreement, on the need to go beyond the limitations imposed by their religious upbringing and seek radical transformation of the political system for the benefit of everyone, not just Blacks.

I could go on about how important Malcolm X's/El Hajj Malik el Shabazz's legacy was to the Black freedom movement, and how his words still strike meaningful chords in this day and age....but fortunately, someone far better than me has penned a tribute that is more than worthy of his impact.

Shanikka, who is a regular diarist at Maryscott O'Connor's megablog resourse My Left Wing, has come out with what she says is the first of a three part series on Malcolm, his legacy, and his relevance to the present times. It is very long for an MLW diary, but trust me, it is more than worth reading it in full. An execerpt, to tempt your hungry soul:

Most people in the mainstream don't know (or don't want to know because it's inconvenient for their post-hoc reconstruction of Dr. King's views) that at the end of their respective lives, Dr. King and Malcolm X were politically moving towards each other, in terms of viewpoints about the struggle and methods. Over the years I have had many moments of fantasy about what could have been, for African-Americans, if Malcolm had continued to live even until Dr. King was killed 3 years later. Most Americans have this fantasy that it was Dr. King who was successful all by his lonesome, his Christian non-violence movement morally swaying Americans to his view, and that other than "small details", America itself has truly changed. And, but for folks -- mostly of color -- who just won't "move on", has solved its race problem.

Whereas if you actually study the history and compare on the ground to what exists today, it becomes obvious that but for Malcolm X, and the subsequent ascension of the Black Nationalist movement including its champions the Black Panthers in the urban areas, Dr. King's success --transitory as it appears to be, in hindsight -- was directly correlated with majoritarian America seeing full frontal what the alternative could be and *would be.*

What could have been, had they both lived. I suspect that a lot of things we still talk about and struggle about today would have been resolved long ago. I know that when I first heard The Ballot or The Bullet as a college student in 1978, I cried, knowing he was dead and that the brutal, practical advice to African-Americans about how to succeed long term and *permanently* in our struggle for our due in this country was rapidly being shunted away as "violence" and "hatred" for self-serving political reasons, and no more.

[.....]

Someone on MLW referred to Malcolm's "time of clarity" in Mecca, his spiritual enlightment, as Malcolm X becoming more "peaceful". I hope they read this quote with open mind, and ask themselves: what did they really feel, claiming that Malcolm became "more peaceful" when (a) there is no evidence that Malcolm X was ever involved in a single violent event or act; and (b) Malcolm X's demand that Blacks preserve their right to self-defend against racist violence never wavered, right up until the last week of his life, so this is not something that Mecca changed?
I bring up this person's comment not to focus on her and I hope its' not taken that way. But it does raise a point: how many really progressive folks who are white see and remember El Hajj-Malik el-Shabazz is not all that much different from how mainstream whites, or conservative whites, choose to remember him: violence and hate are always in the picture. Even as progressives have, often, far more sympathy for his viewpoint (since it was quite socialist and revolutionary) than the average man/woman on the street. I would argue that despite this sympathy of cause, the manner in which his "hate" and "violence" are always remembered is for the same reasons that others bring it up all the time. IMO, its a subconscious reaction to, and memory of Malcolm X as someone who, unlike Dr. King, did not feel that whites had a role in the struggle (i.e. as someone who rejected, and therefore emotionally hurt, them.) The differences in how Dr. King and Malcolm X saw white people's role in the cause of Black liberation/civil rights is, IMO, the single greatest reason for the that Dr. King is culturally revered by America and Malcolm X is not. Even though they spent their lives fighting for the same thing, one man always kept at least part of his focus on what whites thought, how whites would react, and limited his methods accordingly. The other made clear that he did not care at all what whites thought about either his opinion or his methods, so long as the work he perceived needed doing actually got done. In other words, in Dr. King's vision, white cooperation was central to Black liberation - they were still "needed" and nothing couldn't work without them. In contrast, in Malcolm's vision whites were not needed at all - they were irrelevant (except as possibly violent actors trying to get in the way). Even if, when the basic work was done, they could be *allies.*

If there is one thing about white supremacy, and racism, it is a disease of deep insecurity and sense of worthlessness. When you know that, it becomes clear why culturally it has been so important to America that Blacks diss/write off/diminish and hopefully *forget* Malcolm X and embrace Dr. King's vision.

Well, the good news is that even though Dr. King and others spent a lot of effort avoiding Malcolm X, he spent his career reaching out to those of his own people who were working on the cause of Black liberation, even as he did not make a priority out of reaching out to whites. But how can any rational person really argue with his reasons? "There can be no Black-white unity until there is first some Black unity."

That's why I love the picture above, so much. You see, the picture -- part of a series -- was not an accident. It was planned. It was confronting Dr. King, after Dr. King had spent months avoiding communication with, or alliance with, Malcolm X.

And yet once cornered, once Dr. King had no choice, by all accounts that brief stairwell meeting between Dr. King and Malcolm X from which this and a few other photos were taken, was gracious and friendly. The laughter and smiles were by all accounts sincere.

Perhaps because both men were so profound that they always knew what history tries to avoid: both men's primary mission in this life was obtain freedom and equality, across all measures of life, for African-Americans. And thus, perhaps each had a far better understanding of, and appreciation for, the methods chosen by the other, than anyone today, including most of the progressive left, gives them credit for.

[...]

My Left Wing: El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, Race & Politics (Full Diary Entry)

If you are genuinely interested in understanding the man and his legacy, a visit to MLW to check out that article is highly recommended.

Update: Shanikka also has posted the essay at her own blog, Political Sapphire...look for it here.

From "Dewey Beats Truman" to "Rove Indicted": When Scoops Go Really, Really Bad

2006-05-20T14:04:00.000-05:00

(Also crossposted to my diary at My Left Wing)

Now, it is important to remember before I go on that Karl Rove will more than likely ultimately be indicted (and probably more than likely pardoned, too); and that truthout.org's flameout on reporting his indictment last week should not yet be compared too much with the historic Chicago Tribune banner headline in 1948.

Nevertheless, after one week since Jason Leopold dropped his bomb that turned out to be more stink than WMD, and the first gleeful, then brooding response amongst the liberal/Left blogosphere and media which it created, the aftermath of it; the main issue remains the same:

How in the hell could some people be so freakin' stupid, inept, and gullible???

And what does this say about the liberal "netroots" and their assumed power..or the supposed superiority of the "independent media" over the evil "mainstream" media???

First off..any one of you MLW peeps who came away underwhelmed at the half-hearted attempt of a rebuttal/apology by truthout this past Thursday, please raise your hand.

On Saturday afternoon, May 13, 2006, TruthOut ran a story titled, "Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators." The story stated in part that top Bush aide Karl Rove had earlier that day been indicted on the charges set forth in the story's title.

The time has now come, however, to issue a partial apology to our readership for this story. While we paid very careful attention to the sourcing on this story, we erred in getting too far out in front of the news-cycle. In moving as quickly as we did, we caused more confusion than clarity. And that was a disservice to our readership and we regret it.

As such, we will be taking the wait-and-see approach for the time being. We will keep you posted.

Marc Ash,
Executive Director - t r u t h o u t [email address snipped]

I thought so...I did, too. I mean, if you are going to promise that if you were proven wrong that you were going to reveal your sources; then do the crawfish backwards to "well, maybe we got a little too far ahead of the news cycle..but we stand by our story" in the total abscence of proof that justifies your story....then how does that make you look any less like a schmuck who got played?? Especially considering Leopold's past history of malfeasance that plays seriously into questioning his legitimacy as a journalist??

Secondly, what can you say about those in Liberal Blogtopia, Goddess bless their hearts....left jilted at the bedroom door awaiting the breatless orgasms of seeing Unka Karl frogmarched into the DC jail..only to be left with their pants down and their vibrators running on empty??? Not to mention the field day that their enemies in Right Blogostan ara having over watching their enemies get punk'd, never mind those in the MSN who have chafed over the criticism that "independent media" is supposedly superior because they're not beholden to "corporate dominated" rules of conduct and standards.

The point being, though, that anyone who really understands the nature of reporting and deep cover and the political nature of scooping understands quite well that not all "intellegence" is that intellegent, and that unless it comes directly from the main source -- in this case, Patrick Fitzgerald himself -- anything and everything about his investigation should be taken with about 50 grains of salt and a chaser of vinegar. After all, he is still a registered Republican, and I don't think that he is that deep with the likes of William Rogers Pitt or other liberal bloggers that he would voluntarily share classified and confidential info with them and risk damaging his case.

All I will do, for the time being, is what all of us should probably be doing henceforth: just sit back and let Fitz do his work, and allow him to choose his time for ultimately dropping the bomb on Unka Karl. That way, when he gets enough to corrall the whole gang, including Tricky Dicky II (aka, the VP named Cheney), the orgasms will be that much sweeter and more powerful.
Besides, if the CIA scandal doesn't get the Bushclan in the end, there's always Hookergate, Abramoff, the war in Iraq, the tanking economy, the War on Sex/Drugs/Women/Mexicans/Blacks/All Non-Rich Non-White Non-"Americans" to hammer on their coffins.

BTW...the entry at MLW contains a poll about when you think Fitz will indeed drop the hammer on Rove...feel free to check it out and respond; Maryscott would love the additional traffic.

Whose Free Speech??? Larry Flynt, Havard, and More "Hustling"

2006-05-17T15:56:00.000-05:00

I'm sure that if you are a regular reader of this blog and my Red Garter Club website, you know about the ongoing attempts by antipornography feminists to demonize anyone from the political Left who attempts to challenge their stated views about porn being the centerpiece of women's oppression and degradation...not to mention the source of all capitalist, racist, anti-Semetic, and other known evil.

To that end, one of their favorite pinatas has been the enterprise of Larry Flynt, the founder and CEO of the HUSTLER magazine enterprise of sexually explicit media; mostly due to the fact that not a few Leftists/liberals have been taken to use his media to suppot one progressive cause or another. A whole campaign has been launched against Flynt in particular, culminating in a website called HustlingTheLeft.com, which uses a lot of screaming propaganda and captured and altered images taken from Flynt's flagship magazine to make their case that Flynt is the Devil incarnate who uses the First Amendment as a subterfuge to mask his innate plan for mass rape and abuse of women, people of color, Jews, and others.

The controversy first exploded back in 2004 when Flynt attempted to give his blessing and financial support to an anti-war group called Not in Ny Name for their efforts in opposing the Iraqi War. A group of antiporn feminists (led by a woman named Aura Bogado) centered around the Pacifica radio network affiliate in Los Angeles took grave issue with Flynt's involvement, and ultimately got the group to withdraw the donation and repudiate Flynt. In the back and forth that that controversy ensued, other Leftists and feminists whom had used the media of Flynt, such as Susie Bright, Noam Chomsky, and Greg Palast, were targetted by Bogado and other antiporn feminists as traitors and enablers of violence against women; and the website HustlingtheLeft.com was formed as a major propaganda piece to that effect.

The matter then seemed to simmer down a bit..but just this month, it all boiled back to the surface once more at Harvard University, when Flynt was invited by some students there to a forum on his impact on First Amendment issues. Originally, Flynt wanted to appear solo and take questions from the audience for the benefit of a documentary on his life as an First Amendment activist and a gadfly; and he negotiated with a group within the Harvard Law School called the American Constitutional Society (ACS) to sponsor the event. The ACS, however, balked at his request, instead opting for a panel discusssion/forum discussion-type setup where Flynt would have to appear with others who opposed his viewpoints (including some antiporn feminists who were a part of the ACS council and who had strongly protested Flynt's appearance). Flynt, citing difficulties with such a debate, rejected their request; summarily, the ACS then withdrew their sponsorship and referred Flynt to the Harvard Law School Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-HLC), which went ahead and sponsored Flynt's appearance as a solo speaker.

In response to that, a group of Flynt opponents (led by a student named Kevin LoVecchio (more on him later)) hastily arranged a counter-forum in protest prior to Flynt's appearance which used all the talking points and smears from the likes of HustlingtheLeft.com to tar and feather him as an misogynist, a racist, an anti-Semite, and a supporter of pedophilia. A key speaker of the protest was longtime antiporn feminist activist Dr. Gail Dines, who in no uncertain terms dissected Flynt as "intensely reactionary and intensely right wing", a "capitalist", and further demonized HUSTLER and all other forms of pornography as "corrosive because it distorts women’s sexuality and turns them into sex objects".

Flynt didn't help matters either at his turn at the mike, either: he responded to the criticism with his usual brusqueness, opining that "women are the sex objects and nothing is going to change that"; he originally denied until confronted with some of the more conterversal images that they were even published by his magazine; and in a seperate question about his publishing some controversal anti-Muslim cartoons from Denmark; he refered to some Arab critics as "towelheads", eliciting hisses from some in the crowd.

------------------------------------------------

All this is just preliminary background to set up what took place in the pages of Nina Hartley's official forum this last week. Apparantly, Kevin LoVecchio got wind of the discussion at that message board by commentors there (mostly sympathetic of Flynt) there, and decided to make an attempt to defend his organization's efforts.

Posted by kvecchio (Kevin LoVecchio) Today (May 17) @ 2:52 AM

A Message from the Flynt Opposition at Harvard Law School

Hello. I'm one of the students who organized the opposition to Larry Flynt's recent visit to our campus here at Harvard Law School, as you can see from the Crimson article. Unfortunately, what often happens is that people filter news stories and events through their own beliefs. You (and I suppose others here) are naturally inclined to believe that the opposition to Flynt on our campus related to general anti-pornography beliefs, but that was not at all the central theme.

I believe strongly in free speech and the First Amendment; in fact, I have studied the First Amendment and its history in great detail for years. It's worth considering that this is indeed Harvard Law School. We believe in the principles of free speech, and this campus regularly hosts appearances from controversial speakers in an effort to open academic dialogue and discuss issues. Flynt's visit, however, was a far cry from these past events. The opposition to Flynt's visit was grounded largely in the circumstances under which he chose to appear.

Free speech is merely a cover for Larry Flynt. The truth is that he refused to debate anyone at HLS, including a student. He refused to engage in a panel discussion. Students who attended his event were required to consent to being filmed for a documentary his camera crew is making, but nobody in the audience was allowed to speak. Questions were passed through note cards - and Flynt either ignored questions he didn't like or suddenly became selectively hard-of-hearing. When presented with note card questions on these issues and some others, he flat out-lied, as the Crimson story reflects, but the audience members were not allowed to speak to address his lies. In other words, consider this: we as the opposition are being targeted as "anti-free speech" (and even anti-sex, which is ridiculous) while Larry Flynt retains his crusader image... but the only person who enjoyed free speech that day was Larry Flynt. By his own demands, everyone else was silenced. Is that what free speech is all about?

Regarding the substantive aims of our organized opposition to Flynt, I refer you to this op-ed I wrote for our school newspaper. We primarily challenged Flynt not on his pornography but rather on the racist and anti-semitic images and cartoons that regularly fill the pages of Hustler. Swastikas and Nazi symbols are the norm for Flynt's publication. Our pamphlet and posters included a handful of these images (such as an Asian woman being dragged through the street by her chained hands and feet leaving behind a trail of yellow blood as "lines" in the road). We also included a few select "Chester the Molester" cartoons. The main purpose was to inform the audience that Flynt is a man who profits from spreading hate. Regardless of the legal limitations of such actions, a discerning audience such as our student body here at HLS can and should analyze the "should do" aspects of this imagery - not just the "can do." We never said Flynt shouldn't come speak, or that he shouldn't publish. We did say that he should have to face an audience with knowledge of the full scope of his activities, and an audience with its own voice.
Here's one of the images that Flynt was directly confronted with during his visit:

[Originally enclosed image from HustlingtheLeft.com snipped]

(Note: we took this image from Hustlingtheleft only because we had no immediately available source to reprint it without that website's graphical changes). Not only did he lack a response, but he laughed at the "humor" of the cartoon and then lied and said he had never published it. Again, we weren't allowed to speak to press him on his lies. What we wanted from Flynt was an answer as to why these images should be valued. We wanted him to acknowledge what he truly publishes rather than what he pretends to publish. More than anything, we wanted him to face an audience that was aware of all of this rather than just knowing the image and persona that Flynt has created for himself. What did we get instead? A highly-restrictive forum that curtailed all speech other than Flynt's, and a pack of lies from this self-proclaimed crusader that suggests his allegiance to "pushing the envelope" stops right around the point where he is pressed on his actions.

I write here only to offer you and the readers on this board the opportunity to see that there is much more behind this story than anti-porn and anti-free speech sentiment. Once you cut through initial assumptions (as everyone assumes that opposition to Flynt means association with those stereotypes), there are some things here worth thinking about. Remember, for all of your criticism of what you see as the stubborn, closed-minded anti-porn left, strong viewpoints on either side of an issue can lead people to become too attached to their own ideas. It might be worth at least considering whether Larry Flynt is a figure motivated by economics rather than the principles he preaches as cover. It might be worth at least considering whether his remarks about "towelheads" are made for any strategic reason, of if he's instead just a man full of bitter prejudice that is reflected so clearly in what he chooses to publish. I'm not going to insist that Larry Flynt doesn't have the "right" to publish a cartoon that shows a Hitler figure, swastika and all, proudly wearing a "Mr. Jew-B-Que" apron. That's a debate for another day. What I am going to insist is that he be forced to own up to his own actions, rather than hiding behind the shielf of the First Amendment that he disgraces by attempting to silence his own critics -- especially when he's bringing his act to my school, where I have more of a right to speak than he ever will.

By the way, unlike Larry Flynt I am not afraid to face questions. I admit that I am not a reader of this forum, nor do I have any plans to check back here to read follow-up comments. I invite anyone who would like to contact me regarding this post to do so at the following email address: [LoVecchio's personal email address snipped]

Kevin LoVecchio
Harvard Law School
Class of 2007
/em>

--------------------------------------------------

Ordinarily, such a heavy-handed attempt to impose such views on any forum, let along a forum hosted by one of the most well known feminist sex writers and progressive porn actresses, would be grounds for automatic banishment and deletion. Thankfully, in contrast to antiporn feminists who don't even allow for such debate, Ernest Greene (who happens to be Nina's lawfully wedded husband, a free-speech advocate, and who has even manage to work with and for Larry Flynt) isn't one of those people, and he used his perogative as moderator of Nina's forum to give a response to Mr. LoVecchio's antics.

Some editing by me for syntax and mispells....

Posted by Ernest (Ernest Greene) on May 17 @ 1:57 PM
Subject: (none)

Mr. LoVecchio:

As a co-owner (with Nina Hartley) 0f the Web site www.nina.com and a moderator of this forum, I have both the ability and the right to delete your argumentative post from our bandwidth; but since, unlike others who share at least of some of your opinions who have made their presence felt here in the past, your tone is relatively civil and reasonable and the questions you raise deserving of rebuttal in kind, I choose to answer you here instead.

Full disclosure first: I edit a magazine for one of Larry Flynt’s companies on a free-lance basis and enjoy cordial relations with Mr. Flynt himself and members of his family. However, contrary to your assertion that Flynt tolerates no dissent from his views in his midst, I don’t hesitate to air my own disagreements with his statements or actions here or elsewhere. As I’ve pointed out in this space before, Flynt’s enterprises employ the most diverse work force of any publishing concern by which I have been employed in my three decades as a journalist and internal debate is a daily aspect of the creative process by which our publications are produced.

That said, I feel absolutely confident that no reprisals will come my way for allowing your contentious, hit-and-run post to stay up on our site, and to address what I see as both the weakness of its arguments and the disingenuous debating tactics it so flagrantly exhibits. That you have already made clear you intention to ignore responses made here and invite those who disagree with you to take their objections to a venue you control where they may be edited by yourself and like-minded others, reproduced in whatever form you choose and subjected to whatever slanted interpretation or criticism you or others may elect to fling at them, I prefer to make my stand on my home ground. Should you choose to return after all and read this, or if others decide to forward it to you, I have no means of preventing you from quoting as a whole or in part and no fear of your doing so. If, as you claim, you are “not afraid to face questions,” perhaps you will summon the courage to do so in a forum you do not control. This would make your claim somewhat more credible.

Now then, to the matter at hand, Flynt’s appearance at Harvard and the objections you raise. Let’s start with this statement:

“You (and I suppose others here) are naturally inclined to believe that the opposition to Flynt on our campus related to general anti-pornography beliefs, but that was not at all the central theme.”

As you admit that you are not “a reader of this forum” you are hardly in a position to speculate intelligently about what any of us may believe re your opposition to Flynt’s actions or on any other subject. We enjoy a wide spectrum of opinions among our regular contributors and it is both ill-informed and insulting to assume that we, as a group or as individuals, operate under pre-conceived notions of your positions or motivations. We might very well be inclined to address your stated concerns at face value, though clearly you don’t extend us the same courtesy.

As for your support of “the principles of free speech,” you seem to apply them rather selectively, especially for someone who has “studied the First Amendment and its history in great detail for years.” It was clear enough from all accounts of controversy surrounding Flynt’s presence on your campus that every effort was made by his opponents to create the most hostile atmosphere possible to his exercise of those principles in your midst. The smear tactics and disruptive strategies employed by those who opposed giving Flynt the opportunity to address your fellow students hardly seem consistent with any broader commitment to freedom of expression.

You seem to base most of your accusations of Flynt’s hypocrisy on this subject to his refusal to allow you and your fellow dissenters to turn his appearance into a debate. The concept of freedom of speech also includes the freedom not to speak. Flynt was invited to make remarks and take written questions, not to throw himself open to broad attacks from his critics. He has the right to decline a verbal lynching at the hands of a small, noisy claque of those who despise him just as much as you have the right to criticize him for doing so. Like many of the anti-porn left, with which you insist you have no common agenda, you confuse others’ right to ignore what you have to say with the suppression of your right to say it. Your objections and of those of your comrades were widely heard on campus and widely publicized elsewhere. Flynt’s choice not to grant you a soapbox on his time hardly constitutes an attempt to prevent you from making your opinions known. Indeed, here you are doing so, uninvited, on our Web site, and thereby disseminating them to a far broader audience than could possibly have been contained in the auditorium where Flynt spoke. Forgive me, then, if I find little sympathy for your claim to having been somehow silenced in your objections. Given the wide exposure granted to your protests, your statement to the effect that “the only person who enjoyed free speech that day was Larry Flynt. By his own demands, everyone else was silenced. Is that what free speech is all about?”” comes across as hyperbolic at best.

[continued in another post]

As your fellow student Tejinder Singh points out in his rebuttal to your arguments in The Harvard Crimson, “While debate is central to the intellectual vitality of our campus, demanding a commitment to an adversarial format from every guest speaker does not serve that function. Instead, it holds speakers' ideas hostage to the interests and agendas of those who oppose them. The message changes from "come share your ideas if a campus group invites you," to, "talk only if you are willing to do so on terms dictated by people who disagree with you and dislike you. Otherwise we will question your commitment and call you a liar." Such a policy would stifle discussion and create a climate of hostility around campus discourse that encourages demagoguery, booing, and hissing, rather than nuanced debate about the issues.”

I have no doubt, given the viciousness with which Flynt is routinely attacked by his critics, such as those at hustlingtheleft who conveniently provided you with the helpful “visual” you posted here with no concern for whether or not we might find it objectionable also, that there would have been plenty of “booing and hissing” had Flynt opened the floor to general discussion. Though you may claim, as members of the anti-porn left frequently do, that your ideas are somehow “censored” or “silenced,” it was clear enough from the statements made by Flynt’s opponents in anticipation of his appearance that they did not believe he should have been allowed to appear at Harvard at all and that they would do anything in their power to prevent him from getting a full hearing there. Flynt is no stranger to these tactics and his unwillingness to be subjected to them once again is not difficult to understand. A man paralyzed in a wheelchair as a result of someone else’s resentment of his exercise of his right to publish what he pleases might understandably be wary of inviting an unregulated brawl with those who make no secret of despising him.

As to your assertion that your objections to Flynt’s actions as a publisher have nothing to do with his status as a pornographer (a claim of which I will prefer to remain dubious) but rather arise out of what you see as racism, anti-semitism and other bigotry evidenced in his magazine, your flimsy case is built on a very selective reading of the materials in question. To wit, your observation that ”Swastikas and Nazi symbols are the norm for Flynt's publication” clearly implies that Flynt endorses these symbols and the odious ideas they represent, when in fact he detests them and uses them exclusively for purposes of ridicule. He holds these things up for mockery, as he does virtually every other extremist, irrational stripe of opinion, consistent with his chosen role of public gadfly. Hustler is an equal opportunity offender, as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who sued Flynt for libel (and lost) can attest. The highly selective, out-of-context use of specific examples Flynt’s broad parodies is disingenuous at best. The clear purpose here is to neutralize liberal support for Flynt’s right to speak by using hot-button symbols likely to alienate those who have the most to lose by any attempt to obstruct the expression of minority views, even those they find personally offensive, as they themselves are members of minorities whose views have often been obstructed in just such a manner. It’s a low trick and I’m glad it failed. Those of us who have been subject to such tactics in the past can generally spot them with relative ease and dismiss them accordingly.

Seen in this light, your reasonable-sounding claims that
[...] [Your] main purpose was to inform the audience that Flynt is a man who profits from spreading hate. Regardless of the legal limitations of such actions, a discerning audience such as our student body here at HLS can and should analyze the "should do" aspects of this imagery - not just the "can do." We never said Flynt shouldn't come speak, or that he shouldn't publish. We did say that he should have to face an audience with knowledge of the full scope of his activities, and an audience with its own voice...

ring tinny and hollow. The only “promotion of hate” made painfully obvious in this sorry affair is that of you and your compatriots. What Flynt publishes is satire. What you disseminated on your campus was hate speech, pure and simple. That Flynt responded with derisive humor rather than outrage speaks better of his ability to live in a pluralistic society than do your vicious, personal attacks against him.

The personal antagonism underlying your seemingly innocuous call for open debate fairly reeks off your own rhetoric: “We wanted him to acknowledge what he truly publishes rather than what he pretends to publish. More than anything, we wanted him to face an audience that was aware of all of this rather than just knowing the image and persona that Flynt has created for himself. What did we get instead? A highly-restrictive forum that curtailed all speech other than Flynt's, and a pack of lies from this self-proclaimed crusader that suggests his allegiance to "pushing the envelope" stops right around the point where he is pressed on his actions.”

Gee, I can’t imagine why Flynt would pass on the opportunity to directly engage such open-minded, rational discourse. Clearly, you made your point, and had you been given a chance, you would have done everything in your power to prevent him from making his. You and Fox News seem to share a common ideal when it comes to what constitutes fair and balanced commentary. You fly your colors in plain sight in your conclusion, Mr. LoVecchio, with this comment: “What I am going to insist is that he be forced to own up to his own actions, rather than hiding behind the shielf (sic) of the First Amendment that he disgraces by attempting to silence his own critics -- especially when he's bringing his act to my school, where I have more of a right to speak than he ever will.”

My understanding of the basic concept of First Amendment protection is that it applies to all. Why, then, would you have more of a right to speak than Flynt ever will simply by virtue of being able to afford tuition at Harvard?

Where you really have no guaranteed right to speak is here, on a privately operated Web site the content of which is the legal responsibility of its owners. However, I extend you that right in any case, contrary to your assertions that “everyone assumes that opposition to Flynt means association with those stereotypes (of leftist anti-porn feminism) and that “for all of your criticism of what you see as the stubborn, closed-minded anti-porn left, strong viewpoints on either side of an issue can lead people to become too attached to their own ideas.”

In doing so, I can only hope that you and some of your fellows may address your own viewpoints with similar skepticism. Alas, I'm none too optimistic about this. Your stated intention to graffitti this site with your broadside and then flee, never to return lest your purity of mind be soiled by exposure to contrary opinions bespeaks not a committment to broad freedom of expression, but rather the cowardice of a vandal who spray paints a swastika on a synagogue and skulks off into the night.

Ernest Greene

-------------------------------------------------------------

I believe that I will leave it up to you to decide truth from fiction....of course, I do have my biases....

The Townhall.com Lecture On Ruling Women's Wombs (or, This Is Your Brain After Too Much Wingnut Kool-Aid)

2006-05-15T14:13:00.000-05:00

Oh. My. Goddess.

Just when I thought that I had mined the bottom of the barrel as far as wingnutter logic can go, here comes TBogg to refer me once again to that graveyard of "conservative" thought called Townhall.com....for what has to be one of the whackiest, looniest attempts to justify controlling women's wombs ever since...well, EVER.

T already beat me to fisking this pixellated pile of crap already..but still, this deserves a special touch that only the exclusively patented can of SmackDog Whupass (tm, 2005) can provide...thusly, I procede with the article:

The pill that kills -- available at a doctor near you
By Nathan Tabor

May 15, 2006

You should know before hand that Mr. Tabor, in addition to being "a conservative activist and the founder of "TheConservativeVoice.com" (and no. I'm not providing him any link, just Google if you want to see his work), is also a current candidate for a Congressional seat in North Carolina. I guess that he figures that Vernon Robinson and his "Steppin Fetchit for Jessie Helms" act is lonely.

Anyways..enough with the prelims; onto the breach we go, gas masks locked and loaded....

Imagine going to your doctor and being offered a pill—not because you were sick, or in any danger of becoming sick. No—your friendly physician is simply giving you drugs because you’re a woman.

If that sounds like a Hitchcock horror story to you—be prepared. Gynecologists around the country are embarking on a weird medical experiment that could have serious repercussions for women’s health.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has decided it won’t wait for the Food and Drug Administration to approve over-the-counter sales of the so-called morning after pill—a pill which is supposed to help women who are harboring regret over a sexual encounter the night before. Of course, it doesn’t matter that the FDA is hesitant to give the pills out like candy because it doesn’t want to promote promiscuity among young people. Also, some leading medical experts say that the morning after pill doesn’t just prevent pregnancy—it can also kill a child who has already been conceived in her mother’s womb.

OK.....first ALL STOP right here.

So the "morning after pill" (I assume he's talking about the "Plan B" pill that is being withheld from approval by the FDA due to wingnutter..errrrr, conservative opposition) is intended, in Mr. Tabor's view, to aid women who are merely "harboring regret" about screwing someone the night before??? Hmmph....you would think that this fool hadn't known that lots of those women don't have any regrets about sleeping around...mostly because either they (1) insisted on the proper protection, such as condoms and birth control; or, (2) they don't feel so ashamed of themselves for their human needs as apparantly he thinks they should. (I'm assuming, of course, that like most other Religious Reich wingnutters, Mr. Tabor is just as opposed to regular birth control and condom usage for the same reason..namely, that it promotes female "promiscuity" without the rewards of forced pregnancy or shame therof.)

And did it ever occur to Mr. Tabor that some of those women seeking the pill might have a legitimate beef that their regrettable sexual encounters were, shall we say, coerced?? You know, like..RAPE and INCEST??? Or perhaps Mr. Tabor believes that those harlots and jezebels should suffer through the same shame and punishment that all 'ho's and sluts who defy God's law on sex outside of procreative marriage should suffer?? Nahhhh...he's just a concerned conservative citizen who cares about the rights of children, especially those not yet born...or even created.

Reading on....

No, ACOG won’t let the facts stand in the way of its misguided idea of scientific progress. In fact, the gynecologists’ group employs this fuzzy reasoning for promoting morning after pill prescriptions: women tend to have sex on weekends. Maybe women also tend to have beer on Saturday nights. Does that mean their family doctors should load them up with six packs every time they come in for flu shots?

The fact is, the pro-abortion contingent of ACOG is running scared. Pharmacists throughout the country have said they don’t want to dispense the morning after pill, also known as emergency "contraception," because they have religious and moral objections to it. The abortionists know that if they can get women hooked on the morning after pill that they’ll have more support for their agenda—which includes abortion any time for any reason, anywhere.

Funny...but I've never heard of any gynecologist (or any serious pro-abortion rights advocate) ever proposing or even sponsoring abortions after the sixth month of conception, have you??? And for the most part, those pharmacists who insist that their "moral and religious" objections outweight the basic medical requirement to provide for a paying patient's prescription have been mostly confined to a few big-box providers such as Rite-Aid and Costco; Walgreens and (for all I know) Wal-Mart continue to require their pharmacists to honor their committments to their customer's prescriptions. Besides, don't women already have traditional birth control pills to hold them through???

And also...giving women the option of a prescription that they can easily ignore and throw into the trash isn't quite the same as giving away free six-packs of beer at them, now isn't it??

It’s interesting to note that some experts have come to the conclusion that there really isn’t a great demand for the morning after pill. In other words, pharmacies are not going to go out of business for refusing to stock it. So the only way for big drug companies to sell the morning after pill and other such concoctions is to market them directly to doctors.

So much to say about that paragraph...but I'll let TBogg have this one:

Pharmacies will also not go out of business if they don't stock Preparation H, but that won't stop hemorrhoids from happening. Ask Denny Hastert.

And I don't see pharmacies going short on Viagra, either...but then again, men's eternal erections (which, I dare to say, are still required to provide the sperm to make a baby in the first place) aren't much of any concern to Religious Reichian men such as Tabor, now isn't it???

Every time a woman comes into a gynecologist’s office, ACOG wants the doctor to offer her advance prescriptions of the morning after pill. But it is apparently not enough to simply make the offer; indeed, some women are reporting that their gynecologists are insisting that they take the prescription—even if they say repeatedly that they don’t want it. The doctors urge them, "it’s good for a year!" This kind of scenario makes a mockery out of the phrase "pro-choice." In a situation like this, how can anyone not conclude that "pro-choice" is really "pro-abortion?"

To which the proper response to such aggressive selling should be the obvious: "NO MEANS NO." Followed by a trip to find another, less obnoxious pharmacist.

And, it's not like doctors aren't that aggressive with other medications (Xyloft, Pepcid (before it went OTC), Ritalin, and so on...) that Big Pharma wants to push on them....but those medications don't favor "'ho's" and "sluts", do they???

Apparently, ACOG sees no reason for gynecologists to inform their patients that the morning after pill can cause abortions—even if some women have strong moral objections to abortion. For ACOG, the pill is a simple solution to the estimated 2.7 million unplanned pregnancies that occur each year.

But the fact of the matter is, a number of us were the result of unplanned pregnancies. You don’t have to be planned—or even wanted by your natural parents—in order to make a difference in this world. Every human life is precious from the moment of conception—and no dictate from ACOG can change that.

Ahhhh, yes..."unplanned pregnancies"....I guess that even Mr. Tabor didn't feel comfortable (or probably just plain forgot) with the usual phaseology of "unborn babies". And I thought that it was just "the abortionist wing" not the whole of ACOG, that were pushing Plan B as an "abortion by demand" product???

But this "every life is precious from conception on" that really gets me..I mean, it's so nice to see that "conservatives" like Mr. Tabor really do treasure and respect the humanity of preborn zygotes all the way to and past birth. Now, if only he and his fellow and sister conservatives would show some kind of respect for the children living OUTSIDE of the womb by not sacrificing them in unwinnable wars, threatening nuclear annihilation, leaving them for dead after natural disasters (oh, I forgot..that only applies to BLACK people, since they're not really human), busting the federal deficit for massive tax breaks and subsidies to the super rich, destroying the only ecosystem that we on this Earth have to survive....you know, those "culture of life" things that you say are so lacking in this culture??

Oh, but those things are just too LIBERAL and too tolerant of women controlling their own bodies in offence to your "God" of stern Christian sexual morality...so never mind.

Doctors routinely tell pregnant women not to take any medication during their pregnancies for fear that it will harm their unborn children. If a pregnant woman can’t take an aspirin, how can doctors assume that it’s safe for her to take the morning after pill? What if the pill "fails" and the woman remains pregnant? Or what if the woman takes the pill when she’s already six weeks along? And what’s to prevent the pill from getting into the hands of the woman’s impressionable 13-year-old daughter, who sees the pill as a good excuse to "hook up" with a boy she barely knows? Will ACOG pay for the girl’s counseling when she discovers that the boy who took away her virginity is a stalker or 40 years old?

As if a woman is going to wait until five months after her pregnancy to go into the pharmacy looking for a pill that is designed for "the morning after"???

Actually, as commenters to TBogg's blog pointed out constant times, the morning after pill is only just that; it would have no impact on embryos existing inside the womb. It is designed to affect the uterine wall so that an egg cannot attach itself to the womb to be fertilized to begin with. No sperm = NO FERTILIZATION = NO ZYGOTE = NO F'n PREBORN CHILD. Unless, of course, you believe that any prevention of an egg to be fertilized into a potential child is prima facie abortion, or that any woman who has sex outside of "God's law" of procreation should be forced to undergo pregnancy as a punishment for her sluttish behaviour....which, unless I skipped over somehow, is Mr. Tabor's exact point.

And this is the crowning touch: "Will ACOG pay for the girl's counseling when she discovers that the boy who took away her virginity is a stalker or 40 years old?"

Ahhh...uhhhhh....errrrrr...Mr. Tabor....I would think that you would have a bit more respect for young women that they would probably be able know a 40 year old man from a 14 year old boy?? I mean, hormones can do strange things to people, but really??? And there is this issue of date rape drugging, too....

Any doctor who thinks nothing of dispensing a pill that can kill has no place in the healing arts. Whether an abortion is surgical or chemical, it is still a tragedy for both mother and child.

So does that mean that Mr. Tabor will be, if elected to Congress, front and center in the battle against killer drugs prompted by pharmaceutical companies for profit??? (If he's like most right-wing Republicans, more than likely he'll be too busy taking money from them, and supporting legislation against lawsuits against those seeking redress against them.)

Yep..that's some strange Kool-Aid up there in North Carolina these days...'ya think?? Give him a couple of months and young Tabor'll be up there in Santorum/Coryn territory talking up the dangers of rampant homosexuality leading to "man/dog sex" or "man/box turtle sex". Who knows....maybe he'll say that White-hating sluts faking rape reports are caused by radical feminism, too??

Wingnuts...a special breed of nuts. Gotta love 'em.

An Open Letter to Bruce Dixon (BlackCommentator.com Editor)

2006-05-11T11:45:00.001-05:00

[I actually thought about sending it directly to the BC editors....but it more than likely would be futile, since the issue is already out; so I'll just post it here. Consider it my therapy of venting.]

Mr. Dixon:

First off, I want to thank you and your co-publisher Glen Ford for the outstanding job that you do over at BC in representing progressive Black voices.

Having said that, I have but one small complaint that I have to get off my chest.

On Saturday, I forwarded to you a long post in response to an article by Michele Martin which criticized your site for alleged "uncivility" (through posting another article by Ishmael Reed in which he criticized some Black journalists (including Ms. Martin) for being such foils for the establishment media. The next day, I received an email from Mr. Ford complimenting me on my essay and stating that he would forward it to you for review and possible inclusion in your next issue.

Now, I understand perfectly and accept the fact that you recieve hundreds of emails for feedback for inclusion in your online website, and that due to time and financial constraints, you have to pick and choose which subject matter and emails to feature in your viewers' response section (Bruce's Beat). And I do appreciate the fact that you did give me the opportunity to post my thoughts.

Nevertheless, all that does nothing to erase the shock and disappointment I felt when I discovered today that my post was indeed cited in today's (May 11, Issue #183) issue...but was severely truncated to TWO paragraphs....which did little to nothing to express the ideas that my original post was intended to do from the beginning.

I will skip the minor, piddling issue of not including my domicile of residency (but, really, Mr. Dixon, I did manage to include my residency in Lafayette, Louisiana in my signature line; was it that neccessary to truncate that??) and go straight to the heart of the matter. (Since you already have the original post, and I have already posted it to my own SmackDog Chronicles blog here, I will not repost it in its entirity, but will reference parts of it from time to time.)

First, here's a reprint of what ended up in today's BC issue:

Louisiana's Anthony Kennerson had these observations on Martin's plea for civility:

It’s interesting to see Ms. Martin calling out Ishmael Reed, CounterPunch and BC for their alleged lack of civility. Ms. Martin seems to feel a need to throw accusations at blacks on the left while leaving those on the right alone.

Ms. Martin could not possibly have been unaware of the volume and virulence of vile and racist epithets slung in the direction of Georgia's Representative Cynthia McKinney. Nothing that Ishmael Reed wrote on that article could even begin to approximate Neal Boortz's “ghetto slut" smack – and that was among the more printable insults.

Where was our black guardian of “civility” then? Why didn’t we hear her voice telling how establishment media programs were selling a line about McKinney being nutty, almost slutty, dangerous and ultra-radical Black Leftist?

It seems that the definition of civility always depends on who does the defining and why. Ruling the term “Uncle Tom” out of our lexicon as “uncivil” as Martin seems to want to do, besides being in line with current right wing complaints about the dialog African Americans have with each other, is just plain wrong. Banning that highly useful term is a way of shutting down discussion and analysis, a way to deprive us of a potent, historically and politically loaded term to describe a kind of dangerous and politically loaded behavior.

OK...the last line is actually you responding in general, and I certainly agree with the sentiments.

First paragraph I have no problem with whatsoever, since it is a direct quote from my post therein:

For someone who feels the need to throw accusations at individuals on the Left (and in her email that was published in BC, she specifically aimed her guns at Reed for his presumed assumptions "that black officials (presumably of the left since I’ve see no similar protectiveness of those on the right) are somehow beyond questioning (or chastising for that matter"), Ms. Martin seems to miss the basic point of Reed's article: that the establishment media (whether liberal or conservative) is not afraid of using Black people as a ruse to sell a political agenda that is decisively harmful to the majority of Black people. [...]

The second and third paragraphs, however, is where it gets a bit squiggly. Here's what I wrote in the original:

Perhaps the real issue that Ms. Martin has with Reed and BC is that she was
called out directly by him for her not-so-fawning coverage of the saga of
Representative Cynthia McKinney (GA - 4th Dist.), who has the unmitigated
gall to actually represent her poor and working class constituents in her
Atlanta district as a principled progressive, and who is one of the few
representatives who dares to challenge the frontal assault of the Right and
Center on average Black people directly....and who also had the unmitigated
hubris to defend herself against an overzealous security guard who just
couldn't keep his hands off her while going to work. (And I won't even go
into McKinney's hair style choices at that time, since I'm sure that even Ms.
Martin are aware of the vile racist epithets that were slung at
Congresswoman McKinney by right-wingers at that time. Nothing that Ishmael
Reed wrote on that article could even begin to approximate Neal Boortz's
"ghetto slut" smack..and those was the more printable insults.) I'm not
saying that McKinney is above accountability; but the perspective of having
a publically active progressive Black woman put down due to her choice in
hair style (not to mention her political positions) might have more than a
bit to do with why she is supported so firmly amongst average Black folk...and it is more than proper to point out how establishment media programs were selling the dominant party line of McKinney being nutty, almost slutty, and a dangerous
ultra-radical Black Leftist that should be shunned by any moderate-thinking
Black politician.

Now, I understand and appreciate an editor's need to condense quotes and preserve bandwidth and brevity....but really, Mr. Dixon....was there such a need to basically shred my quoted text and import your own quotes as a substitute??? I mean, it could have been easier to just use ellipses and reduce my quotation down to a managable size which would fit into your limited space...but to totally revise my printed words?? Not that I'm comparing my prose to a Ph. D. or a Master's thesis, but can you imagine the reaction if a prospective doctorate candidate saw his words in his thesis altered so severely without his knowing??

And what really bothers me about this is that while you felt the need to reduce and alter my text, another reader, Janet Brown of Oakland, California, was allowed a full seven paragraphs to elaborate her position (not that different from mine), and with most of her text apparantly kept intact. What..is there a hierarchy of whose posts get better recognition over at BC??? Is it based on who donates more?? Quality of the post?? (Funny, Mr. Ford seemed to think that my comment was decent enough, and it's not that I haven't posted comments there before.)

Now, if this sounds like narcissistic whining, I sincerely apologize; because on the whole, I still appreciate what BC has done, and I will continue to contribute as a paying subscriber and sometime commentor on the issues. But all I ask of you, Mr. Dixon is this: if you are going to edit posts from commentors, please, for God and Goddess' sake, at least have the mercy of telling them in advance that you reserve the right to edit their comments for brevity's sake. It would certainly save some of us a lot of surprise and disappointment .

Other than that minor complaint....an excellent job overall as always.

Thanks for hearing me out...and keep bringing it.

Yours sincerely,

Anthony J. Kennerson
Lafayette, Louisiana

--------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for that brief venting, y'all....we now return you to our regularly scheduled smackfest, already in progress.... :-)

Sunday Afternoon Blogging Bonanza (Birthday 'Dog Edition)

2006-05-07T14:54:00.000-05:00

A few blog entries for your viewing pleasure this Sunday in May:

1) The New York Times Magazine does a chilling analysis of the current drive of the Christian Reich to add contraception to their list of 'Dem Nasty Satanic Sex Thangs Women Do That Should Be Banished From This Earth ....abortion, raunchy dancing, masturbating (especially with any assistance from toys), and any sex not limited to missionary position P/V intercourse for the expressed purpose of spitting out a child for Jeebus nine months later being the rest of the list. (Of course, they're not so keen on a lot of Sex Thangs that men do, either; as their wars against porn and gay sex clearly attest to.)

Update: Amanda of Pandagon delivers the ultimate reading/ass whupping on these sexofascists in her latest entry "The War on Peons Fucking"; and trust me, it is that damn good...can you forgive me, Ms. Marcotte, for that smackdown I gave you previously???

2) On the other side of the space/time/IQ continuum, the Washington Post Magazine kicks off their Style section of their Sunday edition with a nice whine on how (to shorthand and condense their article) slutty, raunchy women are causing our young men to become...get this...impotent due to performance anxiety. And after you laugh your ass off reading that, take a visit to Pandagon and see Amanda apply her usual sharp fingernails to this line of crock. (Consider this my peace offering, Amanda, for that essay I wrote previously.)

3) Then, to add to the theme of slut/raunchy women baiting, we go across the Big Pond to the Sunday Times of London; where good old antisex feminaz...errrr, antiporn feminist guru...Catherine MacKinnon is back at it, pimping her latest book of essays and calling out "raunchy femininsts" for destroying feminism and giving themselves away through "offering men sex". The Sunday Times gives Kitty Mac the usual proverial wet kisses in support of her beliefs; to which, a genuine raunchy feminist (namely, our dear Lusty Lady Rachel) layeth the smack down one more time in response.)

4) Nexxxxxxxtt...from the sublime to the outrageous. More proof that you should never, ever underestimate the ability of "pwogwessive" Democrats to phuck up a great moment: Two entries on how a site dedicated to praising fictional satirist Stephen Colbert on dropping the Whupass on King Dubya II and the White House Press Un-Whores*...ahhh, I mean, Press Corps at their dinner/gabfest got transformed into a mere shakedown for the DNC.

5) And finally...a dedication to one special heel of a troll who decided to go ad hominen on me over at Mike Malloy's forum for calling his racist Latino-baiting ass out: This excellent article straight out of the Black Commentator website on the history of the alliance between Mexico and freed Blacks. Taste it and weep, fool; it's known as "edcuating yourself", rather than plucking "facts" out of your colon.

Enough for now...more if I feel like it.

42 years and counting... :-)

*Un-Whores: because these suck-ups are an insult to real, live whores/sex workers who at least get some pretty good sex for their effort, in addition to getting paid.

"Civility": Just Another Word For "Business As Usual"???

2006-05-07T00:10:00.000-05:00

Well...another year in my life has passed (I am now officially 42 years old as of nine minutes ago); hopefully there will be much less personal drama than there was last year..though with the expectation of the upcoming hurricane season and all the kerfluffle of an midterm election year, especially with this two-scandal a day administration, I'm not betting on a quiet year by any means.

Anyways...I do have some possible good news...there is a chance that I might get some major Internet run this coming week. Here's some background to fill in the blanks:

1) Ishmael Reed (a long time Black columnist) writes up a nice article in CounterPunch on the many ways in which the media establishment uses Black journalists to sell a agenda that is most harmful to regular Black folk (and others as well, of course).

2) One of the journalists mentioned in the essay gets all in a hissy fit and uses the pages of the National Association of Black Journalists forum (actually a Yahoo! group that's closed off from the public...suckas) to vent her spleen at Reed for his apparent sins;

3) Then, The Black Commentator (that glorious kick-more-ass-than-the-law-should-allow Black progressive journal) reprints and republishes Reed's original article at their website, which further angers said journalist, who then....

4) Writes up a rejoinder (which BC decides to post for their latest edition) accusing BC and, by thinly veiled implication, Black Leftists in particular, of destroying "civility" by attacking other Black journalists too roughly.

Now, once I got a whiff of Michel Martin's piece (she's the journalist, BTW), it reminded me of an old essay out of an old column that queer socialist/ex-gay male porn actor Thomas Scott Tucker (of the Open Letter Online website) in which he opined beautifully about the limits of "civility" as a tool of squelching radical critique of our society. I really do wish that I could recollect where the essay is or whether it is online; but suffice it to say that Tucker saw like very few Leftist could how the push towards "civility" in debate can be as useful to the present rulers of bipartisan reaction as it could be a positive token to respect and decency.

In any case, I had Scott Tucker in mind when I wrote the following response to Martin's piece and forwarded it to the BC editors, Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon....and there is a chance that it may get published as an column for their next issue, which goes out on Thursday. Whether it does or it doesn't means less to me than the fact that it is appreciated, and I will share it with you here just so that you can see what I felt...and in case Bruce Dixon does some creative editing. (Just kidding, Bruce..do what you have to. :-)

Here's the original email that I sent to BC this evening (forwarded also to Kelley over at Bitch Lab for her comments; she actually got me going on this by referrencing Ms. Martin at her blog today):

From: Anthony J. Kennerson
Date: 05/06/06 20:09:28
To: publisher at blackcommentator dot com
Subject: "Civility....Or Business As Usual???" A Black Leftist Responds to Michel Martin

It was with a great deal of interest that I read Michel Martin's article
in the May 4th issue of Black Commentator titled "Open Letter From A Black
Journalist" criticizing BC (and by extension, the progressive daily news
journal CounterPunch) publishing Ishmael Reed's article, "How The Media Uses
Blacks to Chastize: The Colored Mixed Doubles". Not that I am particularly a
noted fan of Mr. Reed or that I agree wholeheartedly with all of his views
as a eclectic Black liberal/Leftist, but there were a lot of legitimate
points in his article about how the establishment media uses not a few Black
voices to undercut and undermine what is known as the "Black Consensus",
which is decisively and decidedly to the Left of the usual political
spectrum allowed in mainstream media discourse.

First off...I find it quite interesting that Ms. Martin accuses Mr. Reed
(and by extension, CounterPunch and Black Commentator) of lack of "civility"
and feels the need to write the editors of BC to call them out...but she can
t find the time to post her other critique of Reed's article in a public
forum for feedback and response. (Ms. Martin cites a response she gave to
the National Association of Black Journalists forum; but that site turns out
to be a Yahoo! group that is closed in accessibility to journalists only..
and thus inaccessible to those of us in the public.)

For someone who feels the need to throw accusations at individuals on the
Left (and in her email that was published in BC, she specifically aimed her
guns at Reed for his presumed assumptions "that black officials (presumably
of the left since I’ve see no similar protectiveness of those on the right)
are somehow beyond questioning (or chastising for that matter"), Ms. Martin
seems to miss the basic point of Reed's article: that the establishment
media (whether liberal or conservative) is not afraid of using Black people
as a ruse to sell a political agenda that is decisively harmful to the
majority of Black people. The examples that he gave (Vernon Robinson's
Congressional run in North Carolina as Jesse Helms' long lost Steppin
Fetchit grandson; John McWhorter and Shelby Steele from the "End of Racism"
neo-conservative Right; and even the occasional liberal voice like Clarence
Page and Bob Herbert) are only just a few of the many ways in which genuine
progressive Black thought is marginalized and distorted...and voices that
support the dominant conservative-to-Far-Right political spectrum are
reenforced.

Perhaps the real issue that Ms. Martin has with Reed and BC is that she was
called out directly by him for her not-so-fawning coverage of the saga of
Representative Cynthia McKinney (GA - 4th Dist.), who has the unmitigated
gall to actually represent her poor and working class constituents in her
Atlanta district as a principled progressive, and who is one of the few
representatives who dares to challenge the frontal assault of the Right and
Center on average Black people directly....and who also had the unmitigated
hubris to defend herself against an overzealous security guard who just
couldn't keep his hands off her while going to work. (And I won't even go
into McKinney's hair style choices at that time, since I'm sure that even Ms.
Martin are aware of the vile racist epithets that were slung at
Congresswoman McKinney by right-wingers at that time. Nothing that Ishmael
Reed wrote on that article could even begin to approximate Neal Boortz's
"ghetto slut" smack..and those was the more printable insults.) I'm not
saying that McKinney is above accountability; but the perspective of having
a publically active progressive Black woman put down due to her choice in
hair style (not to mention her political positions) might have more than a
bit to do with why she is supported so firmly amongst average Black folk...and it is more than proper to point out how establishment media programs were selling the dominant party line of McKinney being nutty, almost slutty, and a dangerous
ultra-radical Black Leftist that should be shunned by any moderate-thinking
Black politician.

Nor am I that impressed by Ms. Martin's attempt to explain away and dismiss
popular Black anger at media voices who use their newly gained power in the
establishment media for personal self-promotion at the expense of the "Black
Consensus". According to her, that's just the usual media obsession with
gadflies who think "outside the box"; she directly quotes John McCain and
Chuck Hagel as prominent examples on the conservative Republican side as
examples of how internal critics get more attention. There's one small
problem with that analogy, though: Hagel and McCain, for all their
criticisms of the Bush presidency on some occasions, remain firmly and
strongly within the dominant right-wing consensus; and have no plans to
break away at any rate. Indeed, McCain is currently attempting to repudiate
much of his old "maverick" image and suck up to the very same Far Right
resources that killed his earlier 2000 Presidential campaign...considering
that all that remains of the Republican "base" is the fundamentalists and
the former "Dixiecrats", it is more of a Realpolitik move than anything
philosophical.

But it is Ms. Martin's clarion call for BC to be more "civil" which
fascinates me most; it is as if she thinks that only Black Leftists are the
ones that are poisoning the political debate by not "respecting" their
critics enough and resorting to name-calling and "dozens-playing". It's as
if she thinks that if we on the (Black) Left simply played nice and only
used right and proper language and played by Maquis of Queensbury rules and
treated the Right and the Establishment Center as people who played fair and
square, then all the issues affecting Black folk would be resolved rather
quickly. Well, Ms. Martin, I really hate to burst your bubble, but that won
t be happening anytime soon.

For starters....you are aware, ma'am, that if anything, the mass collective
attitude of the Right is not getting any more civil...in fact, quite the
opposite; feeling the fruits of a successful takeover of the political
system through unbridled control of the main political institutions
(including both houses of Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court),
they have simply become that much more aggressive in their tactics of
driving Black folk back to their antebellum status. Not even the
diminishing popularity of their leadership and the demonstrated failures of
their policies has driven them in any way towards the goal of mutual respect
and mutual consent. Rather, it has simply intensified and concentrated
their anger at and fear of losing their assumed privileges as White people..
and they have directed their anger in much more direct language and actions.
Just go over to sites like FreeRepublic.com, LittleGreenFootballs.com,
FrontPageMag.com, and a few other "conservative" sites and blogs, and you
will feel the full fury of White scorn towards Blacks who fail to know their
"place"..and those are the more genteel, upper-class sites. Attempting
civility" in the face of people like them is sorta like negotiating with
people who use cattle prods and biting dogs on you....not too successful,
and potentially fatal. Respect towards others means nothing if that respect
is not returned in kind, and no self-respecting Black person should ever
give those who would enslave or kill him anything other than the utmost
resistance. Given this inequality, "civility" becomes reduced to nothing
more than the same old business as usual of average Blacks getting shafted.

Now, I'm no supporter of cursing in public or of any mother beating her
child in public; and I would agree to a point that our society overall has
lost a real sense of civility in our lives....but rather than aim my guns at
the historical victims and the powerless; I'd much prefer to attack the real
roots of such incivility: the political and economic and cultural
institutions which continue to support and enforce the maldistribution of
resources to benefit the few at the expense of the many....and the racist
(and also sexist, and sex-negative, and classist, and heterosexist, and
anti-enviromental) attitudes all too popular that are used to reenforce such
inequality. That is the main focus and objective of sites like CounterPunch
and BC, and what makes them so radical. Obviously, as a woman of the
establishment, you choose a different tack. That is your right and your
perogative, of course..but please be a bit more honest about your goals and
not attempt to degrade those of us who choose a more radical critique of our
society as lacking "civility". Rudeness and crudity may not be genteel, but
it beats being subjugated; and even Martin Luther King and Gandhi had to
protect themselves against violence and injustice. The old saying remains
the same: No justice...no peace.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to express my views...and they are
strictly just that...my own.

Sincerely,

A bit long, perhaps...but it got my point across, didn't it. I'll just let you decide on that one.

Peaceout.... :-)

Juan Cole Dropkicks Chris Hitchens On Iran...Film At 11

2006-05-04T00:21:00.000-05:00

Sometimes even the quietest people just gotta kick some ass when cornered.

And Hitchens though that George Galloway was bad....

Informed Consent: Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist And, "We Don't Want Your Stinking War!

Oh, and 'Bina Becker (Baaaaaadassssss Queen WingnutTroll Killa[tm] of the Mike Malloy Truthseekers' Forum) was as impressed as I was with that can of Whupass...she piles on at her own blog :

News of the Restless: The Ravel's Bolero of Ass Kickings

Best. Blog. Post. Ever. On. War. Against. Reproductive. Choice.

2006-05-04T00:14:00.000-05:00

As good as the original entry is, the comments are even better...clear, direct, and on the money. And about damn time, too.

Pharyngula: Why Wingnuts Hate Plan B

Complete with drawings a ninth-grade biology teacher would love, too.

Why Nubian Kicks Serious Ass; and Ginmar Can Just Kiss Mine...

2006-04-29T18:25:00.000-05:00

Here I am, stuck in my bed with a really bad case of motion sickness/vertigo, brought on by waaaay too much stress at work...but I do have time enough to post some thoughts:

Since almost everyone else has done so, I will, too: Props, kudos, a really big SmackHug,a permanent slot in the SmackDog Baddddddassssss Wall of Fame, and a free gallon of concentrated SmackDog Whupass (TM, 2006) goes to Nubian of Blac(k)ademic for her righteous response to all the haters (especially Ginmar and SarahS) who attempted to pile on her for saying the truth about race and gender. A sample of her brilliance from the original essay, also posted to Alas, a Blog:

in the case of the current duke scandal, some folks feel that we must pay attention to the issue of gender before race since, she is a WOMAN and was allegedly attacked by MEN. however, i don't see how we can only pay attention to her as a woman, or as just a black woman, or even as a economically disenfrachised black woman, for that matter--all of her identities must be taken into account. her race is already determining who believes her and who doesn't, how bad of a parent she is (the myth of the bad black mother), and it's determining how she is misrepresented in the media. additionally, we must not forget that we exist in a media saturated world that continuously reproduces negative images that deem black womens bodies as disposable sex objects. it is all too impossible to deny that those images do not play a strong part in concluding how she was/is/will be treated by men of all races. furthermore, if one believes that gender trumps race in this specific situtation, then they deny the harm of the racial slurs that were hurled at the dancers, which i personally see as a form of violence towards these women--no matter what.

[..]

moreover, the argument that "gender trumps race," also ignores the fact that women of color see men of color as necessary allies in the struggle against "the patriarchy." men of color do have a complicit relationship with fostering the oppression of women based on gender differences, but, we cannot ignore the fact that these same men face similar oppressions due to the color of their skin aside from their gender. in the case of the duke scandal, if it were men of color who allegedly attacked a woman of color, issues of race would still be in play and i still wouldn't see how gender would situate itself in a hierarchical position above race, or vice-versa. rather, we would have to take into account how race functions within the specific racial group to understand fully the scope of the attack, what should and can be done about it, ways to prevent future attacks on women, etc.

[...]

finally, if gender trumped race, there would be no need for black feminism, for third world feminism, for chicana feminism or for women of color feminism. generalizations about "the patriarchy" and the oppression of women in a heirarchy based on gender, only ignores the multiplicity of the number of oppressions all women face that are not soley based on gender. however, to some white feminists who face gender oppression in exchange for racial privilege, gender does trump race.

For spelling this essential truth out, Nubian has been basically ambushed and smeared as "whiny", a "petulant child", a "token", and "setting third-wave feminism back" by promoting "racism in reverse" (quotes from SarahS in comments from Feministing)....and those were the more friendlier comments.

But the mother of all attacks came from none other than our dear radicalfeminist friend Ginmar, who obviously is so connected to the microcode of MacDworkinism (the combined and shared ideology of Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon which states the feminism -- defined as the abolition of essential male domination and essential female victimhood) is the one and only oppression and all others should take a back seat -- that she wouldn't know racism it it stood up and bit her on her behind. To quote the G.rummy:

Long before protohumans crossed oceans and discovered people of other colors, men discovered they could beat up women and make them afraid and obediant. That includes black men, who had an additional excuse white guys don’t: they have truly suffered. Yet they inflict their suffering on black women. When they do it to white women, it’s something we should all ignore, except if we want to call white women liars. Within oppressed groups, the men inflict their abuse on the women to assert the only thing they’ve got: manhood. Black women may consider black men their allies, but I wonder if that includes the kind of guys who are sexist in the way as white guys. Because that’s what it boils down to.

Talking about rape, race, and black-white feminism never brings up the thing that lurks underneath: men of color can be sexist, too. None of the black feminists want to touch that one. Instead they want to talk about white female privilege and how black men are their allies. Maybe it’s a privilege to look at a sexist guy and see just the sexist and not the skin color and not give a shit, either. But standing by your man or men in this case…..

That last one was also from Alas, a Blog....

Sorry, but what it comes down to is whether or not women support other women or men. Support men first? Call them innocent victims of lying bitches? Yeah, sorry, I'm a teensy bit skeptical that you're feminist. Call women liars who victimized men? Yeah, I'm convinced. Sorry, but if you bash other women to protect men, then I'm a wee bit umimpressed. Why does the label feminist matter so much then?

...and that one was from the Feministing thread...

...but Ginmar really showed off her ass at her own Live Journal blog, where she launched a virtual chemical laden Scud missile attack on Black feminists (and by extension, all non-White "feminists of color") as traitors of their gender and apologizers for innate (Black) male sexism...even going so far as to channel Susan Brownmiller's exhumation of Emmett Till's old bones:

Original quote)
When white women lie about being raped by black men, no one resurrects photographs of black bodies hanging from trees, or the mangled and bloated body of young Emmitt Till who, supposedly, only whistled at a white woman.
(Ginmar's response)
Well, first of all, you have to prove that white women lied in the first place. That statement presents as fact the idea that white women lie. Period. So....huh? The Emmitt Till case doesn't work here, becuase the white woman in that case didn't kill him and didn't even tell her hubby that he'd whistled at her----one of Till's murderers got the information from one of Till's own relatives. White women served as an excuse for two grown up men to defend their property from a fourteen-year-old kid. Exactly what do women have to do with these guys at all? Reminds me of the way some guys will compete over anything. To both groups of males, that woman was property. She might as well have been a ping pong ball being batted back and forth over a net. How the hell am I supposed to feel about that? Evidently, I'm supposed to keep quiet and not dare mention this because what men to do to women just makes us symptoms in their world, and we're supposed to be content as symbols, trophies, excuses, or anything but human beings. Is it racist to see the sexism first and then not give a shit about the race? If it winds up with these things, I don't give a shit about what the colors of the partipants are:

1. a penis gets shoved into a woman's body without her consent;

2. she gets called a liar;

3. and a community stands behind their men, claiming that some women lie.

WOW. Just plain f'n WOW.

I guess that G.rummy missed the part of the Emmett Till history that HE NEVER PHYSICALLY ATTACKED THE WOMAN (I put this in ALL CAPS in case she didn't understand), and that he did in fact GET LYNCHED for his trouble. WTF does that have to do with "shoving a penis into a woman's body"..unless she happens to be implying that the men who lynched Till actually were acting right because (since all men are invertabrate rapists and all women should be assumed as saying the truth when they say that they are raped, then Emmett Till must be guilty..and therefore deserving of his fate!!! And by logical extension, one can actually argue that those who executed Emmett Till were indeed radicalfeminist ALLIES for taking such a strong stance against brutalizing women...whatever the actual evidence may be.

Oh, but wait; there's more where that came from:

Original quote)
Moreover, the argument that “gender trumps race,” also ignores the fact that women of color see men of color as necessary allies in the struggle against “the patriarchy.” Men of color do have a complicit relationship with fostering the oppression of women based on gender differences, but, we cannot ignore the fact that these same men face similar oppressions due to the color of their skin aside from their gender.

(Ginmar's response, again)
"Fostering the oppression of women based on gender differences" is such a passive, academic phrase. And, you know, I notice that black men were regarded as possessions for three hundred years, but women have been regarded as possessions forever, everywhere, by every kind of man there is. Once again, I ask, exactly how am I supposed to feel when some oppressed guy chooses not a white guy to act out his issues on....but a woman? They'll fight over a woman, with the clear indication that she's just a piece of ass they're fighting over, but when they want revenge on society, suddenly women are the most powerful villains there are. Why is that?

[Another commenter:]
They had something to gain–namely that their otherwise unbelievable stories would take on a patina of common sense in a racist society. Remember the mom who murdered her children by driving them in to the lake, but claimed they were kindnapped? Case in point.
(Ginmar's response)
Oh, come on, don't be coy. Everyone knows who Susan Smith is. How come this one white woman is responsible for a racist society, though? Did she create racism? Probably not--it's been around a lot longer than she's been alive. How does she have any more to do with other white women, though, than Tawana Brawley has to do with other black women? Isn't that we're supposed to be against?

How come when white guys like Charles Stewart claim the same thing, when they have way more power than any white woman can dream of, that they're not demonizied, too? HOw many people know who he is off the top of their heads?

First off, Ms. Moran, it's Charles STUART.....and secondly, I'm sure that the innocent Black men who were stripsearched, questioned, harassed and otherwise targeted by the police in both these cases would readily appreciate your analysis. And what about the basic fact that Susan Smith's father (or stepfather) was infact the head of the Christian Coalition in South Carolina at the time of the incident?? Or perhaps she doesn't really have any privileges there all because she is a woman??? Oh, but even right-wing racist women are nothing more than victims of patriarchy and evil men, even if they don't act like it.

A few more tidbits of Ginmar's racist madness:

That's why the difference between the way racism and sexism get discussed has always pissed me off. People really don't want to see sexism that crosses racial lines. It makes it too easy to see that women are still propety to too many men, and that the only real difference is between what price tags we get stamped with, and if we're important enough to get locked up so we don't get stolen. The idea that we might want to own ourselves and not have to sell ourselves to some guy still hasn't arrived yet. We're still arguing about whose possession is worth more.

Unfortunately, black and white people come in two genders. It would be so much easier if one were male, the other female, or vice versa. Nobody wants to deal with the idea that men of all races, creeds and religions can get together over one thing: whether or not that girl or any girl is a slut. Whether she asked for it. Whether the bitch lied. Those are things a man can sympathize with, now that women don't know their place any longer---in the home, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom, or just by his side, sympathizing when he has to deal with whatever the latest excuse for being sexist is. His treatment of women becomes something that's a sign of his pain, and we're supposed to stand by him.

[...]

All races have within them the poison of sexism. You can avoid other races. You cannot avoid the other gender, and one of those genders, no matter what, gets pregnant and is smaller and lighter and less respected than the other.

[...]

White women are privileged, I'm told. I wonder if Martha Stewart believes that while she watches the very tardy trial for the Enron bigwigs, who aren't being villified the way females are. Years from now, Kennyboy Lay is not going to get a tabloid soubriquet or be the subject of a gossipy, bitchy bio like any female who crosses the line. Leona Helmesley got called the "Queen of Mean" but Michael Milken sure never got labelled the "King of Cruelty." That privilege comes with a vicious backlash, which comes into play whenever a woman isn't perfect. If she's perfect, she's fake, and if she's not perfect, she's whatever the guy wants to blame---slut, whore, bad mother, bad girlfriend, lying bitch, evil stepmother, what have you. Not only are all women property, but some women are marked down from the get go. Then they blame---other women.

The last two sentences, I guess, are particularly telling of Ginmar's snide rejection of Black and WOC feminists as gender traitors and male rapist enablers..since they have the unmitigated gall to question the privileges of upper-middle class White radicalfeminists, they are undermining the great cause of toppling patriarchy by dividing women from each other and tackling the REAL source of oppression..namely, men with penises. And notice how she gets a dig in favor of Martha Stewart as a "victim"..never mind that she's never been raped by anyone, only jailed for insider training while Ken Lay apparently relaxes by his pool awaiting his fate on the same charge.

And here's the supposed knockdown blow:

Here's the thing about racism, though. Men are human beings. Always. Women are still possessions. Nobody thinks of black men as possessions, but any and all women are possessions, to be taken or stolen or destroyed. Some men of various minorities get regarded as animals, but after walking down the street and getting harassed by different-colored guys who don't see my owner anywhere and think I'm a freebie, I'm damned if I can the difference. Am I supposed to ignore the sexism for the race?

There you have it...walking down the street and facing a few boorish men hurling sexist catcalls is far, far more important an issue than Black men getting lynched and murdered and beaten up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time..and any Black woman who attempts to place the latter above the former is simply a traitor who defiles all women. See, gender not only swamps race, gender is the SOURCE of racism, and until it is eliminated first, you uppity nigg....errrrrrr, Blacks...will just have to take their seat at the back of the bus and wait your turn. So there.

With "radical feminists" like Ginmar....who the fuck needs David Duke????

I'd rather take my chances with a porn starlet and a stripper as an ally than this racist crackhead whiny-ass fool.

Here's to you, Nubian, for breaking her sorry ass off real proper.

(And the usual tip of the rack to K at Bitch Lab for documenting the whole sorry episode and bringing her own can of Whupass.)

UPDATE:

Oh, my Goddess...get a load of this classic comment from Ginmar from further down the same thread, which I just sent over to Bitch | Lab :

[..]

But going back to Ginmar….I read through the responses to her thread and I discovered this gem that I just have to share:

ginmar
2006-04-28 01:12 am UTC (link)
Actually, there is evidence that white women were raped by black men, but no one knows which men, how often, or much of anything. The NAACP report which I cited a week ago found that while rapes were the excuse for lynchings only in one third to one quarter of all cases, in hte public mind they became the only cause. The strangers who have posted to this blog have ignored that repeatedly in favor of accusations of racism.

There is also evidence that white women resisted the lynchings, but, hey, let’s ignore that, shall we? Anti lynching societies were formed by white women who saw clearly that they were being used. funny how nobody is making generalizations about white women’s character on that basis, is it? It’s just so much more satisfying, for some reason, to have a ‘no class, low class whore’ white woman being blamed for lynchings instead of a white male establishment which would eventually prove useful to the black community—-which is something white women never have been, an inadvertant endorsement of their lack of power. What is clear is that white men orchestrated the lynchings and claimed t hey were doing them on behalf of southern womanhood. What is also clear is that rape of black women was so common as to be in effect legal. What I have always objected to is the blanket characterization by the black community of white women as lying bitches who killed black men. Men are men. It is impossible to believe that any community of men does not contain rapists, especially when said community makes sexist generalzations about the women that are all too familiar.

http://ginmar.livejournal.com/722413.html?thread=22348013#t22348013

Yup..just like it is impossible to belive that any community of women (especially upper-class radicalfeminist women) does not contain racists, especially when [representatives of] said community makes racist generalizations about Black men and women that are all too familiar.

Hello..Kettle…this is Pot calling. How ‘ya doing??? BTW…you do know that you are Black, don’t you???

And while there were a few White women brave enough to oppose the mass lynchings, the overwhelming majority of them (including most of the feminist sufragette activists of their day) mostly ignored the issue…and quite a few even lent their support to the Southern regime which supported lynching in the first place, as a compromise to obtain suffrage, I guess). Most of the main activism against lynching was mostly launched by Black WOMEN and Black men…does the name Ida B. Wells ring your bell, G.rummy???

Asshat…pure racist asshat. I say it again…with such radicalfeminists like this, who the f*ck needs David Duke??

The more she talks, the deeper the BS. Keep this up and Bill Napoli might have someone to share his title of Asshat of the Year with.

Wingnut Trolls Beware: The Buck Stops Here!!!

2006-04-25T19:19:00.000-05:00

I've been noticing of late that there has been a rash of right-wing trolls invading progressive websites and blogs to poison the debate and smear anyone who dares to challenge the prevailing wingnut tripe line on various issues..but especially the Duke alleged rape case.

A great many sites (including Slant Truth, Blac(k)ademic, Rachel's Tavern, and Browninfempower's Women of Color blog) have become the target of some of the ugliest, meanest, and most hate-filled assaults not only on the accused victim of the assaults as a liar, a hysterical nut, a slut/whore/prostitute who just made this up to blame innocent White folks who wouldn't hurt a fly (never mind that one of the suspects charged in the case has already been arrested and faces trial for beating a gay man); but also on those who defend her as "reverse racists and "race hustlers" who use supposed anti-White hatred for crass political gain. (Not, of course, like those great fair and balanced negotiators for peace like Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and the brave pontificators of FOX News, who simply smear the accused woman in her own blood for their own profit...that's just good "conservative" reporting.) And it hasn't even been limited to flooding the comments sections....one blogger has been the subject of a denial-of-service attack on her blog for expressing her support of the victim in this case.

Now, this isn't the first time that we have seen a concerted effort by right-wingers to intimidate and smack down critics of their policies..but the intensity of the hatred and the level of concurrence is still quite astonishing....if not totally unsurprising, given the state of affairs for the Right these days. With their Brave Decider's ratings plummetting to new lows (even Faux News has Dubya near 32% as of today), the grand war in Iraq falling flatter and flatter, the economy getting weaker and weaker, and the threat of indictments and even a whiff of the "I" word (as in "impeachment") openly brandied about, what better and more consistent need of a distraction for the Right can there be than a nice high-tech modern day lynching??? When all else fails, Nigguh-baiting, queer-bashing, slut-baiting, and Mexican/Latino-whacking is the usual choice of Whitey-Rightie fundie wingnutters to save the political day for them...and so what if it enables the ultra-Right true believers who would go well beyond mere border fences and gang rapes to retain their control???

The sad thing about this is that it has had a significant impact on the blogosphere: some blogs have simply shut down completely (such as Blackamazon); others have had to totally shut down their comments against these hatemongering spammers; and a few brave souls have even been forced to change their comment policies.

Which brings me to announce the official comments policy for this here blog, which basically comes down to this:

I, as the blog owner/manager, reserve to myself the right to delete or reject any comment that I find offensive, libelous, slanderous, or just plain stupid. My decisions on who gets posted here are simply MY OWN, and are absolutely final...and none of your business. My blog; my choice...DEAL WITH IT.

Any attempt to post spam of any kind will be quickly deleted, and the perpetrator PERMANENTLY BANNED.

And this rule is especially for you wingnuts who think that you're going to defile my house with your crap: First time, I give you the benefit of a response if you are polite and respectful enough; second time, the can of SmackDog Whupass comes out and I dissect your arguments piece by piece; and on Strike Three....well, You're OUTTA HERE!!!!!

Friends and decent people, however, can post all they want without fear.

If you want to have a decent debate, you are more than welcome. If you want to come here to troll and bash....don't even think about it.

BTW...Kevin at Slant Truth has come up with a brilliant idea for all you progressive bloggers who are sick and tired of all the wingnut trolls; he has formed up a special forum/message board connected to his blog where progressive bloggers can interact on the nuts and bolts of running and maintaining a blog, as well as other technical topics. If you are interested, just go here to check out his board....and of course, only progressive kick-ass bloggers need apply.