When "Porn Liberal Feminism" Really Isn't: My Issue With Amanda And The Pandagonites

Pardon me, please, if I'm feeling a bit moody....because I just had to break off someone whom I usually respect and agree with most of the time, but just got me more than a bit upset over a disagreement we have over the subject of men, women, and sexual attractiveness.

Most of you know Amanda Marcotte as the house feminist over at Pandagon; she's the feisty progressive feminist "porn liberal" who does her level best to attack the roots and branches of the evil male patriarchy as it attempts to revoke women's rights back to the 5th Century. Before tonight, I could wholeheartedly stand behind her efforts...but, something has been bothering me for a long while about her style of collective guilt-tripping men as a class for their thoughts rather than their actions...and tonight it all came to a head over some comments she and her regular contributors made.

It all began when high-tech writer/sex-positive guru Annalee Newitz, who writes a regular column for AlterNet called "Techsploitation" (and who recently opened a blog of the same name). Annalee recently wrote a serious high-tech column that was reposted in the high-tech journal Slashdot about two weeks ago; but some of the men who viewed the article were more interested in her fuckability and her attractiveness than the nature of the article she wrote, and they got loose in the Slashdot comments section within. Annalee was not too happy with not having her article taken as seriously as she liked, and in so many words said so in a recent article she posted over at AlterNet as her latest column. (Though, she did express gratitude that some men did take some of the more "sexist dicks" to task, and she hoped that more women would be willing to go there and challenge some of the more entrenched sexist attitudes there.) In her most recent Techsploitation blog entry, she recapitulated the whole controversy.

Well...being the liberal feminist and the outspoken person she is, Amanda couldn't hold herself back; in an entry to Pandagon posted today (April 20), she quoted from both Annalee and from some comments placed in Annalee's column, then went off on her own. Here's an excerpt, including three comments and Amanda's response to them.

(Quotes from Annalee's Techsploitation column comments)

You’re Sexy When You’re Angry

for the record, i think your pretty hot. smart chicks are always hot.

So let me get this straight: If a man looks at a woman and thinks about having sex with her, that is “sexist”? If so, call me and every other man on the planet sexist. Apparently, men are supposed to ignore and overcome millenia of evolution, merely to fit into your PC paradigm. I thought this sort of Victorian, sexless feminism had been discretited by the likes of Camille Paglia long ago.

(Amanda's response)
As for the third comment, I have an idea of a public protest art similiar to what’s done here. We need to get together a hit squad of straight women and gay men together and start hitting big blogs run by men and turning every single discussion into one about whether we’d fuck the guy or not. Refuse to engage on the topic at hand and when anyone says this isn’t about his fuckability, get all pissed off and accuse that person of being an anti-sex prude and suggest they join the Christian right. Sometimes just turning the tables tells the whole story.

Anyway, that guy is clearly an idiot, but unfortunately the other two, while totally well-meaning, are basically falling into his same line of thinking, which is that they cannot conceive of a discussion about a woman’s writing that doesn’t put her value as a sex object up front. I don’t know about Newitz, but there’s been huge, public discussions about my fuckability and I’ll admit, comments like those two cause mixed feelings–it’s not fun to have your looks discussed so openly, but even though compliments can weird you out, you know they generally come from people with good intentions. But I’ve never been in exactly Newitz’s position where the discussion ignored her ideas in favor of talking about her looks and so at least it’s always conceivable that any upset I was feeling was due to just all the people who insult my looks. But in this case, Newitz couldn’t be more clear that it wasn’t the insults or compliments aimed at her so much as she was pissed off that her ideas went ignored.

Basically, I think for some guys when they hear, “I hate having my looks discussed,” they assume straightaway you’re feeling inadequate and immediately jump to the compliment instead of considering what you’re talking about. I’m disinclined to think the guys rushing to assure her they find her attractive were actually intending to add to the frustration. They like her, read her blog, and I think it was just out of habit, actually, because men are trained from the get-go to shower women they like with compliments about their looks, which isn’t the problem per se, but more that it’s often the only kind of compliment men assume women want to hear. (The reverse of this is also true–I had to force myself to learn to compliment men’s looks instead of just achievements, and it’s actually funny watching a guy get flustered but enjoy it if I do so.)

I blame the Men are from Venus, Women are from Mars (or whatever it was–I remember reading the personality traits and I’m much more Martian, so that’s what women must be, right?) thinking. Or Adam and Eve or whatever you want to call it, but the cultural idea that men and women are both opposites and put here to conjoin sexually and that’s that, there’s no reason that men and women should be friends or whatever since they have nothing in common. This way of thinking creates massive problems when men and women have non-sexual interactions, because so many people are stuck in the sexual way of interacting they habitually apply it to these non-sexual interactions. The father-daughter purity balls would be an extreme example of this. I’m sure many of the men there have no incestous urges towards their daughters, and they were applying sexualized modes of interaction out of desperation, because they have no other way of relating to women.
[/Amanda]

Now...I have no argument with the basic belief that some of the men's comments did cross the line into disrespect for Annalee's article....but my first question is this: Why assume that that was the case with ALL of them?? Perhaps they were simply saying their feelings that Annalee Newitz was an attractive woman, and not disrespecting her at all. Perhaps they really do respect her for her work and her achievements, but merely had their lower heads get in the way of their thinking at that time. To simply label them as misogynists merely due to having sexual thoughts about a woman who is reasonably attractive (even if they did choose the wrong venue to state those thoughts openly) sounds to me as grossly overreaching and a total mass scapegoating of all men for merely having normal thoughts of sexual attraction (even if misdirected somewhat).

Well...I said as much in a comment I posted to Amanda's thread this afternoon...and by the resulting roasting I got, you would have thought that I had advocated that Annalee Newitz (and by extension, all professional women) deserved to be raped. Some highlights from the Comments thread follow (beginning with my original comment:

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

Anthony Kennerson
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:22 pm

May I bring a slight bit of dissent in here??

I acknowledge and agree with all the arguments that Annalee should be taken seriously as a woman and a journalist, and that some of the comments at Slashdot do cross the line into blatant sexism by putting her sexuality above her intellect. But…should it really be such a sign of rancid sexism to say that a woman is sexually attractive WHILE still respecting her humanhood??

Let’s remember that Annalee Newitz isn’t just a geek journalist…she also happens to write a great deal about sex and sexuality on the Internet from a very progressive, “sex-positive” point of view. Given that, should it be that much of a surprise that some men would focus on the latter side of her personality…and that she would come across as more accepting of flattery from them???

As long as they do appreciate her as a human being, then what’s the really big deal about commenting about how desirable she is??? Or do some of you believe that ANY depiction of a woman in a serious profession as sexually desirable and attractive can be nothing less than an basic insult to her intellect, and one step removed from sexual harrassment, if not rape??? And how is that any less of a caricature than the sexless, humorless, ball-busting “strawfeminist” stereotype always put forth by antifeminists that Amanda regularly and rightly smacks down???

Besides, I don’t think that most of the men commenting on Slashdot really were putting down Annalee’s intellect…though the argument on whether she was “ugly” or “pretty” did go a bit too far down the road of not addressing the real point of the article she did there.

A woman can indeed be both intellectually stimulating and sexually desirable….or she can be either of the two, or she can be none of the above. The only issue is that she should be given the full respect for her humanity and her achievements…and if others want to undress her mentally in their minds, well, that’s their issue as long as she’s not offended by it.

Geeky women can be sexy, too…and sexy women can be geeks.

The best solution to dealing with knotheads like some of those guys at Slashdot is just to either ignore them or let the decent men on the board dissect them (as what indeed did happen). If thay can’t think of a woman as anything other than their personal sex toy..well, they’re in the wrong place.

Anthony

61 Mike Nilsen
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:27 pm

Maybe Amanda should edit the comments from this post into a book: ‘Dating Tips for Geeks’. C’mon, you’ll sell a million!

62 Sjofn
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:40 pm

I just went through a thread on a geeky board about a blog post. The post was about making the gaming world more friendly to women. On the one hand, most of the men in the thread seemed genuinely interested in what makes women feel like total outsiders and unwelcome, and how to change it. But there were two or three guys who went on and on and on and on and on about how it isn’t really a problem, sexism either doesn’t exist or isn’t NEARLY as bad as we think it is (that was my favourite), and how we need to look at ALL SIDES of the issue. When the “all sides” guy was pressed for what those sides could possibly BE, he scurried off saying he didn’t want to get involved, but his opinion (whatever the fuck it even WAS) hadn’t changed.

Blog post(s) in question, if anyone is curious:

Part One: http://rpgtalk.net/msw/weblog/148.html

Part Two: http://rpgtalk.net/msw/weblog/163.html

63 another lynne
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:41 pm

Anthony, I gotta take issue with your best solution. We gotta call bullshit when we see it.

Because someone writes about sex in one forum, or even in another article doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to focus on sex whenever that person writes.

And there is a huge difference between mentally undressing someone (quietly) and discussing their fuckability in a forum that is (in theory anyway) about something completely unrelated. As I said earlier, context is everything.

64 Sheelzebub
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:46 pm

But…should it really be such a sign of rancid sexism to say that a woman is sexually attractive WHILE still respecting her humanhood??

Anthony, when it is normal for men to hear women routinely comment upon their looks, their hotness, and their sexiness when they are trying to discuss a serious topic, I’ll agree with you. But that’s not the case. It’s like someone making conversation with you and staring at your tits. No one feels they have to legitimize men by telling them how sexeeee they are.

This isn’t the strawfeminist slapping a man across the face and yelling RAPIST!! when he tells her she looks pretty. It’s genuine irritation at people commenting on a woman’s looks when she’s talking about something that has fuck-all to do with her looks.

And it should tell you something, Anthony, that the sex-positive Newitz herself was irritated at this.

You know, there’s a reason why I don’t post any pictures of me at my blog–besides the whole avoiding stalkers thing. It’s the comments about my looks that I’d be sure to get–I’ve seen it happen to Jill and Lauren at Feministe, Amanda here, and several other female bloggers. I don’t care if someone said that they think I’m the hottest chick in the universe (or an ugly pug) in response to my post. My reaction would still be: WTF does that have to do with the subject at hand?

65 Hershele Ostropoler
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:47 pm

Anthony Kennerson:
But…should it really be such a sign of rancid sexism to say that a woman is sexually attractive WHILE still respecting her humanhood??

Yup.

The sexism is in treating a woman as decoration. Assuming good faith on the part of all involved, if someone says something insightful about a topic, and that person’s a woman, and you respond with “you’re so pretty!” it looks like you don’t think what she has to say is important.* If you say “that was well-argued, and you’re pretty,” it’s not much better, since it still suggests that you value her not for her insight, but for her appearance, with the insightfulness being a nice bonus.

It’s not always sexist to comment on a woman’s appearance. On a date, say**, it’s perfectly appropriate. Because on a date, her attractiveness (and yours), are pertinent to the purpose of the meeting. In an intellectual discussion, it’s not.

I could never have a relationship wit someone stupid, but that doesn’t mean I think of non-stupid women as nothing but relationship material.

*If we don’t assume good faith, it could be taken as a way for you to convey that you don’t think she should aspire to hold opinions while letting you say, if you’re called on it, “all I said was that she’s pretty!”
** Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether dating is unavoidably and inherently sexist.

66 R. Mildred
Apr 20th, 2006 at 3:52 pm

But…should it really be such a sign of rancid sexism to say that a woman is sexually attractive WHILE still respecting her humanhood??

If you cut the hyperbolic modifier “rancid” then yes, yes it is a sign of sexism, because you are undermining the humanhood you think you’re respecting by subjecting her to the male gaze and thereby turning her into a sexual object when such attention is irrelelvent to the fact at hand.

She does not NEED you to tell her she’s sexually attractive, she does not NEED you to tell her that you’d pork her if you had the opportunity (more importantly, by making such a statement you are ensuring that she would never willingly give you teh opportunity, which leaves one other option…), it’s the internets’ equivalent to builders wolf whistling at passing women or those jackasses who honk and shout sexual propositions to women on the sidewalk while they driveby, which, in case you were unaware, are all forms of sexual harrassment.

Note how the justification are identical to the justification for the builder and car-borne abuse “we’re just complimenting you honey, what’s the big deal?” The Rape Culture’s the big fucking deal, the dehumanizing aspect of it is the fucking deal, the sheer, unadalterated immaturity of it is the fucking deal buddy, and I’m sure that if you zip up your flies for long enough to actually THINK about it, you’d get that.

Don’t you just love how you can’t get away from this shit even on the internets?

67 Sjofn
Apr 20th, 2006 at 4:00 pm

Hell, I find it much worse on the internets (just as an attitude, of course). But maybe that’s just me?

68 lt
Apr 20th, 2006 at 4:17 pm

Also . . in my experience guys who really are into smart women don’t have to go around saying it . . . I mean, it should go without saying - I like being complimented, but if a guy said to me “wow, you’re smart, I like that” it has a creepy Samuel Johnson (the thing is that she does it all) feel

69 Lanoire
Apr 20th, 2006 at 5:04 pm

Anthony, it’s a matter of timing and context. Yes, it’s possible to appreciate a woman’s looks and her humanity. But if someone started expressing their opinion on an issue, and you responded by saying “Nice ass” or “You’re beautiful,” don’t you see how that might be demeaning? Because it’s so irrelevant. If someone writes an opinion column, the correct response to that is to discuss the issue. If Newitz had posted her picture on Hot or Not, then it would be appropriate to discuss her looks. Men don’t have to deal with out-of-context discussions of looks as much as women do.

70 Matt Weiner
Apr 20th, 2006 at 5:16 pm

In re Slashdot, a guy who appears to be a Slashdotter showed up at Unfogged to defend the ultra-ultra-fundie Pensacola Christian College, a school that condemns Bob Jones as too liberal. Scary stuff (scroll up and down and look at the original post for context and for much more of his defense).

71 Jill
Apr 20th, 2006 at 5:27 pm

“As long as they do appreciate her as a human being, then what’s the really big deal about commenting about how desirable she is??? Or do some of you believe that ANY depiction of a woman in a serious profession as sexually desirable and attractive can be nothing less than an basic insult to her intellect, and one step removed from sexual harrassment, if not rape???”

The big deal is that you feel entitled to share your opinion of how desirable she is in a forum that has nothing to do with her putting herself out there for judgment. I’m a little sensitive about this one because I’ve had my physical appearance held up for scrutiny many times on my own blog, and it gets old. While many people are well-meaing in their compliments, I don’t see why your opinion of what I look like matters any more than your opinion on Baroque art matters in a conversation about abortion rights. Completely unrelated, irrelevant, and distracting to the topic at hand. And as other commenters have said, there’s a good deal of entitlement involved when one person feels that it is entirely his right to evalue someone who hasn’t put herself out to be evaluated, in a forum where it’s unrelated.

The issue isn’t with depicting women as sexually desirable. It’s with directly commenting to a woman about her physical appearance when she didn’t solicit such comments, and when those comments have absolutely no purpose except to share the viewer’s opinion on an irrelevant topic.

72 Jesurgislac
Apr 20th, 2006 at 5:42 pm

Anthony Kennerson: May I bring a slight bit of dissent in here??

Anthony’s got a really nice ass. And I like the way he does his hair. But he could use a bit of work on his belly - too much beer, not enough sit-ups. Good package, though he could wear tighter pants.

73 Amanda Marcotte
Apr 20th, 2006 at 5:44 pm

Anthony, you blew your entire argument and any shades of gray when you decided that we were calling rudeness rape. The entitlement reeking off you blows my mind. At what point do you permit a woman to have her own definition of rude? Frankly, I find it hard to believe you’d appreciate it if you were at dinner with your mom and when she ordered, the waiter said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you, I was staring at your ass.”

74 Anthony Kennerson
Apr 20th, 2006 at 6:01 pm

To Lanoire and RMildred:

OK…so a woman’s attractiveness should be completely of the table when it comes to discussing any subject matter, then??? Does that mean that ANY man, who even THINKS of a woman an ANY context as a sexual being, is a prima facie misogynist and should only think of a woman in intellectual terms….even if she happens to be attractive??

Well, I guess that makes me a total misogynist, never mind my committment to women’s equality or my general opposition to feminism…I guess that men really do have to castrate themselves and only look at women on pedestals as sexless status objects to meet some “feminist” standards, do they???

It may be one thing to blurt “I think you’re hot” in a serious venue as a professional setting..but this was a blog, for Pete’s sake, and the comments were for the most part complimenting Annalee, not demeaning her. But since I’m one of those evil Male Gaze, leering men who only cares about bedding them down (my respect for their intellect to the contrary), I’m no better than a mere rapist in some people’s minds for merely saying out loud that a smart woman happens to also be sexy. And never mind if that woman is capable of taking that as a compliment for herself; she is obviously incapable of speaking for all the other women who are supposedly so demeaned and defiled by such a comment.

Obviously, Annalee must be (if I read your response properly) just as much a traitor to her gender for allowing herself (and by extension, all professional women) to be seen as a “sex object”, as the men who responded thusly are apparently evil, sex-crazed misogynists.

After all, women who comment about a man’s (or another woman’s) physical attraction and sex appeal in blogs aren’t traitors to their gender or demeaning men, are they?? Or is that just another patriarchial
vestige imported from men as well?? Women, after all, don’t ever think about sex appeal or eyballing men for sheer sexual attraction, do they???

Thank you, ladies, for bringing back the double standard and proving my main point. I would have thought that even today some would be able to differentiate between actual misogyny and well-meaning (if misstated) praise; or that women shouldn’t have to choose between two basic essences of their humanity (their brains and their bodies) or that men shouldn’t have to support a sexless stereotype pedestal to get “feminist” approval…but now I see that even within certain elements of feminism, some women are more equal than others.

So much for “porn liberal” feminism…sounds like the same old neo-liberal Dworkinism with a smiling face to me. Thank you very much, but I will pass on this one.

Anthony

75 mythago
Apr 20th, 2006 at 6:07 pm

Shorter Anthony: How dare you feminazis shame me for telling Annalee I think she’s TEH HAWT!!!!

76 Anthony Kennerson
Apr 20th, 2006 at 6:25 pm

Hold the phone, Amanda:

I never said that these men were in any way “entitled” to make over the top comments at Annalee or any other woman; nor did I ever say that I ever approved of disrespecting women who were put off at such comments. And NO man is ever entitled to violate a woman physically or in any other way.

But..to say that any man who even thinks of an attractive woman in his mind in a sexual way is automatically deemed a misogynist is not only as sweeping an overgeneralization and indictment of men for merely stating a truth (perhaps a bit abruptly and in an improper setting), but it potentially goes into convicting a person merely for his thoughts rather than his actions. Please forgive me if I happen to think that calling a sex writer and a generally attractive woman “hot” may be highly innappropriate in some settings, but does not merit the same criticism as actual workplace harrassment…or for thinking that some women may even find such behavior relatively irrelevant or even flattering. If you are going to smack down the men for not taking Annalee seriously (and that is your right as a feminist that I never questioned at all), then why not take that argument to its logical conclusion and criticize Annalee for focusing much of her work on sex to begin with??? (And I am NOT criticizing Annalee for her profession in any way, either, for those of you about to break out the “typical male elitist card”.)

It just seems to me that men can’t win for losing in this game: If they make a legitimate attempt to treat women as equals and respect their intellect, while simultaneously praising them for their appearence, they still get smacked down for “objectifying women” as “sex objects” even when they aren’t really attempting to.

As much as I respect you and your crew, Amanda, I still reserve my right to disagree with you on some issues and still remain a feminist supporter. You have as much of a right to disagree with me as I do as well..but please, read what I said before casting be out as another MRA loony..which I am NOT.

I see that I am offending some people, so I will leave it at that. To each his or her own.

BTW..my ass is like most other men’s asses…typical. If you want to kiss it, then that’s your perogative…just be gentle. It’s the only ass I have.

I apologize for offending anybody…I’m gone.

Anthony

I'll just allow all of you to digest that before I continue with my rant.

The Flight of the Fairy Blogmother: The Washington Post, Maryscott O'Connor, And The "Angry Left"

It's been a real interesting time looking in at all the foofoo going on over Friday's Washington Post lead article featuring My Left Wing's chief founder/Fairy BlogMILF...errrrrrr, Blogmother...Maryscott O'Connor as the prototype of today's "Angry Left". Never mind all the mudslinging over the accompanying pic of Miz MSOC scrawling over her PC in her PJ's and a wine bottle loaded with Diet Coke, plotting what obscenity she will use to match the latest obscenity of the Bush Crime Family and their enablers on the Democratic side; all over the portside anchor of Blogoliciousville there has been charges and countercharges of Maryscott either being the most brilliant and passionate liberal writers in this century or merely a publicity whore who used appearences on John Gibson's FOX News gabfest shows and the WaPo article to undermine the supposedly more sensible and even tempered critiques of a kinder, quieter liberalism.

(Personally, I lean towards the former...but then again, I happen to have a soft spot for intellegent, pretty women who aren't afraid to drop a few f-bombs and kick a lot of asses in defense of truth, justice, and the progressive American Way. And you know my fondness for sexy Irish women, too.)

Anyways, Maryscott has just tonight posted at MLW a resoundingly beautiful rebuttal to all the criticism and the praise for her fame; here's a small sample of what she wrote (with additional emphasis bolded by me):

Everything else, from quotes to descriptions, was factually correct. What Finkel didn't quite capture was some of the context, and I'm fine with that. My son isn't scared of me; in fact, we usually recite the Howard Beale speech together. His backing away was more about the presence of a stranger and his unwillingness to be my trained monkey than about being "startled" or afraid. Of course, Finkel couldn't know that, and I am not upset about it. It bothers me somewhat that some people think I'm a bad mother -- but among the hate emails I've received, many express the sentiment that I'm sending my child to hell for being a liberal and instilling him with liberal values, so I guess an accurate context of our Howard Beale routine wouldn't exactly mitigate my image in the eyes of that type of audience, anyway...

I am a smoker. I quit every few months, with varied lengths of success. I do not enjoy smoking, I do not like cigarettes and I consider my continued failure to quit and stay quit one of the biggest problems in my life. I do NOT need anyone to tell me how harmful it is, how unattractive or how much longer I will live if I quit now.

I do not drink. I do, however, have a number of silly affectations, one of which is drinking Diet Coke in a wine glass. I drink non-alcoholic beer, and there is .05% alcohol in it -- I am aware of this and I choose to drink non-alcoholic beer AND non-alcoholic wine anyway. IF some people consider this inappropriate choice for a recovered alcoholic, it is their right to believe so. It is also their right to mention it. Once having received my validation of their opinion and heard my decision to disagree, it is then incumbent on them to shut the fuck up about it. The same should be assumed about the smoking thing.


I do not consider, nor have I ever promoted myself as the Spokesperson for the Angry Left. The fact that I have been designated or implied as such by two members of the corporate media is beyond my control; I deny such a claim, I repeat that I speak only for myself, and that is the best I can do. To those who would advise me that I should eschew the media altogether, I can only reply that it is an absurd suggestion. I blog because I want to be heard; when offered the opportunity to be heard by increasingly large numbers, I accept it. If anyone is offended by the very idea of my speaking my opinions into a larger megaphone than theirs, they are free to say so, but it is not for them to tell me what I may and may not do. To suggest, as someone actually did, that I ought to have asked permission of the left blogosphere to go on television and be profiled in a newspaper as a liberal blogger, is the height of surreal arrogance.

I chose to allow a reporter into my home to observe and listen to me, and to report what he heard and saw in a major newspaper. I was under no illusion that I might be portrayed flatteringly or maliciously. I believed he would report the truth, and that, he did. Whether anyone feels it was flattering or malicious is irrelevant; we see what we choose to see, more often than not, and objectivity is an illusive and often impossible goal. Every word of the story was factual and true and real. If that offends people, so be it. If it encourages people, so be it.

Now, personally, I do think that the WaPo did manage to graft what could have been a decent piece on progressive blogging into a basic hit piece villifying the "Angry Left" blogosphere as beyond the pale...but that is merely par for the course for them and their basic Center-Right politics. But I do kinda wish that they would spend some time with a few of the countervailing blogs on the starboard side....you know, blogs like RedState.org, FrontPage.com, Human Events, Mistress Malkin, and a few other of the "conservative blogs" and compare their anger to that of MSOC. Or, if they really want to take a chance, pay a visit to a site like Free Republic or Conservative Underground or even Little Green Footballs...compared to them, Maryscott's a freakin' Zen master of restraint.

Oh, but I forgot...that wouldn't be so fair to the Right blogosphere, since the Post has already pissed them off too much by firing that blogger plagarist Ben Domenech who was actually on the WaPo payroll as a blogger after the not-angry consevatives complained about the "liberal" bias of the Post....right after they ran that editorial dismissing Dubya's admission of involvement in the CIA Plame leaks as
just fine with them.

Gee...perhaps that might have more than a little bit to do with all the "anger" of the Left....well, that, and the looting, and the spying, and fiscal mismanagement, and the war, and the torture, and the racist greedheads exploiting poor people for profit, and the abandonment of and basic values....nah, the Left's just being hysterical, that's all.

All this is is just another suck up to power and privilege...the Right has all of it, and the Left has none. Guess who's going to get the short end of the scapegoat stick, as always???

Brava one more time, Maryscott, for poking them with the stick of truth. A few more principled liberals like her, and I might have still remained a Democrat. Might.

And BTW...I was only kidding about the MILF thing. ;-)


More of the fallout on MSOC and her WaPo article can be found at these fine places:

Shakespere's Sister
Pandagon
The News Blog

Update: Get a load of Jesus' General's nice smackdown of the WaPo; it is an instant classic.

Ahhhh..The Smell of Freshly Roasted Wingnuts

A special Thursday morning treat for y'all:

La Queen Sucia: More Stupidity in my In-box

Alisa is a highly noted Latina professional producer; and the link is to a nice, swift pixellized ass-kicking she delivers to a typical Minuteman wingnut who attempts to smack her down for dissing the entire "illegal aliens/Mexicans" debate.

Since it is so long and in detail, I'll just recommend you check it out for yourself.

Brava, Ms. Valdes....way to show those racist f***heads.

The Duke Rape Case: Addedum and Errata

Well, it seems that things are becoming a bit clearer about the Duke rape case..and some of the original facts about the case have been proven wrong..including some of my statements in my previous essay.

As I noted before, I crossposted the original entry about the Duke case over at the My Left Wing megasite....and promptly got highly praised (and the highest rating) by the MLW Fairy Blogmother (aka Maryscott O'Connor) as well as another regular named Shanikka, who is highly respected there for her prolific viewpoints. However, Shanikka did manage to drill me for ignoring some of the facts emerging from the case; and she sent the following response to my diary earlier tonight concerning my original recollection of the case:

That is not what has been reported as occurring, not since Day 7 (the first report outside of the original police report.) And the last thing you want to be accused of is changing the facts with a story this serious (and, so far, this ignored). Here are the facts as were reported by the victim herself during an interview on March 28:

The victim was hired to dance at what she was advised would be a bachelor party with approximately 5 guests. There was another dancer who had also been hired who was there. They discovered that, contrary to what had been represented to them, there was a house full of 40 men. Both women had misgivings, but decided they needed the money and so agreed to stay. When their performance began, several of the men began making a number of racist and misogynist comments. One reportedly simulated with a broom handle a desire to sodomize one of the dancers. The women became uncomfortable with this, and stopped dancing and left. Several of the men followed them outside and continued taunting them racially: one is reported to have screamed "Be sure to thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt" as they were leaving. Neighbors and a white woman driving a passing car called 9-11 to report this part of hte incident. When the dancers were outside, several men in the house came out, apologized for the behavior of their friends and promised that if they came back and finished their performance there would be no further problems. According to the victim, when they went back inside, she was separated from the other girl, forced into a bathroom, and raped and sodomized by 3 white males who she identified by first name. She reported struggling and, in fact, lost 4 of her fingernails (acrylics) which were later found in the house. The victim reports that this went on for approximately 1/2 hour, when she was allowed to leave. She then exited the house without one of her shoes, her purse with all the money that had been paid, her fingernails and her cellphone, and got into the car of the other dancer, who then drove her to Kroeger's Supermarket parking lot. The police were called from Kroeger's.

So, in other words: (a) there is no allegation that the entire lacrosse team raped this woman. In fact right now we don't know if the perps are even on the lacrosse team. All we know is that the event occurred at a house rented by members of the lacrosse team; (b) there is no contention that the women were forced back into the house. They weren't. Moreover, the sole African-American member of the lacrosse team has not denied being there: the only reason he was not DNA tested is because the victim identified her attackers as white males.

The reason these details matter is precisely for the reasons you highlight with your diary: already the charge of anti-white racism is making the rounds (along with the standard "we all know Black women can't be raped" subtext of the delayed reporting and action on this case.) It therefore becomes 1,000 times more important to be meticulous in reporting the facts. Especially now that, as I suspected, the DNA is rumored to have cleared all of the members of the lacrosse team (which is why my suspicions were greatly raised when I heard that the testing was limited to the members of the lacrosse team to begin with.) Folks were already crying "Tawana Brawley" before tonight. It will only get worse. The fact that the woman was injured vaginally and anally and ended up in the hospital will be utterly drowned out by the cry that the lacrosse team was persecuted unfairly. The clearing of these particular men will, within a week, mean that there was never any rape at all.

A genuine and valid point...and I hereby correct the record and apologize to you all for not getting the actual events straight...even though I still feel that even if the Duke lacrosse team may not have actually participated in the dirty deed; they do hold at least some responsibility for the climate of racist hostility and allowing the assault to happen in their venue. And none of this changes the main thrust of my essay about the attempt by neocon right-wing media to pile on the victim as a stupid, vain "slut" who got what she deserved, or just made it all up to spite Whites...the fact remains that she more than likely was assaulted and brutalized, and she deserves all the justice that any victim of rape should get.

But...accuracy is still important, even when you are right in your anger...and Shanikka was right on for calling me out on not getting the facts right. My sincere appreciation and thanks go to her for that needed kick in the ass...and I do hope that she and I get to debate each other more here and at MLW in the future.

See, Clones..I'm man enough to admit that I'm wrong, and I always do my best to clean up my mess. I wonder if the wingnutters at FrontPage.com can ever say that.

Manic Monday Morning Quickie Links

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On Race, Sex, Gang Rape, and Slut-Baiting (Or: Why FrontPage.com Is A Mountain of Fascist Pus-Ridden Poop)

Now...there are quite a few things that really piss me off about the looniness of the Far Right; such as how they use the language of equality and "equal rights" to justify laws and actions that do their best to undermine those lofty concepts; or how they have this magnificant gift of selling their BS political theories as if they were the common people defending themselves from the big, bad, evil "liberal elite" (while all along cashing in their 401Ks and leveraged buyouts; OR how they are so capable of preening themselves as representatives of the "victims" of society..despite relying as their base on the upper 25% of the most privileged White male fundamentalist Christian folk in this country (and being funded by the 1% who control almost 98% of all the wealth in this country).

But never in my wildest dreams would I suspect that these fascist asshats...ahhhhh, I mean, these fine young conservative activists for all things right, proper, and American...could stoop so low as to mock the suffering of a victim of a violent crime.

Well..never until yesterday, when I came across one of the vilest pieces of "journalistic opinion" this side of the White Citizens Council....and while I really hesitated putting this on this blog, the ultimate depravity and wretchedness of this essay is more than deserving of absolute disgust.

I'm sure that you have heard all the stories about the horrific alleged gang rape and assault at Duke University, where the entire lacrosse team (all White save for one Black member who happened to have the good sense to be absent, and all male) allegedly forced themselves (as in brutally raped, sodomized, and physically assaulted) one of two female strippers whom they paid to entertain them at a frat party just outside their campus. (For the record, the woman that was attacked was Black; the other woman was White; she was merely verbally abused.) From the evidence gathered so far, the two women were paid to perform a typical strip tease for the "guys", but decided to pull out when the "guys" got a bit too physical with them and peppered them with racial insults. The women threatened to leave and were about to, when some of the "men" decided to take matters into their own hands. The resulting brohaha (with DNA tests pending on all the team members present; the entire team suspended and the coach fired; and the university taking heat from all sides) has launched a firestorm of debate over not just the climate of racism, male sexual agressiveness, and rape at Duke, but the overall issue of respect for women in general, Black women in particular, and especially, sex workers who run the risk of being targets of such attacks every day.

But while the potential for direct physical assaults are bad enough, the social stigma placed on such women as somehow deserving of their fate because of their chosen profession can be, if anything, that much worse....and Black women who happen to be sex workers face the additional stigma of their skin color to boot. The old right-wing racist myth of Black women as super-sexed nymphs who are useful only as objects to be used and thrown away (and the collorary myth of Black men as hypersexed animals who exist only to hunt down women with their penises) still afflict much of popular Rightist opinion and nature....even though such mythologies have long been proven false.

Try to keep in mind that fact while browsing through the following essay on the Duke calamity which was posted to the "conservative" online journal FrontPage.com last week. Could be really hard, though, considering the rotten stench of raw sewage mixed with that tinge of old-style lynching fluid that flows through that entire article.

A warning for all you progressives in advance: I apologize if anyone is offended by my posting the full text of the article here, since many other sources (such as Kevin at Slant Truth, Bitch Lab, and Feministe have already dissected this piece of turd article without having to endure reading through it fully..or even linking it. However, this crap is so definitive in its evil and its total loopiness that only a full and complete fisking can do it the justice it deserves.

So, here we go....time to break out the Gallon of SmackDog Whupass. The original article appears in italics within the blockquotes; my annotation follows as needed.

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

Guilty 'Til Proven Innocent

By David Yeagley
FrontPageMagazine.com April 4, 2006

It’s racism at Duke, all right. Racism against white students. Members of the Duke University Lacrosse team may have abused a black party girl, but, without any proof or trial, the Duke Lacrosse team was punished by the university, suspended from further games. So terrified was the administration of being charged with “racism.” The black female wins again. She is truly an ace on the field and in court.

Hmmmm..right off the football bat, we get the usual right-wing "poor oppressed White folks" card off the top of the deck...as if the attack didn't occur at one of the wealthiest Catholic liberal arts universities in North Carolina (if not the South). And how about the notion that the guys "may have abused a (B)lack party girl"...as if the author had private access to the DNA tests which somehow prove that she wasn't raped or assaulted.

Now, imagine if the assault had occured across town at the very public, very working-class, and predominately Black North Carolina Central University (also in Durham, NC), where members of the NCCU football team or band had assaulted....errrrrrrr, allegedly....two White girls in the same way. I'm real sure that the good folks of FrontPage.com would have opined the same caution about presumed innocence in that case, too. Yeah, right....this is the same site that gives up the intellectualism of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Dennis Praeger...would you expect anything less???

Naturally, the name of the black girl has not been released – appropriate if she is a rape victim, inappropriate if she is engaging in scurrilous race-baiting. The reports say the woman is a divorced, 27-year-old “mother” of two, attending North Carolina Central University. She is not a person of note, and is said to do exotic dancing as a side job to pick up extra cash.

Obviously, (I'm attempting to read Mr. Yeagley's mind here) such a evil anti-White (because only those who really hate White people en masse attend historically Black colleges and universities) "hoochie mama" 'ho slut (and I'm guessing that Mr. Y must be personally wondering what she is still doing in college at the age of 27, which simply proves that she must be such a failure if she's stripping for a living) must be doing the bidding of Tawana Brawley and making all this rape shit up so that she can get paid off the largeese of Duke University and still get laid by the manly men of the Duke lacrosse team...and of course, no woman who flashes her tits and ass for any man other than the special person who uses her as an human incubator should ever be refered to as a mom without the airquotes of mocking disapproval. Unless, obviously, it's for Mr. Y's personal entertainment, I guess.

The entire Duke Lacrosse team and the university may have been severely maligned on all sides. The alleged incident occurred March 13, but as of Sunday, April 2, no charges have been filed against anyone. One report says 46 of the 47 members of the team were required to submit DNA for testing. (The black member of the team, of course, was exempted, since the accuser says she was attacked by white males.)

OK..so how long does it usually take in typical rape cases (especially those involviing gang rape) for charges to be filed or investigations to be held?? And if the "guys" were quickly indicted and charged within a week, would that have made much of a difference in Mr. Y's opinion that, in the immortal words of Justice Clarence Thomas, "The bitch [Anita Hill] set me up"???

BTW..further adding to the "malignment" is the release by The Smoking Gun website of an email by one of the alleged assailants basically promoting the affair as basically one great snuff party where the "bitches" would be killed and skinned alive....but, thank Goddess, not raped. I wonder what our intrepid bigot...ahhhh, I mean, conservative journalist would think of that, too.

The story, as reported in the papers, indicates either profound social retardation on the part of the black “dancer,” or else irrationality on the part of racist-oriented reporters.

Indeed..because only self-hating commie-lib Whites and politically motivated Blacks would ever believe the word of a stupid nig--- ....sorry, a mentally disturbed Black 'ho over such Godly, wholesome, decent men such as these.

Or, to put it a bit more accurately....only a bunch of whiny, bullying Klan-supporting privileged asshats would believe this crap that these "young guys" were totally innocent...but since that happens to be the sole political base and the main demographic of "conservative" screeds like FrontPage.com, why the hell not say it like we think it???

There were two women involved, one apparently white (whose name also remains unrevealed), and the other black. Police got a call from the black woman who claimed she had been yelled at by some guy in the rented quasi-frat house of the Lacrosse team. She and her companion nevertheless went back to the house to “dance,” expecting, they say, four or five college boys to be there. Idiotic mistake No. 1.

Gee...you'd think that Yeagley assumes that the women were actually out there not as dancers but as full blown prostitutes looking for clients??? Or does he think that all "dancers" who dress their way should be assumed to drive men to rape and sexual assault??? And why would they not assume that only five men instead of forty would be there...because all 40 were there hollering at them??? But it's all their fault for not being prepared to give it up...so never mind!!!

Then, she says, the two women were suddenly surrounded by 40-some boys, all coughing up racial epithets—presumably at the black woman. (Remember, she’s a 27-year-old-mother. Some of the team members are under twenty-one, else how could any of them have been charged with under-aged drinking?) The women then say they were so upset and frightened that they left the house.

Then, “helplessly,” the two women went back! Idiotic mistake No. 2.

Some guy on the porch “coaxed” them back, after which time they claim the black woman was abused. So far, there are no witnesses. (So, what happened to the other woman?)

I don't know, Mr. Y....maybe the guys didn't think that the White woman was good enough to assault??? Or perhaps there was a bit to much racial hatred going on that they decided to focus their anger and delayed lust on the Black woman, perhaps???

Notice, though, that somehow the other (White) woman's occupation and age doesn't seem to matter much to Mr, Y...perhaps a bit of projecting of his racist beliefs?? Or a bit of relief that she wasn't attacked as the Black woman was??

Two weeks later, the team was suspended from games. The team captains say that the DNA testing will prove that all the members are innocent. This, of course, if true, will mean that it was either an easy set up for the women, or else the fervor of youthful hormones blinded everyone. In the heat of passion, well-ignited before the girls even showed up, there may have been some rough-housing. That should have been a serious tip-off. Of course, a 27-year-old mother of two certainly must have more sense than a drunken 19-year-old, no? However, our nameless victim showed less maturity than a six-year-old.

Hold on a sec...last paragraph ago, you were criticizing BOTH of them for stupidity for returning to the scene of the crime after being harassed initially...now you go and focus your blame exclusivly on the Black woman for her alleged "inmaturity" dealing with obviously drunk frat guys??? Gee, why isn't her accomplice equally stupid for returning with her...is she less of a "slut"?? Or perhaps she's less stupid because she happens to be....well..White?!?!?! Who writes your copies, Yeagley...David Duke???

All the racial issues in this story are moot. This is a tale of stupidity on the part of two women, particularly the black woman.


Black advocates are trying to play the racist element to the hilt. Rayone Bland, a black divinity student at Duke, thinks it’s that superiority complex of the rich whites. “So being told ‘No’ for the first time, I mean, is mind-blowing for them,” he observes.

Yup...you can't even have a decent lynching anymore without those damn "Black advocates" getting in the way.

If a rape occurred, it is inexcusable, regardless of the race of the victim or perpetrators. However, all the indications raise serious questions about this situation – and the racial hyperventilating makes the case even muddier.

Nice qualifier there: "If a rape occured..." It really does give a nice colorblind sheen to mask the stench of bigotry and presumption that this is only an evil Black urban legend invented by liberal-communist-Whitehaters to embarass Whites for political gain.

So, that black woman said, “No,” eh? First, she’s in a profession where she’s expected to do tricks for clients. Second, she’s walking into a house full of young, drunken athletes, who happen to be white. Third, she called the police and complained once; then she went back, but then left. And then she went back again! That’s a peculiar way of saying “No,” it seems to me. These racist black people just want a role model victim, with mistreatment wreaked upon the weakest of the weak: the black woman. All she has to do is cry, “rape by white male!” and she rules the world.

Weak? How about “strong” – as in a strong manipulator?

Uhhh..hello, Earth calling Astro-Bigot Asshat Yeardley?!?!? First off, the women were there to take their clothes off and dance, not to have sex with any of them...last time I checked, erotic dancers did not do prostitution as part of their work. (At least, not publically; some may do such on the side privately.) But beyond that point, one of the basic principles of common decency is the simple rule that once a woman says "NO", the action ceases immediately...and you kinda forgot that the guys didn't quite take her "NO" seriously..they GRABBED HER AGAINST HER WILL AND RAPED HER, YOU FU&KHEAD!!!! Being drunk is one thing; being drunk and forcing yourself on a woman against her will is something altogether different...and my guess is that this was a bit more than just "raging hormones" mixed with alcohol, since if they were so stoned, they would have attacked both of them.

Sorry, Mr. Y, but this looks like a deliberate sexual lynching of a Black woman who just so happened to be a stripper at the wrong place at the wrong time....and all this pile of shit that is your column does is to dump on her and anyone who has a shred of decency to defend her.

But she had to have the money, right? She just has to feed those children, pay that tuition, rent, car payment, and books. She’s not on welfare, scholarship, or assistance of any kind? Well, whatever she does receive may not cover her expenses. That’s quite possible.

But, exotic dancing—and then to cry “abuse”? This may be pushing victimhood beyond reason.

Translation here: Of course, she didn't need the money...the stupid bitch could have gone ahead and worked for sub-minimum wage or married a nice, Christian Black man who would give her a decent security for the price of being a human baby factory for Jesus (but not too much, though... us White folks gotta keep our majority!!) That she chose to prostitute herself is definitive proof that she got exactly what she deserved...and she's just using White guilt to get paid.

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

Such is the sick, sick mind of a unreformed racist pig....the same mindset where the likes of Rush Limbaugh can publically and without (remorse utter his smack about Al Sharpton wanting some "Black 'ho" action at Duke...or, in a slightly related item, Michelle Malkin can break out her official "race card" for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney for the sin of defending herself against a Capitol security officer who tried to stop her from entering her workplace (Capitol Hill); or "libertarian" radio talk-show host Neal Boortz describing McKinney's decidedly kinky hairstyle as looking like a "ghetto slut"....and so on ad infinitum.


There is a special place in Hell prepared for these "conservative citizens"....and as far as this Black man is concerned, all of them can just take a long trip down a short plank into a steep cliff right down into the abyss straight there..and I do hope that the demons are there to give them the same treatment that this poor woman suffered through.


Memo to all rapists and their right-wing anti-sex wingnut fascist enablers: Kindly make like your boss Dick Cheney and fuck off. Your existence on this earth is a waste of good DNA.

And there's no qualifying "allegedly" here, either.

K (Gently) Bitch-Slaps 'Dog...Details at 10

Right off the bat, my Red Burqa take gets the business from Bitch | Lab: here, I will respond and rebut in kind (that is, with the same love and respect):

bitchlab Says:

April 3rd, 2006 at 5:23 pm
@ Anthony

Oh. Well. There are a lot of issues going on, but real quick:

Do you think that women in blue states should run around steroetyping everyone who lives in poverty in the deep south as the epitomy of what it means to be oppressed?

In other words, would someone in NYC be “cool” if she had an advertisement of a woman symbolically portrayed as southern white trash, laying splayed on the floor beaten, a man over her slinging a beer can in one hand and a clenched fist coming down on her again. Text reads:

Women of the Blue States unite, this is what your fate will be like if you don’t unite against sexism in the Blue states. This is what your government is turning into: the guy in the wife beater tee-shirt and you will be the black and blew trailer trollop getting slugged.

—-

Acknowledged and so noted, Miz Bitch...but still, I don't really think that that was the goal of TennGW to smear Arab women or Muslims..it was to raise interest to the basic notion of women's rights under attack here in the US of A. I do cede that the use of the burqa is well over the line and pretty uncool..but that does not erase the stated goal of those who support anti-abortion and other anti-sex laws in the US, which is to reduce women in the US to third class citizens.

Of course, the sensibilities of Arab Muslim women who do resist the more misogynic and brutal laws and customs of their governments while retaining their right to express their religious beliefs should always be respected..and I am totally in favor of Islamic feminists who attempt to emphasize the more progressive elements in Islam (as I would any attempt from within to transform an institution into something more humane and equal.

My point here, however, is that it's one thing to criticize the misplaced sensibilities of TennGW's ad from a perspective of winning over other groups of women..it's something else to excessively bash them as racist, elitist, and White supremacists for their apparent lack of sensibility to Islamic women. For them, the context is to defend women's rights here in the US, not to reach out to Islamic women as part of the greater world feminist movement. That's hardly what I'd call "Western imperialism" in any way.

Besides...how many of those professed "Islamic feminists" would be willing to openly support the goals and objectives of groups like TennGW in supporting reproductive rights for women...or would that be too "Western" and "imperialistic" and "elitist" for their conservative sensibilities?? As to use your analogy, not all red-state women are or should be cracked on as "White trash" (and that would definitely be a serious example of class and race bigotry)...but the fact remains that many red-state women do indeed reject openly and defiantly the progressive agenda assumed in "blue-state" feminism. Do thier sensibilities have to come before the principles of defending the freedom of women who are under assault from the broader Right..the same Right to which those same red-state women continue to support with their votes??

Similarly, just because there may be a few Islamic feminist women who use the burqa as a means of challenging Islam from within does not erase the basic fact that the majority of those women who defend the burqa tend to be staunch traditionalists (if not fundamentalists) who would reject even the most basic of feminist theory as "gender feminists" and who would ally with the most reactionary forces to maintain their privileges. Should attempts to win these people over trump basic defense of the most fundamental rights of equality here???

[/Bitchlab]
Completely silent are the voices of women in red states. Women in red states are positioned as having no feminist consciousness, as having no agency whatsoever, as being — effectively — incapable of speaking.

Now, thrown in there a scenario where it’s racial stereotyping of southern poor black women and men.

That’s what people are on about.

It comes — at least I assume — from deconstructive readings of imperialist feminism made by the likes of Gayatri Spivak, Mohanty, and others.

No one says you must ask permission.

They DO say: can’t y’all be a little less fucked up about they way you choose to represent those “brown Others”?

It’s a complicated issue, and arguing against the misappropriation of symbols from other cultures — demonizing as much if not more than the US govt has already — is wrong is not the same thing as saying, “Oh yeah, your religion is like so totally cool.” [/BL]

That is more than fair, especially in the current situation...that's the very reason why my critique of them is based on principles of radical anti-imperialism and internationalism rather than mere cracking down on their religion. Just because Islam may be the only institution in th Middle East that is opposing US interventionism in the Middle East does not take away or cancel out legitimate criticism of their base conservative social mores...any more than it would with Judaism or Christianity or any other organized religion which uses the power of the state to enforce their rules.

To make it all hit home, what happens when feminists in blue states tell women in red states that their lives totally suck? A lot of those women say, “You know what, fuck you, you elitist snobs. Im’ sick of you assholes stereotyping us. I’m sick of you mocking our language. I m sick of you making fun of our culture, our food, our mores as somehow low class.”

And the possiblities of actually building a women’s movement that sees our liberation as bound up with their’s, as pithy as that is, kind of falls by the way side as some variants of feminism literally encourage women to side with the very things we on about, defending it and their identies against assaults from people who send off the vibe that they really do think they are incredibly superior to your ass.

Bad juju.

Again, Miz Bitch, so noted and acknowledged. But..I would say that the better way of engaging those who may not agree with our principles is NOT to suck up to their conservative values to the point of undermining progressive values; we've had enough of that with the DLC and the antiporn feminist movement (and what good that has done, too). A much better way is to use the ideas of full equality and respect for difference and diversity, combined with a focus on the institutions and foundational theories that generate and enforce inequality and injustice, to win over those suspectable to right-wing populist ideas to a more humane agenda. And I'm not just talking about just a women's movement, either; I'm talking about a radical movement against all inequal institutions.

Before we can tackle the world, though, let's first address the struggle here in the US, where much of the battles will have to be fought, since here where is the bulkwark of world imperialism and White supremacy and reactionary social policy resides.

Not to say that TennGW wasn't overstepping it a bit..but the reaction just made it that much worse.

That's only my view...to each his or her own.

:-)

The TennGW "Red Burqa" Brohaha: Whose Cultural Imperialism???

Well, what an interesting weekend this has been in the blogosphere...

First, there is the smackdown going on between Browninfempower (BiF) of WOC Blog and DarkDaughta of One Tenacious Baby Mama over the ongoing Women of Color Carnivals and how more sexually radical women are (or aren't) being represented within the larger movement...and a few others have gotten into the fracus...

..and now, we have this nice poopstorm brewing over an ad posted by a women's group called the Tennessee Guerilla Women using the Muslim burqa as a symbolic campaign against repressive anti-abortion and anti-sex laws against women in the US.

I'll save my comments on the former for another time..but the latter issue has me tied in knots due to my real misgivings over the fundamental issues raised.

Depending upon whomever you read amongst the feminist community, the TennGW "Red Burqa" campaign is either a brilliant stroke of "shock and awe" against the continuing attempt to roll back basic freedoms for women...or a gratituous and racist (as in "White Western elitist") putdown of Islam and Islamic women who choose to defend that particular choice of covering as part of their stated beliefs...not to mention totaly wrong headed at a time when "the West" is assaulting Islamic nations as part of the "War on Terror".

Now, I can respect -- and even to a point concur with -- the arguments of those like BiF and Liza at culturekitchen hat say that using the burqa as a symbol of all that oppresses women does indeed ignore the context of the current anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry that has undercut general Middle East politics and cultural debate throughout. And I can see just as clearly how it ignores the issue of how some Arab and Islamic women do defend (if not embrace) the hijab and the burqa as a symbol of their religious beliefs..even in resistance to the more fundamentalist, misogynistic forms of Islam practiced in many countries.

However...there are a few issues that force me to seperate myself a bit from that view.

To begin...let's explain the context of TennGW's campaign one more time, shall we?? It is NOT directed towards women in Iraq or Afghanistan or even Arab or Muslim women; it is directed towards women IN AMERICA who are indeed being threatened with the loss of basic American freedoms by the dominant ruling fundamentalist Right....who indeed openly state their preferred vision of covering up women that is quite similar to the fundamentalist Islamic concept of "burqas". Here's my first question: How in the holy hell is that in any way "cultural imperialism" or in any way a slam against Islamic women???

Please riddle me this: How does resisting laws proposed in Tennessee (and passed in South Dakota) outlawing a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy (even one conceived against her will) represent "bigoted, racist, imperialist feminism" ??? I guess that "Islamic feminism" is considered more superior, more radical, more "feminist", then, than more traditional liberal/progressive, "Western" ideas of female sexual autonomy and individual choice, then?? That's the only conclusion I can come to after seeing this snippet of opposition to the TennGW ad from Liza at culturekitchen:

With this Red Burka campaign, you can see why they feel so estranged from American feminism.

In truth, I'd feel more comfortable describing this CafePress moment as one of utter stupidity wrapped in the ignorance and lack of cultural awareness that is typical of the privileged. I've always said that gringos of all kinds have the privilege of not having to learn about other people's culture because American Empire needs its citizens to remain culturally clueless so it can spread like a virus far and wide.

Ahhh...pardon me, Liza...but since when did American women have to get approval from "Islamic feminists" to justify their basic rights as citizens to control their own bodies??? That some Islamic women may justify the burqa as their own symbol of feminist resistance from within Islam is their right and perogative, and all progressives should respect their position and give them the respect they deserve...but how does that relate to opposing restrictive laws here in the United States?? The fact remains that whether or not some women do accept the burqa, it remains a symbol of exactly the type of restrictive and punitive sexual code that is being imposed on many Arab women against their stated will in many areas. To label these women who do resist such a restrictive code as "imperialist Western elitists" is no less overgeneralizing and scapegoating than labeling all Islamic people (or all Arabs) as "terrorists" or "Islamic fundamentalists"...and, coming from people whom I assume would oppose restrictions on women's freedoms, simply smacks of the same elitism that they throw like so much cowchips at the TennGW group.

Second point: It is so amazing to see how much some feminists and Leftists still can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to conflating critiques of Islam as a social belief system with "racism" or "cultural imperialism"...as if conservative Islam has replaced Communism and/or antiglobalization as the new progressive social movement against "Western imperialism". It's one thing to oppose the brutal and genocidal occupation of Iraq and the US/Israeli occupation of Palestine on general internationalist, antiimperialist and human decency grounds; it's quite another thing altogether to embrace an "enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" approach and blindly
ignore the more reactionary context of what Islam as a conservative institutionalized religion stands for. And before you drop the "anti-Muslim" card on me, my critique of Islam is based upon their status as an organized religion, in the same form that I would criticize equally Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism (sp?) or any other organized religion that uses the power of the State to impose restrictive and reactionary social views on other people.

In fact, I feel that those who are so quick to embrace "progressive Islam" as the next great Left movement (just like those who embraced liberation theology or other fad religious "progressive movements") tend to ignore the structural bases of social repression in which MOST or ALL such movements tend to stand on...most of which are based fundamentally upon the second-class status of women and the full regulation if not total abolition of sexuality outside of the bounds of procreative marriage. There really is not that much difference between the Religious (Christian) Right's advocacy of restrictions on women's sexuality and the Islamic one..in fact, in many cases, Christian and Islamic fundamentalists will set aside their differences and unite together against the common shared threat of sexual liberation and sexual freedom that they say "feminism" (and homosexuality as well) represents.

It's almost as if those who are so quick to drop the "Western imperialist" card on others who don't embrace "progressive Islam" or "progressive Christianity" or other attempts to reconcile conservative social/sexual views with economic radicalism really are willing to impose their own conservative sexual biases on other, less "enlightened" women. Talk about a pot-to-kettle moment.

Now, this isn't to say that Islamic people aren't under attack from a brutal and aggressive form of White supremacy...far from it. The bombs are still dropping freely in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Occupied Territories (and are about to spread to Iran as well) and the underpinnings of simple White racism against any non-White person who gets in the way of the Imperial Guard is clear as day. But that's the exact point....it is crass anti-Arab racism, not anti-Islamic thought, that ultimately lays the foundation for the violence and war there..Islam is only a symptom for the real disease of capitalism, inequality, and racism.

As tempting it may be to embrace Islam tourt court as the basis of resistance; as genuine Leftist sex radicals and secularist progresssives, we have to remain consistent in our insistence that while we respect the rights of individuals to express their personal faiths in whatever nonviolent way they wish, that does not give them the carte blanche to demonize those who choose to explore themselves otherwise.

The best that we as American progressives can do to help the Iraqis and Arabs (including those Muslim feminists who could use some real support) is to do our part to change the policies of our own government to end this imperialistic occupation and get our asses OUT of there ASAP....and then allow local forces to take over from there. After all our government has done to fuck things up, we have no moral standing to lecture anyone -- let alone Muslims -- on their actions.

In the meantime, we here in the United States of America have more than enough battles in our own plate to fight, and retaining basic rights of individual autonomy for women is one of the most important battles we face. The TennGW folks may have been a bit over the top with their Red Burka campaign....but they are a far, far cry from being anywhere near racist, imperialist, or elitist for their intentions. Rather than drown them with our own myopias and biases, why not support them with your time and money, and actually help them roll back the crusades of the Right here at home?? With all due respect to feminists within Islam, we have our own rights to take care of, too.


Of course, Kelley at Bitch | Lab is all over this topic, too..in fact, she's made it a central pillar of her "F*ck Feminists" week...

Two More For The Racking....

1) Joshua Frank goes off on the complete ineptitude and cravenness of the Democrats, and asks the fundamental question to rebels like Cynthia McKinney, Dennis Kucinich, and John Conyers, among others: "Why stay in a party that treats you like such dirt, and still rejects your fundamental principles?"

2) The next time a Religious Reich wingnut crosses your way about how government should reflect "biblical" theories, kindly send him this response (again from CounterPunch):

On Wednesday, March 1, 2006, at the Maryland state legislature, during a hearing in Annapolis on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at American University, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican state senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed
your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

Footnote: Raskin is running for the Maryland state senate. His site is http://www.raskin06.com

A bit more of that would be nice, too.

Rack That Lusty Lady!!!!! :-)

'Ya think that Rachel is getting really tired of all the slut bashing???

LUSTY LADY: But what if we want to be hyper-sexualized?

An nice excerpt:

I do think examining why cultural trends occur is important, but at the end of the day, you either want people to make decisions for themselves or you don't. Part of accepting the responsibility of freedom, autonomy and maturity is allowing women, and men, to make both "good" and "bad" choices for themselves. I could do without the judgment of those choices, but okay, fine, judge them-but how on earth can you say "liberation" means "freedom to do as we please" and then immediately afterward decry some of the things that please some women? It's a catch-22 that to me negates the very meaning of feminism as I know it.

[...]

And to defend my own job for a moment, in my magazine, we explore ALL KINDS of fetishes and fantasies. It is in no way a freaking monoculture, in fact, the very opposite. I have learned so much about the various forms human sexuality takes and am always fascinated to learn about more. I think it's a very, very narrow view of the world and sex and bodies and fantasies to see it the way she does. I feel that SEXUAL FREEDOM can only happen when we are not trying to be liberated from each other, but when we learn to encompass those whose sexualities are in the minority, who are looking to claim their place in the sexual arena, anad if they don't see themselves reflected, they create their own smut reflecting their desires. But "freedom" is not a word that means "freedom to fuck the way I want you to" - at least, it shouldn't be. Just as free speech does not mean only speech you agree with, sexual freedom, true freedom, cannot mean the freedom to only engage in nice, safe, perfect, pretty, simple, easy, 100% equal, nothing tying it to the real world sex. Because in real life, sex is messy and complicated and we work things out through sex that may have to do with all sorts of things other than direct physical arousal. It's about our brains and our bodies, about the convergence of the two, and if for some people that means stripping and fucking on film and blogging and being slutty and wild and whatever else these scolds disapprove of, then so be it. I would rather renounce being a feminist and stand in favor of sexual freedom than have to be some toe-the-line feminist constantly asking the sex police if the way I want to fuck is okay.

Actually, Rachel, you shouldn't have to even make that decision, since those who attempt to police sexual thought and action aren't really legitimate feminists to me.....but a standing ovation to you for saying what has to be said on the rest.

A few more women speaking out like that, and I might not feel so lonely here.

:-)

Biting Beaver Gags (Again) On Stripping

You know....there are times that I could excuse some of the totally whack pseudo-radfem psychobabble over at the Biting Beaver blog, considering all the hell that BB (the female voice of the duo that runs that space) has had to endure. No one should have to endure the horror that she has had to face, what with being a victim of a brutal rape and going through a hellish divorce proceeding...among others. It almost allows me to have even a twinge of sympathy for her rage against men.

Then she goes and posts nonsense like the following...and I am jolted back to reality and reminded of what a sex-hating, male-hating crackpot she really is.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Stripping...my experience

Whew, ok... this is a post I've put off for a long while. I touched on it somewhat in My Story, but didn't get too in depth with it. What I think I want to get out today is the real story behind the sex industry, and it's a post I've long been loathe to write.

First, I want to make sure that everyone understands that time in my life was exceptionally chaotic. Many of my memories are through a haze of alcohol and seemingly endless parties, and often I've had to piece things together to find the right chain of events. With luck I've gotten the timeline correct, but many of the finer details have become dulled and blurred through the years. I was underage when I was enmeshed in this life; I had just gotten a car and I was barely 16 years old.

[...]

See, you to know that those women hate you. They don't like you, and no amount of money you can give them will make them stop laughing at you. If you've ever given money to a stripper, you've probably given money to a girl or woman who has spent the last 20 minutes laughing at you, either with the other girls or on the inside. You buy a lap dance and inside she's criticizing you, laughing at you, mocking you. She's mocking what you’re wearing, how you’re speaking and everything about you.

When a man would pay me to give him a lap dance I would spend the entire time internally laughing at his breath, his pimples, his fat belly, anything and everything I could. These women hate you, and no amount of money you can give them will make them like you anymore.

See, here's the deal: just as the men who come to the bar have to be completely devoid of empathy for the women they're buying, the women also have to be completely devoid of empathy for the men who are buying them. It's a survival thing, and besides, how can we like you when you're paying to own us? No, oftentimes women will think and fantasize about smashing your head in with a baseball bat while they gyrate in your lap. But of course, we can't really do that can we? For whatever reason, we must allow ourselves to be bought and sold for the erections that men get over the power associated with owning a human being.

So, while we may be thinking about how disgusting your teeth are, how horrible your breath is, what a stupid shirt you're wearing and how we'd like to run a cheese grater over your smug face, we're smiling and looking at you through submissive eyes as we robotically rub our bodies over yours. But that anger has to go somewhere doesn't it? And, just as with everything else, it does. The anger turns into something else, and oftentimes it is turned inwards. We starve ourselves and abuse ourselves, and let you abuse us because we believe we deserve it. Other times we dull the pain, using alcohol and downers to rid ourselves of the anger, to crush it and keep it in check.

Most often we use several of these options simultaneously. We turn our anger onto other women, onto ourselves and onto our children but we can't turn that anger onto men; that would be too dangerous. We learn, very early on and particularly when we strip, that men are dangerous. They are more dangerous than anything else we’ve ever known.

Be assured that the stripper you see hates you. She drowns her hatred in alcohol, or burns it in a cloud of pot smoke, but she’s still angry.

Now, I don't know what's more hilarious...Beeb attenpting to speak for all sex workers in describing the total loathing they apparantly have for their clients; or the assumption that she can actually lecture male strip club patrons on their innate essential evil..as if they are going to be flocking to her blog to begin with. But then again, that's standard operating procedure for her and other radfem sex fascists, as we should well know by now.

The life of a stripper is a life of sexual harassment. Men grope at you constantly, trying to put their fingers inside of you when you walk past. You are called names, and told to “Bring that cunt over here you little whore”. And you do. You bring it over there because you've told yourself that you are powerful when you do so. That's yet another way to control the anger and the humiliation. You wrap it in empowerment, telling yourself that you're the one who’s really coming out on top. You tell yourself that you're the winner because that nasty fucker gave you every bill in his wallet, but deep down inside you know what's really going on and you continue to medicate, you continue a cycle of ups and downs.

Sometimes, as a 16 year old stripper, I would find myself on the floor of my rented bedroom at Deanna’s house, surrounded by the things I had taken from my room at my parent's house. I had a stuffed clown and large black and white stuffed panda bear. At times I would fall into a heap on the floor of that bedroom, an ashtray and a can of Old Milwaukee beer at my feet, while I cried into the fur of that panda bear. I remember thinking that if one more man tried to stick his fingers inside of me that night then I’d fucking kill myself. I remember looking longingly at kitchen knives but always being too terrified to actually do it. And then, about an hour before we were due to leave, Deanna might knock softly on the door.

OK....all stop!!! 16 year old stripper?!?!?!?! First off, most strip clubs I know are very perculiar these days about legal age of their performers, since that is the first thing that attracts the vice cops....so how in the hell did Beeb end up there to begin with??? Either that club was more underground and illegal (and that reflects little or nothing on those clubs that operate to the letter of the law)...or there may be a bit of exaggeration going on here to comfort Beeb's present myopic biases. I'll just let you read on and decide for yourself which is more true here.

Sometimes, we laid on that floor together and cried. Me, a 16 year old girl with a bag of vibrators, dildos and anal beads stuffed into a briefcase for use with my ‘clients’ on the escort side of the business, and Deanna, a dark haired, dark eyed woman who’s face showed more pain than any face I have known before or since. Sometimes we’d cry on the floor of that bedroom and then, after our tears were spent, we’d stand and smile and hug each other and go about the task of getting our things together. We’d change into our makeup and our clothes and we’d leave and drive to whatever club we were due at, or to the office itself to await the phone calls of the men who wanted to buy us.

[...] [Snipped for brevity]

I've had men call me the most vile things imaginable and I've had them pay me to do the sort of degrading things I can't even talk about.

The anger that stems from this is all-consuming; it eats away at you slowly, despite the efforts you make to contain it. A full 17 years later and I'm still enraged. The seed that was planted all those years ago has turned into a tree and that tree has branches that are vast. Every thread of anger goes down another path until I find even more anger at the end of it.

I remember now how angry men would get at me when I told them that the woman who stripped for them the night before was most likely silently laughing at your hair or teeth or bad clothes. I think about how angry men have become when I tell them that the poor woman whom he tossed his $20.00 at would probably just as soon have gouged his eyes out with her nails as looked at him. I remember how mad these guys got, how they seem to think that they should be able to buy not only the bodies of these women to degrade and to use, but that these women should also be grateful for it, they should actually like him.

They think to themselves, "Hey, I'm a nice guy! I was nice to her!", but never once do they connect the fact that buying another human being for the purpose of controlling that human is NOT a ‘nice guy’ thing to do. Of course she should like it, she’s a whore and she should love it when I give her money for doing what she would normally be doing for free anyway. They always seem so shocked when I tell them the extent of the hate. When I tell them the things that us girls would say behind their backs, or after our set when we would get back to the house. These men seem livid and surprised that we would discuss how you were so fucking disgusting that it was all we could do not to throw up on you. Then, we’d knock back another shot.

OK...so what does that say for the female strip club workers who weren't nearly as disgusted and full of loathing at the men who were throwing money at them for such apparantly horrible and "degrading" behavior??? Oh, I forgot...they don't even exist..or they are really LYING to protect those evil male patriarchial rapists and abusers who control their bodies!!!!

Thinking about these guys, these men who get insulted that the object they purchased wasn’t particularly enamored with them, makes me even more irate.

The rage still consumes me, the anger lies just below the surface.

I remember it well, and now as I sit here typing on my laptop in my bedroom I realize that the anger and indignation is still just below the surface. I am disgusted by them. I am enraged at them. At this moment I can say that I literally HATE each and every single man who thought it was his entitlement to BUY a human being.

What I learned from these old experiences is that men are sick. Men are demented and men hate women. I learned that it wasn't about sexual excitement for these guys, it was about entitlement and degradation. It was about power and control, it was about owning another person, another human being. They were rarely just happy with just buying us, they wanted to degrade us and make us perform disgusting acts for them. I know that these men who visit strip clubs and who watch pornography and who pay prostitutes would also buy a slave to work the fields if they thought they could get away with it. These men who like to believe that they are forward-thinking 'nice' guys are the same men who would buy a slave, and to be completely honest, I don’t give a flying fuck if that enrages them or not. These are the men that would buy another human being because they get off on power and control.

Buying a woman is little different than buying a slave, and I’ve been bought before. Cloaking it in ‘free will’ is a lie, a great big steaming lie. How much ‘free will’ does a 16 year old have when she's been kicked out? Every girl I knew, every single one of them that I worked with, had stories. Those stories are stories that curdle the blood, stories of rape and incest, stories laden with abuse and selling the only thing they had of value in this society.

There is no doubt in my mind that these very men would purchase slaves, sexual or otherwise to work their fields and jerk them off when they wanted it.

Ahhh..so if I read BB correctly, being a woman -- let alone a woman sex worker -- is the equivalent of being a slave..and any man who pays even so much as $20 to watch a woman dance is the functional equivalent of a slaveowner. How nice to show your innate ignorance and bigotry, Beeb....does that mean that when I pay someone 5 bucks to mow my lawn, does that make me a slaveowner, too??? And since when did rape and incest only happen to strippers and sex workers, anyway...you do know that rape and incest can occur even to more sexually "pure" women, do you???

Men who buy and look at pornography are exactly the same. These are also men who feed off of power and degradation the way a tick feeds off blood. They are parasites and they are incapable of finding any worth within themselves, therefore, they steal it from women, they take it and use it and then they look for more power when the rush of degradation has worn off. They believe that they have an inherent right to the flesh of women, to the point that ‘Free XXX pics’ is one of the biggest hits I get on sitemeter. They don’t even feel they should have to PAY for, it but that’s another rant entirely. And don’t kid yourselves, these men do believe this. They believe, with every fiber of their being, that they have a right to buy human beings. If you, as a man, look at porn, frequent strip clubs or buy prostitutes then you also have a problem with entitlement.

I want, once and for all, for men to know that women in the sex industry have been abused by men just like you. Rape and incest are the recruiters for the sex industry, and you are victimizing her just as her rapist did. She hates you and she hates all that you represent. She smiles because she must smile, she dances because she knows no other way, but she despises you and others like you.

Hmmm...entitlement...that's a unique way of slamming men who simply like to watch women who enjoy sex and don't mind showing it to the world. I mean, really...a man who simply gets a hard on watching a woman do erotic dance -- or heaven forbid, actually gets off watching a woman or group of women having enjoyable and enthusiatic sex -- is not only supporting the total domination of women by men (apparantly gay men who watch other men doing the same thing are given a free pass, since no women are involved), but is a prima facie abuser on his own...regardless of whether or not he actually abuses a woman on his own.

This is the perfect testimony of how legitimate rage at an act of personal brutality can spiral out of control into mass bigotry and ignorance...that this is being sold as "radical feminism" doesn't make it any less hateful or brutal.

That rage has not faded, and I'm surprised by the ease at which I have tapped into that anger. It's frightening just how close to the surface it remains. The memories that are so old now still bring the old warrior back to the surface.

I can remember, very vividly, the first night I stripped. I was terrified. That first night was at a hotel that was pretty strict with it's nudity policy, and all I had to do was wear lingerie and then try to sell it and garters. Easy...right?

I nearly chickened out entirely, but I had just been kicked out and needed that paycheck, I needed the promised tips and the 'big money' that everyone talked about. I was 16 and scared and needed to come up with my rent money quickly. Deanna was trying out her first night as an escort while I began here, in the hotel. It was terrifying, but I got through it. Halfway through the night customers began buying me drinks. I don't know how many I consumed but I remember being concerned about driving home. Wow, this has been so much more difficult than I ever imagined it could be. There is still shame that lies beneath the surface, and anger, more anger that I thought possible at the cruelty of men and their thirst to control and dominate.

Through that period of time I not only stripped. I also did bachelor parties and worked as an escort. The degradation and terror that is always there is just another part of the job. The hands, the greasy, disgusting hands, were always there, groping at you while the eyes were staring at you. I was little more than a walking Barbie doll, and I was critiqued by some, and worshipped by others. Of course, that worship consisted of men telling me what “nice tits” I had, or how they’d like to “bang that pussy”.

There’s more, gods, there is so much more, but this has exhausted me. I plan to continue adding more entries to this section and I’ll compile them into the ‘personal stories’ category on the sidebar. For now though, that’s the most I can get out. I’m going to find something to eat and maybe try to meditate for a bit and clear my head again. ~ BB

Goodness.

An effective antidote to this bullshit can be found here:

Alysabeth Clements -- Gotta Dance: Why I Love Being a Stripper

BTW....Alysabeth is a professional erotic dancer who considers to be herself a feminist of the highest order...compare her experiences to that of the Beeb, and decide for yourself.

And check out her the rest of her Feminist Stripper site, too.