L'chaim

A riff from elsewhere, on the general mantras regarding "you're too fat" messages, which in turn was based on this article with the shocking news that Bullies Target Obese Kids (who knew?):

I'm just thinking: the "it's for your health" crap. I mean, even besides the whole, it sort of gives the game away that someone doesn't necessarily have your best interests in mind when they also call you an ugly old hag or "bitchcunt" and other hilariously witty epithets. But, yeah, sure: health is a good thing. Eat better, if you can, get more exercise, assuming you're able. All over it. Eating more fruits and vegetables and fiber and fish. Haven't had fast food for quite a while. Doing Pilates twice a week now. Getting back into dance and yoga. Signed up for pole dancing next week, yah rly. Because it makes me feel better, physically and mentally. Health, yes. And yeah, I don't actually eat all that much, amount wise; mainly this has to do with the meds I'm on. Will it result in weight loss eventually? Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is, if I made that my priority, I'd make myself nuts, so I'm not. Again: in the interest of health. Mine.

So, but yeah, in terms of ingesting shit that's bad for you? Today it occurred to me: y'know, I could eat McChuck's three times a day and wash it down with a donut milkshake, and I'm betting it still wouldn't be as bad for me as swallowing the toxic go-ahead-and-hate-yourself-for-not-being-thin-enough (along with every other reason, of course) bullshit being shoveled at us from all sides. I mean, you can't not swallow any, fuck knows. But, just sucking it up undiluted? In the apparent belief that it's, I don't know, a health drink? Might as well go out into the Gulf right now and take a nice big gulp out of the noxious oil slick. And fuck yes, that eventually takes a physical toll, too. The more I learn about mind-body-well, that's another thread.

I got a fair share of bullying as a kid, surprise. The main theme wasn't fat, although that was certainly a motif through at least some years. I hovered around the "high end of normal" until I was 21 or so, except when I was dieting. Which, the first time I did that, I was 10. Yeah, ten. Why? Three guesses. It didn't quite develop into an eating disorder, but I have a feeling I was well on my way; for whatever reason, at some point the suggestion by a doctor that if I remained as underweight as I was I wouldn't hit puberty upset me more than the prospect of getting fat, so I started eating again, and that was that; by the end of sixth grade I was back to normal, if not well before that. There are pictures of me from that proto-anorexia or whatever it was period, though: you can count all my ribs through the T-shirts I'm wearing. I'd throw away lunch and exercise till I was dizzy and nearly passed out.

Then, when I was 17, Mom and I decided to do Jenny Craig together, (Mom's idea, natch) because we'd both hit the horrifying weight of-what was it? 138? At 5'4? My god, we were sometimes into the double digit sizes. Thank fuck we straightened that out in time, I say. Mom's instructor was a "former" anorexic who would lecture about how she trained herself out of having a glass of wine at the end of the day by chanting about how she didn't need it a hundred times. Something like that. But by the end of it I was wearing a size 4, at least for a year or so; no one made fun of me for being fat at that point.

So, instead, for instance, the same boy who'd started our acquaintance by randomly calling me a "bitch" in class back in junior high, before I'd so much as spoken to him or he knew my name (it took me till much later to realize it had happened when I knew the answer to something he didn't) prank calling me drunk in the middle of the night and making remarks about, like, the shape of my face. Seriously. Or the shoes I wore. Like that. In itself? No big deal. Years and years' worth of that kind of shit? It gets old.

I know a bunch of people who don't like the Judy Blume book "Blubber" because it's depressingly-some would say gratuitously-true to the way kid harassment works: the name calling, the hazing, the sheer thoughtless nastiness. It seems to suggest that the bullies are right, is the argument from those people. Personally, I still think it's one of her better ones. There's a point where the title character has brought a "diet" meal to school, and when the ringleader points it out she says something like, she's going to lose weight and then they won't be able to make fun of her anymore. To which the ringleader responds by forcing her to repeat that "My name will always be Blubber" and then telling her not to forget it, because "even if you only weigh fifty pounds you'll still be a smelly whale." It is rather instructive, at that. And then when the protagonist stands up to the ringleader, she becomes the goat for a while. She fights back, and she manages to get off the hot seat, but it's not really a moral victory; life just kind of goes on.

And yet, of course, it's not pure randomness that the designated goat is the "fat girl." You do get a glimpse behind the scapegoating impulse that can, in fact, land on anyone; but fact is, it does land more often on some people than others; this is was we call "structural" shit, of course.

As for not standing up for yourself...well, it's an interesting set of mixed messages out there, for sure.

Frex: vacations, I'd go to my grandparents' house in Arizona, a "safe space" for me, on the whole. I liked to read the books on her shelves-I was always a reader; most of them had been around since the year one. She had the original "Weight Watchers" book from 1960, beehive do's and pointy boobs on the front cover, glowing testimonials on the back. One of the chapter titles, as I recall:

"You Have To Hate Yourself Enough."

To lose weight, that is. Motivation to go on a diet starts through hating yourself. It was that bald.

Oh, they've softened that line since then, I'm sure, have WW. That, and bits like the inspirational little stories sprinkled throughout like:

the one of the sweet but painfully sad and alone (what else would she be?) fat woman who began to "blossom" as the pounds came off. And then, one day, she Met A Man! And it was wonderful and romantic! And he proposed to her! Swoon! But, he also told her he could "never marry a fat girl." Panic, when she hit the dreaded "plateau!" She'd "never make it to her wedding," she cried to her WW buddies! But, somehow, they got her through it, the pounds started to come off again, and she wore her beautiful size seven wedding dress to marry her wonderful husband, and they lived happily ever after^. Seriously. That was in the book. I remember it well; I read it over and over again, along with the Dr. Spock book and the ten year old guide to the best restaurants in Phoenix.

(^That is, he carried her over the threshold with one arm, no doubt, and they lived happily ever after until she gained the weight back again and he dumped her for his secretary, or she didn't gain the weight back and he dumped her anyway because she got too old for him or she got breast cancer and it was too upsetting or he didn't like the way she snored, or he didn't leave her but he beat the shit out of her or just wore her down till she took a wee fistful of Valium every day, or...yes well they left that bit out, never mind, moving on)

On female socialization and grimly logical conclusions

Read this post by fugitivus.

If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:

it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitch”)
it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitch”)
it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitch”)
it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitch”)
it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and your needs (“bitch got daddy issues”)
it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitch”)
it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitch”)
it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitch”)
If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.

And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.

Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.

Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”

Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”

Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.

Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.

Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.

Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.

People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.

And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.

...Women are taught both that these rules will protect them, and that disobeying these rules results in punishment.

read the rest

Also see.

Off that latter, and the "how hard this also makes dating/hooking up," which should not be the first consideration but is still a consideration, I just wanted to add:

As someone who got more or less the standard female socialization + introvert + no real incentive to go after men in any case (usually):

Fucksake, it's not like I don't fucking get how hard it is to meet people, -women-, hello. Women who "just want to be friends;" women who stand you up; women who huddle together with cliques of their friends in the bar all night, all with their backs turned outward; women who give you the runaround because they, too, have the socialization that you recognize oh so well of "never say no directly, because that would be too confrontational, and smile harder to make up for it." And yes, the mixers and such can be extremely forced feeling and dorky. I KNOW.

Yes, I sometimes talk to strangers, the ones -I- want to talk to (and who want to talk back). Yes, I don't live in a hole, thank you, and believe me, it's damn hard to drag myself out of one a lot of the time, what with the chronic depression/anxiety and shit. Yes, it's frustrating as all hell.

And somehow, I do all this -without- all of media and social/cultural expectations drumming it in that my desires -should- be catered to, that they're normal and appropriate, even necessary to grease the wheels of society.

Top that off with the het men in question continuing to pull the same bullshit on me as any other woman because no one is exempt, really, and it's not like the assholes listen to what you want anyway, and it's generally safer to -not- go "actually I'm a dyke" to such people because hey! whole new level of potential shit! and you know something? My sympathy, it is limited.

On the other hand, I postively love the Moon Dancers compared with the Misogynist Ratfuckers

Between this charming piece of "art" **

and the revolting ads for the motherfucking Tucker Max piece of shit all over -my- city (can't we have a ban?)

and the upcoming Roman Polanski nauseafest about to take over the media for the next ever...

among way too many others

i am not feeling the love today

**the "rape tunnel" would appear to be a hoax. to be honest I hadn't even gotten as far as someone was suggesting he was actually going to -do- it. It pisses me off enough that someone--like, o I don't know, Tucker Max? and the people putting ads like "Blind Girls Can't See You Coming" all over the goddam walls (unpeelable, I tried) not only think such things are hilarious and clever and "art" but get paid fuckloads to spray that shit all over everyone?

Enough.

Someone please call CPS on Rob Williams and Arnie State.

Tried several times to sufficiently convey my revulsion for these people in the headline and failed, sorry

Basically, these shitbag radio talk show hosts--what, redundant, you say? No, wait: really, here's a lower place:

Even by the flexible moral, ethical, and professional standards of American talk radio, the May 28th segment of KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento's Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning radio talk show makes for a sickening half-hour of ugliness and cruelty. For once, the focus was not LGBT adults, but minors. The hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, devoted the segment in question to a vicious diatribe against transgender children, some as young as five, focusing in particular on the case of one Omaha family raising a gender dysphoric child, and their decision to support her transition from male to female.

Williams and States took turns referring to gender dysphoric children as "idiots" and "freaks," who were just out "for attention" and had "a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them," either by verbal abuse on the part of the parents, or even shock therapy.

"Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals," they said.

For his part, States bragged that if his own son were to ever dare put on a pair of high heels, States would beat his son with one of his own shoes. He urged parents whose own little boys expressed a desire to wear a dress to verbally abuse and degrade them as a viable response. "Because you know what? Boys don't wear high heel shoes. And in my house, they definitely don't wear high heels.

"I'm going to go, 'You know what? You're a little idiot! You little dumbass!'" States sneered, adding later, "I look forward to when [the transgender children] go out into society and society beats them down. And they wind up in therapy."

Or dead.

In light of the well-publicized suicides this year of the two boys who took their own lives because of bullying and harassment for "acting gay" (which, in the argot of modern North American teenagers, often refers to acting in a way considered unmasculine by their peers) the stunning lack of moral sensibility on the part of States and Williams is breathtaking. But it also points to the increasingly degraded landscape of talk radio.

No fucking shit.

GLAAD put out an action alert (via Autumn at Pam's House Blend):

TAKE ACTION: Demand that KRXQ Radio Hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States Apologize for Encouraging Violence Against Transgender Children

Contact:

Cindi Creager
Director of National News
(646) 871-8019
creager@glaad.org

Richard Ferraro
Director of Public Relations
(646) 871-8011
ferraro@glaad.org

TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.

John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com

Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com

Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com

Please forward this link to any of your friends and others who may also wish to take action. When contacting KRXQ, please ensure that your emails and phone calls are civil and respectful and do not engage in the kind of name-calling or abusive behavior.

Apparently, as of yesterday, the station offered an apology, and there was to be something by the hosts tonight, although not finding it online and not really interested in hearing what they have to say. Personally, I think hosts this fucking hateful shouldn't have a public platform to spew from, period. I'm sorry for States' own kid. Even sorrier and angrier that listeners soak up this shit and take it out quite fucking literally on the bodies and spirits of trans people. -Children.- Christ Jesus forbid someone by their very -existence- force it into these orcs' stunted consciousness that they don't run the fucking universe. And yeah, I'm beyond sick of all of these toxic throwbacks clogging up the airwaves and the public square.

Some people are starting to put together a boycott of the station's sponsors. From a commenter at Pam's:

The whole list of advertisers can be found here. [direct links to each advertiser including contact info therein]

Here's some of the big ones:

Hertz
Home Depot
Chrysler
Griffin & Reed Eyecare
Pro City Mortgage
sonic burger
Snapple
Tobacco Republic
Chipotle
State Farm Insurance
Albertson's
Carl's Jr.
Jared
Nissan
Wells Fargo Bank
Guitar Center
Mc Donalds
Mervyn's
Red Bull
Bank of America
The Sleep Train
Purina
at&t
Verizon Wireless
UC Davis Health Care System
Washington Mutual

Like I said, personally I think the fuckers should get gone from the airwaves. Obviously not the only one who thinks an "apology" and $3.50 will get you a nice latte at Starfucks, basically. It might or might not be worth continuing to contact the station owners/management themselves; your call. I can't imagine writing anything that would be remotely useful to the actual hosts.

Also, Monica of Transgriot notes:

And if that doesn't get their attention, for those of you in the Sacramento, CA metro area, you can lodge protests when their FCC broadcast license comes up for renewal.

Update: So far, Snapple, Sonic & Chipotle have pulled advertising from KRXQ.

"It's almost like losing a child"

There are no words. From this UK Times piece, via troubleinchina:

Nine-year-old Daisy entered hospital in 2005 with a tooth infection, which turned septic. The hospital failed to supply the most basic medical care, giving Daisy neither food nor liquid in sufficient quantities. When she began gasping for breath the hospital told the parents that she would be transferred to intensive care, but this never happened.

It turned out that this was not an accident, but deliberate, and an official report on the case is being prepared by the ombudsman. As Daisy’s mother, Amanda Healy, told me: “The staff later admitted to us that they had ‘misjudged her quality of life’.” In other words, they had acted under the belief that Daisy - who loved and was loved by her parents and who, in Amanda’s words, “adored just waking up in the morning” - had a life not worth living and therefore not worth fighting to preserve.

One member of the hospital’s staff had said to Amanda, when she complained about Daisy’s lack of treatment: “People like you should realise that children like these are going to die sooner or later.” The remark that most shocked Amanda came from a doctor who was actually trying to be sympathetic, after Daisy had eventually died of a pulmonary haemorrhage: “It must be awful; it’s almost like losing a child.” It was the charity Mencap that put me in touch with Amanda Healy: hers is one of a number of similar cases involving what it calls “death by indifference” that it is pursuing on behalf of the bereaved parents.

The original piece goes on to note:

Yet even those who think of themselves as sympathetic can be astonishingly insensitive - in the nicest possible way. I couldn’t help noticing how many people expressed the view that the death of a totally dependent child with multiple disabilities, including an undeniably distressing form of epilepsy, must also have come as a relief to Mr and Mrs Cameron.

I too am the father of a child with a congenital disability - my younger daughter, Domenica, has trisomy 21, also known as Down’s syndrome. When she was born, an acquaintance who had a child with cerebral palsy told me: “Your problem won’t be that you will not love your new daughter, but that you will love her too much.” He was right, of course: it was a salutary warning not to neglect the needs of siblings.

Love should never be confused with pity, a sentiment we feel only for those whom we really don’t know at all. It infuriates me that children such as Domenica are invariably described as “suffering from Down’s syndrome”. In what way are they suffering? They have no disease. They have no ailment to “cure”, except - via the process of antenatal screening - their very existence.

What underlies this misplaced pity is a kind of selfish empathy. Someone sees a child lolling in a wheelchair and thinks he himself would rather not have been born than exist in such a condition - and so he decides that it would have been much more humane never to have allowed that child to have been born. He does not, however, consult the child.

j

and still more icky douchebaggery, aka shining knights we can all do without

1) don't look now--seriously, don't (the following are old links for the unaware)--just, heads up: Kyle Payne is apparently out of jail and back to blogging like nothing happened. potential feminist and/or anti-abuse conference gatekeepers, employers, shelter volunteer overseers, newbies to feministland, etc: do not differentiate this "sincere pro-feminist ally" from any other known predator.

2) on a lighter or at least more hilarious note, Natalia has a Very Special commenter going into terminal Fail mode right now. A sample of the specialness:

whenever one listens to “me, my rights, my space, I, what I want” and a plethora of “it’s all about me and what I want” the lower down the social ladder of order and class one descends, as it tends to always be the lower classes which feel as though they’re entitled to something.

Whenever one hears about respecting others, putting propriety and sensibilities before selfish ambition, the higher up the social ladder one climbs.

You three ladies reminded me something in your comments, regarding your birth right and station in life - and this isn’t me insulting or “harassing” you, though I fully realize that anyone whom disagrees with any of you is obviously (rolling my eyes) harassing you… that is the problem with individuals who just think that for some reason the sun and moon should rise and set on their ass.

so now to the point: when i was very young, I remember my mother pointing out to me much of what I’d be experiencing, now that many folks were starting to immigrate:

“one can take a penny. And polish it and shine it, and oh how beautiful that penny will be! Everyone will notice it and say, ‘oh how shiny that penny is!’ however… it is still only a penny. It doesn’t have any more value because it is shiny and pretty.”

I should have known better than to try to express the merit of value, to pennies.

so, thank you. It is a waste of my time to bother trying to have an intelligent discussion with any or either of you, since the best that you have to offer is it being all about you. None of you has any interest in how other cultures, or individuals function and I actually am curious as to your agenda for traveling and marrying outside of your own culture.

The more I read of each of you the more I realize you’re each attempting to climb out of your station or class structure, while pretending to be something you’re not...

I just hope the men you’ve each managed to trick don’t get taken and fully fleeced once they’ve outlived their value to you.

...if walking home means someone is going to harass you… then guess what? Take a taxi… if you live in a low class neighbourhood, then move. really, it isn’t complicated to solve what one doesn’t like to deal with…

if i move to a ghetto, i am going to be treated according to how they live… they won’t come to my neighbourhood, so I don’t have to be subjected to how they choose to live.

it has nothing to do with power… it has everything to do with class and culture…

"So take THAT, you filthy little mudbloods! p.s. my Eastern European ladylike girlfriend who lives in Canada would -never- be so vulgar as to get herself harassed or assaulted, and neither would Mater, so NYERGH."

WHAT A GREAT TWIT!!

Sort of like turning a stone over to see the squiggly worms

Abyss2hope fisks a comment by a rape apologist. It is sort of fascinating and horrifying to see how the mentality works. Thanks for doing it, A2H. Honestly, I got as far as

In my personal opinion, being accused of a crime when one is innocent is worse than being the victim of that crime. That is why we have this "innocent until proven guilty" principle.

and couldn't even get past WTF??! WTF??!?@?# -dissolve into incoherent sputtering-

anyway, though, the rest is equally enlightening in its fucked up way, so, if you're in the sort of mood where you can process that sort of thing: worth a full read.

ETA: oh, wait, here's a lower place.

This, on the other hand, is truly horrific.

I'm just going to second Natalia here:

I’m not a PUMA sympathizer, but I think this woman’s rage needs to be heard. Her daughter, Louisa, was shot by her other daughter’s ex. She is in a coma and not expected to make it. Her other daughter is battling cancer. In 2009, it looks like this woman, Betty Jean, may lose two daughters. In a particularly horrifying twist, the man who shot her daughter is now claiming that Betty Jean was his intended target.

Betty Jean and her commenters talk a lot about advertising that celebrates violence against women - although I am as appalled by it as anyone else is, I think it’s a symptom, not the cause. Violence against women has existed for millennia, it won’t go away if we make disturbing Dolce & Gabbana ads go away, although this may be a good start.

Neither do I think that banning porn and refusing to wear tight blouses, or whatever, as some commenter suggested, is going to prevent women like Louisa to become the hapless victims of assholes armed with guns. I think this violence is much more primal and horrible than that...

There is also this: the man who shot Rodas, one George Hartwig, had already been convicted of abuse. Specifically, apparently, for attacking his wife, the -other- daughter, the one who's dying of cancer. With a hammer. In the face. Because he wanted her cancer drugs. He went to jail, yes, last summer. For three months. And then, they let him out. And then this happened. Gee. Who'd have thunk it, huh?

By the way, January is National Stalking Awareness Month.
(Via Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

WTF is this shit?

Charming new Pepsi ad as noted by Shakesville (rape trigger warning).

I'd really like to know who sits around and brainstorms for this sort of thing, and what sort of ideas ended up on the "discard" pile before they decided "that's it, this is the one."

ETA: o hay, lookie here: apparently it's -not- Pepsi behind this, after all.

Official Response from Pepsi-Cola Company:

Pepsi-Cola Company wants to assure you that there’s absolutely no Pepsi advertisement in circulation that even remotely resembles the creative in question. After investigating this matter further, we learned that an advertising agency developed this print ad on “speculation” and it inadvertently made its way to the internet.

Please know that we would never use this type of imagery to sell our products. We are not using this image now, nor do we have any plans to use it in the future.

We’re sincerely sorry that this has upset you and we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to set the record straight. If anyone following this topic would like to discuss this issue further, free to contact me at the email address listed below.

Bart Casabona
bart.casabona@pepsi.com
Pepsi-Cola Company

I followed up with Bart to verify that this is in fact an official statement. In his response to my email, Bart also expressed his respect and understanding for our offense at the ad and assured me that Pepsi would never choose to market their brand in this manner...

for one certainly appreciate that Pepsi took the time to look into this, and that their response not only denied but also denounced this advertisement. I think it’s very important for them to do so when these ads have been gaining traction in advertising circles (where I myself looked in attempt to validate them) as legitimate. The company may not have created the ad, but their branding is still on it; for that reason they needed come out against the values perpetuated in the image. And I very much hope that Pepsi will not be using the advertising agency that created this ad in the future.

As for the ad itself . . . I think that this whole thing has been a rather interesting if not particularly surprising experiment in rape apologism. I spent the weekend wading through, deleting and occassionally responding to large volumes of troll comments on two different blogs. In those comments, I was called everything under the sun and the outrage that many of us felt upon seeing this ad was harshly mocked. The complaint from every single one of these people was not that the ad was illegitimate, but that there was nothing wrong with it.

"Gee."

What, us torture?

Sickened but not surprised:

Documents say detainee near insanity

By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer 47 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.


While the treatment of prisoners at detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq have long been the subject of human rights complaints and court scrutiny, the documents shed new light on how two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States.

The Bush administration ordered the men to be held in military jails as "enemy combatants" for years of interrogations without criminal charges, which would not have been allowed in civilian jails.

The men were interrogated by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, repeatedly denied access to attorneys and mail from home and contact with anyone other than guards and their interrogators. They were deprived of natural light for months and for years were forbidden even minor distractions such as a soccer ball or a dictionary.

"I will continue to do what I can to help this individual maintain his sanity, but in my opinion we're working with borrowed time," an unidentified Navy brig official wrote of prisoner Yaser Esam Hamdi in 2002. "I would like to have some form of an incentive program in place to reward him for his continued good behavior, but more so, to keep him from whacking out on me."

("whacking out on me")

So. Anyone planning to ask Senator McCain about this tonight? I mean I'd really like to hear what he in particular has to say, all things considered.

Kyle Payne sentenced

From Iowa Independent:

Stating that a major violation of trust had occurred, District Court Judge Don Courtney sentenced Iowa blogger and self-proclaimed male feminist Kyle Payne to serve time in the Buena Vista County Jail for invasion of privacy.

Payne received 360 days, with 180 days suspended on each of two counts of invasion of privacy, a serious misdemeanor charge. He was also given one year of probation on each count. On the charge of 2nd degree attempted burglary, a felony, Payne received an indeterminate term of prison not to exceed five years, with incarceration suspended. He will placed on probation for three years.

In addition, under a new portion of Iowa law that involves sexually-related crimes, Payne was given a 10 year period of parole. That sentence begins at the end of his regular term of probation. Because of the nature of his crime, he will not be required to register as a sex offender in the state of Iowa.

...Judge Courtney, acknowledging his sentence as a compromise that would please no one, said he opted for county jail time instead of a prison term because of the both Payne’s age and the fact that he had no prior criminal record. One of the conditions of his probation will be to follow the directions of the correctional team, including continued therapy and counseling

So yeah, probation, suspension, and doesn't have to register as a sex offender, no great surprises; still, six months in county, and he's going to be monitored for a good long while there. Golden boy permanently tarnished, at the least.

No surprise here either really:

This is the type of thing that happens, but not to you,” said the victim as she read a pre-prepared impact statement in court today. “… You might be given jail time, but for me this is like a life sentence.”

She added that since she was unconscious, Payne is the only person who truly knows what happened that night and left the implication hanging that there might have been more to the event than him partially undressing her, touching her inappropriately and shooting photographs and video.

The fact that he's seeing any jail time at all is more of a surprise, frankly. I'm sure he'll be a model prisoner, you know. egh. At minimum hopefully this'll follow him so far he'll never have any credibility in any feminist circles ever again. It'd be nice to think that'd extend as far as "any position of trust ever again," but well, world's a big place, and I am cynical. Still and all.

The victim’s mother, who also provided an impact statement in court, said that the incident had “crushed the spirit of her daughter” and has fractured her ability to trust others.

“You are a sick young man,” the mother said. “I think you’ve done this before and will do it again. Our family does not accept your apology. We do not care about your self-inflicted suffering. You reap what you sow.”

Amen.

ETA: partial list of links to more commentary here at Hoyden About Town.

The Meanie Meanerton Post.

Just, first of all, read this, okay.

A teenager has been cleared of killing a transsexual woman found strangled in her south London home.

Shanniel Hyatt, 18, denied that he killed Kellie Telesford in a rage after discovering she was a pre-operative transgender female who was born a man.

Earlier in the trial, the defence barrister wanted us to believe that Kellie died while playing “kinky sex games” - so, what now? - on her own, after Hyatt had left, taking with him her cellphone and travelcard?

And did she strangle herself before or after she covered her body in the white blanket?...

Then read this, on how certain..."feminists"...are still adamant about keeping teh ev0l tranz out of their "safe spaces," in this instance, actual shelters, and the reality versus the myth:

One of the big problems that I’ve got with trans exclusion is that the kinds of things that you need in order to keep a shelter safe when you let trans people in and the implications that has for the so-called problem of “men masquerading as trans people in order to gain access to shelters and whatever” - not that that has ever happened once and people raise that anyway - that…should be no less terrifying than the idea of a lesbian batterer gaining access to a shelter by masquerading as a survivor, it should be. And, in fact, what it tells us is that we still don’t take seriously the idea that women are powerful! No one has …as a movement, we’ve not internalized that we are powerful; if we believed that we were powerful andthat we learned the lessons that lesbians can batter each other, we would be afraid of the power of a lesbian batterer gaining access to our shelter or our other programs, and we would take serious steps…

Both quotes are taken from interviews with women who worked in shelters at the time...

and Lisa's note here in the comments, particularly:

Tera, to many radical feminists, “woman” is defined as strictly oppression, and I think it’s threatening to find women who not only disagree (as many cis women do while still acknowledging the realities of the violence, sexism, and oppression that women face) but to find women who (to their eyes) chose to be women. Many have said this to me directly, one saying that the very idea that transsexualism could be real might be so triggering as to drive some cis women to suicide.

While I think she was exaggerating greatly, I also found this positioning of trans women as being so triggering just because we don’t find being female inherently oppressive as simply being another way to center trans concerns onto cis people (who we are and the bodies we have to live in are unimportant - all that matters is how we’re perceived by cis women).

And I believe that this positioning females as the most oppressed, as femininity as being nothing but oppression (as gender being oppression) is a simplistic view that not only ignores a large number of people and their relationships to gender and their own bodies (and I am not speaking strictly of trans women here), but also robs cis women of power and agency by positioning them as perpetual victims of the patriarchy.

And that, of course, absolves women of any responsibility for racism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, cissexism that they perpetuate, because they don’t really have the power to perpetuate those -isms. They just ignore intersections.

Then take a gander at all this, wherein, among other things, we learn in the comments that real lesbians worry excessively about being spied on in the shower by "male-born" people, and there are links to a number of ever so clever gambits like I'm eating blueberries, therefore I'm transphobic.

...oh, and lookie there, just noticed, a comment by "me," aren't you precious, Polly Styrene.

Then learn why a cisgendered sex worker finds more in common with said trans women than the "real" women like yourself, and has, once again, had enough of the bullshit from her own end.

So you go right on and demonize and whine and talk about how horrible "sex workers rights advocates" (teehee!) are. You go ahead and worship Saint Farley and call us the pro-pimp lobby or what the fuck else ever. You go ahead and chill in that fucking tower while the rest of us are actually working down here on the ground. You buy her books, write your own, whatever, you go ahead. How many of the whores that Farley interviewed did she actually help? What cut of the profits from her writings is she using to set up working programs to get them out? Answer? None. She's just profiting from it all and, woo, doing more research. So yeah, you are just as useful as she is, kid. I may masturbate to porn, but at least I then go out and actually do something. You wank your brain and pat yourself on the back and waggle those typing fingers…then do what? Nothing but fucking demonize the people doing the goddamn dirty work.

...Or does it work like this, Maggie? Are their good whores and bad whores? Good ones being those whose lives have been trashed and are barely making it but, gee, they have such great, touching, agenda feeding stories! And then those bad ones…well, they might as well be men! Those who do well and profit and don’t hate it…and those other women, what with their BDSM and watching porn and stuff…they aren’t women, right? They’re men with tits and cunts. They are out of the tribe that bleeds and part of the problem, right?

"Might as well be men"--yes, indeedy.

It's not like you can see that there's any connection between transphobia (oo, she said it again!) and sex worker bashing here, either,

Kudos are going to the organizers of this protest against transphobia and sex worker oppression.

Residents of a downtown Toronto neighbourhood have apparently bestowed themselves with the moral duty of “kicking out prostitutes” who they say have “disturbed the peace” in their otherwise magically perfect neighbourhood.

Instead of lobbying for anti-prostitution laws, worker safety, or advocating for the rights of sex trade workers so that we can all live more peacefully together, for the last three months these residents have been harassing sex workers, specifically transwomen, to the point of assault.

This Friday August 15th, supporters of human rights and dignity FOR ALL will be gathering at the corner of Homewood and Maitland at 11pm to demand an end to this injustice.

Check out the Facebook event and hopefully we’ll see you there!

...where you can also read charming comments like this:

Michael Says:

August 15, 2008 at 8:27 am
Shoving a person is assault.
Yelling at people is disturbing the peace.
Threats and stalking are criminal harassment

When I stand several feet away from a sex-worker with a sign that says “No Sex work on our street.” my actions are intended to discourage the John from stopping and to make her uncomfortable enough that she will take her business elsewhere. i’m sure it annoys her but no-one is harmed and no one’s rights have been violated.

If other street vendors are not allowed on Homewood why are prostitutes permitted to advertize and sell their wares? I’d rather buy a hot-dog than a BJ at 3:00AM.

And finally… I fail to believe that Trans-women can’t get jobs. MAC Cosmetics, to cite one example has LOTS of trans-women working their counters.

No, he's not a "radfem," that's right. I don't know where this one's "morality" comes from and don't much care. Sure is an asshole though, and... he's not the only one who sounds like that, see. Or is whining about "mob mentality;" poor little put-upon flower, HE'S not actually HURTING anyone, he refuses to believe it, see.

See.

Oh, and will all those trans people and sex workers and y'know other women stop being so meeeeeeeeeeeeeen, I mean, be fair! Hey, he's just being reasonable and expressing his opinion, amirite? Free speech! Help, help, he's being oppressed...!

So, yes, you know, I've got a cold and I've just moved and I barely have the energy to get into all the -multiple- fucked uppednessnesses here, and frankly I think others have the right idea in just writing about the actual issues and trying to ignore your irrelevant asses, by and large. Or at least keep from centering you, -again,-

But meanwhile, you've been epic fuckwits again, and I'm in a Mood and so Attention Must Be Paid, so let's just cut it short, don't tell me: -you- did not murder Kellie Telesford or Angie Zapata, with your own dear little hands, therefore, you are not in any way, shape or form "transphobic." O.K.

But you, you still just can't understand why all these meanie meanertons who aren't among the Elect (anymore, anyway) keep picking on you, right? I mean, your "theories" are at least as important as the actual people you keep insisting on "deconstructing," "questioning," and generally ignoring anything they actually have to say for themselves if it makes you uncomfortable.

We’re the least liked of any subset of women. We already get shit from the entire world. I don’t know why other feminists won’t leave us the fuck alone.

--bonobobabe

Well, damn, I'm awfully sorry. Allow me to present you with a fucking cookie, then, even though it's against my principles o NOT AT ALL HATEFUL OR BIGOTED NO PRECIOUS Supra Feminists What Are Uber Marginalized But Still Somehow Going To Save Us All Whether We Like It Or Not, All By Yourselves, Apparently.

Blueberry, even.

The murder of Angie Zapata: why "it" matters.

Via Questioning Transphobia,: among others:

Basically, some walking shitstain called Alan Ray Andrade went out with Angie Zapata, had sex with her, and then, upon discovering that she did not have the genitalia he felt entitled to, killed her. Well. According to Andrade, she ceased to be "she" or even human once he discovered she was trans:

from Transgriot:

Andrade told police he grabbed Zapata in her genital area and felt a penis. He became angry and hit Zapata with his fist before grabbing a fire extinguisher and hitting her in the head twice, according to the affidavit.

Andrade explained to police that he thought he "killed it," referring to Zapata but when she made gurgling noises and started to sit up, he hit her with the extinguisher again.

Now, good old fashioned sexist misogyny already means that Andrade was all filled up with entitlement, and homophobia is an inextricable part of this too, sure thing. He's a man! Men have sex with women, which is what makes them men! He was OWED, man! AND: zomg, he touched someone else's penis: clearly this will immediately drain all the red blood cells from Andrade's worthless body unless he takes drastic measures to reassert his masculinity.

But there's also something else here, isn't there.

See, in the worldview of the transphobe, there are men, and there are women, and then there are -its.-

"Its" are not women, "its" are not men, even gay ones. "Its" are not human at all; they are monsters.

"They kill monsters, don't they?"

But surely, even if we acknowledge there's a LOT of hostility toward people who neither clearly fit into category "A" or "B," not everyone's actually going to go as far as murder. Andrade was a penny-ante criminal even before this; QED, the rest of us are all off the hook, then, right?

Oops.

Trannies! Send backup!*


… was the call from a steward, at a gay pride parade, when transwomen got somewhat pissed off at being told they weren’t allowed to use the women’s toilets. A transwoman was later sexually assaulted because she was given no choice but to use the men’s toilets.

Ebony Whitaker, Sanesha Stewart and Angie Zapata are all transwomen who have been murdered this year because they were transwomen. The men accused of Sanesha and Angie’s deaths are, like far too many fuckers before them, using the good old trans panic defence - “Oh, but Your Honour, the shock of finding out that an attractive woman had boy-bits, which of course must have made my attraction to her gay and ergo wrong, just sent me into a violent killing rage which is a normal, acceptable, and understandable reaction, so please let me off.”

You may recognise this as a spin-off of the gay panic defence, “Oh, but Your Honour, having someone of the same gender express attraction to me is obviously such a gross and disgusting thing that I couldn’t help but fly into a homicidal rage, and am clearly the innocent victim in this case.”**

Worst thing about these “defences”? They work. Let’s face it, in a world where marshals at a FUCKING PRIDE PARADE are telling transwomen they don’t count***, or they’re obviously some kind of “threat” to ciswomen (which involves a train of thought starting at “transwomen are actually still men” station, passing through “and men automatically sexually desire women” junction, and arriving at “conclusion: transwomen are just evil rapists-in-waiting who go through one hell of a lot of shit just to be able to sneak into the ladies’ loos” central. Which, um, SO WRONG), there’s clearly some big old fucking assumptions still being made about sex, gender, the significance of naughty-bits … a whole lot of things that frankly, as a society, we need to get the fuck over.

Be sure to read the rest of what Queen of Thorns has to say wrt the whole fucking stupid-ass -tired- phenomenon of

but I’m a feminist who wants to end the gender binary, so doesn’t my thesis logically conclude that Transpeople Are Wrong? Because if Gender Is A Construct, then a person cannot actually Identify As a gender that Is Not Actually Real, right? So transpeople … are a) deluded because There Is No Gender, and b) Betraying The Cause by buying in to the concept of gender! ZOMG TRANSFOLK ARE THE ENEMY!!!!!!”

and if you are one of those feminists and have gotten as far as the part where, well gosh, maybe we should be -nicer- to Teh Tranz, but I still don't understand how transitioning isn't just shoring up those "male" and "female" boxes and isn't that bit all the trans peoples' in question idea anyway? Read this. Now.


*yes, they really said that, and the whole thing is totally fucked.


**or some other variation of "The ___ made me do it; I just don't know what came OVER me." Huh, why do I feel like we've just been having this conversation...?

***By the way, about that whole incredibly depressing and infuriating phenomenon wherein some of our gay cis brethren and cistern prove themselves to be capable of being just as fucking awful as anyone else, also: way to go again, Human Rights Champagne.

Catherine Cusic, a 63 year old lesbian from San Francisco, was forcibly evicted from this weekend's HRC dinner gala after she stood up during Joe Solmonese's keynote speech. According to witnesses and Ms. Cusic, while she had leaflets in her hand about HRC's ENDA debacle, she had not given any out before hired security grabbed her by the arms and literally dragged her from the room, down a flight of stairs and threw her onto the street. Ms. Cusic documented her injuries after not being allowed to regain her footing.

She wrote an account of her experiences for Bilerico Project and included photos of her injuries taken by a physician...

Be sure to read the rest of that account at Bilerico. Charming stuff.

Payne in the collective ass: redefining GALL OMFG

Via The Curvature: (yes, I got the same chutzpahriffic email)

So, yesterday I got an email actually from Kyle Payne telling me that he would be putting up a statement on his blog today regarding “recent events in [his] life.” It’s funny how for someone who claims he wants to hold himself “accountable” for his own actions, he repeatedly uses that word: “events.” I think that if we’re going to go with euphemisms here — and I’m absolutely no fan of euphemisms — “my actions” would be a much more accurate one than “recent events in my life.” See, events happen around you and to you. You are the one who sexually assaulted a woman and then pleaded guilty to secretly filming and photographing a woman’s breasts, Kyle. That didn’t happen to you — but it did happen to the woman who was assaulted. (BTW: I know that Kyle did not plead guilty to assault. Gotta love the plea bargains. But in my view, “secretly filming and photographing a woman’s breasts” is indeed sexual assault — particularly since he has admitted to exposing the woman himself.)

I also got an email on the same day from Lynda Waddington, the journalist from the Iowa Independent who has been instrumental in publicly exposing Payne and investigating his case. She wrote to inform me of the latest development — that a motion has been filed to postpone sentencing. This is so Kyle can continue undergoing his therapy, the results of which they are apparently going to present in court and undoubtedly use as reasoning to ask for lighter sentencing, and also to gather letters of support — coming from god only knows where.

So I get these two emails literally within two hours of each other. And inquisitive mind that I am, I had to ask myself: hmm, could these two things possibly be at all related to one another? I know, ridiculous thought...

Link to the Iowa Independent story embedded; I am not linking to that scumbag's self-serving rationalization/whatever this is supposed to be, you can go there directly from Cara's if you insist. I clicked over there but couldn't read all that shit; just skimming made me throw up in my mouth a little. Shorter Kyle Payne:

"I don't know what came over me, the Patriarchy made me do it. I am so very, very, humbly sorry. Please tell me how I can be a better ally from here on out."

no, sorry, these are his words:

I ask that any women reading this letter who wish to share their responses contact me via email at _____[no, asshole]. I welcome your questions, concerns,
feelings, and anything else you would like to share. And I would especially welcome your thoughts on how I might move forward in my life with respect and compassion toward women.

My response:

"a) serve your fucking jailtime, you coward, where there won't BE any women at least for a while; then move to a monastery where you won't have any power over anybody, preferably with a vow of silence b) barring that, howzabout die in a fire."

Seriously, WTF? Who is the genius legal counsel who thought this was a good idea? I can't even wrap my head around the REST of it. Just...die.

egh, never mind, sorry folks, better things to talk about here, just...wow.

--oh yeah, you CAN still write a letter to the judge to request that he get a -harsher- sentence (presumably this little heartfelt plea was meant to inspire the opposite response, God knows how). Details at Eleanor's Trousers:

An “open sentencing” in the state of Iowa means that the public can attend, but not that the public can speak. While it always looks good to have people show up in support of the prosecution — and I’d personally really like to see some strong support in the courtroom — the fact is that not everyone is going to be able to speak.

For those who have a unique interest in the case… for instance, have served as advocates or can somehow speak with authority as to how horrible Payne’s actions were… get in touch with me. lynda@essentialestrogen.com

If you want to share your (civil) thoughts about this incident prior to sentencing, your best bet is to write to the judge that will preside over the sentencing:

District Court Judge Don E. Courtney
Buena Vista County Courthouse
215 E Fifth St.
Storm Lake, IA 50588

As a final note, there has been some discussion about Payne being charged with child pornography. This is not a charge he faces from the state of Iowa.

- Lynda Waddington
email: lynda@essentialestrogen.com

As for all the Monday morning QBing on What It All Means, Dear (yes, still about Kyle Payne, that scumbag)

Purtek sums up my thoughts nicely:

yeah, I’m pretty wary of the kind of guy who dresses everything up in terms of just how completely he is going to save me, the one who seems just far too good to be true, the one who always knows exactly the right words and turns of phrase like maybe it’s actually kind of practiced…but “male feminists” categorically? Not the same thing. Because you know, the thing with predators is, if the red-flag-warning-sign for potential predator becomes “identifies as feminist” then real predator will shift identifiers, will find a new one, will adapt to the given situation.

...The delusion that we’ll find the marker, that we’ll be the ones to know, is only hurting us and making us more vulnerable to the one who doesn’t fit our assumptions.

This isn’t new. Kyle Payne reflects exactly what predatory behaviour has always reflected - predatory behaviour. Adaptation. Manipulation and deception. Showing people what they want to see. Not radical feminism, not pornography, not male feminism, not men in general, not feminism in general.

And I know I've sounded like I've been arguing from several directions on this. (I am large; I contain lunch; you got a problem with that?) I...yeah. I do go back and forth, a bit at least, wrt how "different" predators as such are from the general populace, and how one would tell such a thing.

As for the "male radical feminist" (or sympathizer/groupie) (all three at once, mind you) business:

Well, it's like this. I've only known (of) a handful of this rather rare and special breed. And even of the other half dozen or so I'm thinking of, I don't actually assume they've gone out and assaulted unconscious victims, okay.

Here's what originally skeeved me out about Payne's posts, -before- learning about the charges (I did find the blog randomly surfing, -then- googled his name and saw Eleanor's Trousers and the Iowa news story, had had no idea who he was before that):

* The super squeaky clean image combined with a strangely zealous focus on the dark, dirty, dangerous, depraved, disgusting. The fact that he was supposedly all about -purifying- the filth does -not- make me -less- suspicious. I gather that it does, for some people. And, well...no, it just...people tend not to work that way. "You can't pray a negative." I mean, this is not news, this, that people who -obsessively- focus on getting -rid- of something Bad in other people -might just be- harboring it themselves. It doesn't ALWAYS mean that the anti-gay politician's going to be caught with a choirboy, or that the Temperance preacher has a stash of Scotch under the pulpit, but, well, I don't get how the general concept is exactly a -shock- to anyone at this point, you know?

* Yeah, and about that purification thing: -this- is actually why I don't trust this breed of male feminist, okay. Not because I don't think men can legimately be feminist, care about womens' rights, even be anti-porn (though, again, I get -real- suspicious of anyone who makes the latter the center of his activism -real- fast).

Because, the whole "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, grovel fawn (oh but by the way somehow I'm still grabbing the limelight and erasing your voice even as I beat my breast in self-abnegation)" = CREEPY, with a capital EEP.

at minimum, it's risible and doesn't actually help anything, because it's still relentlessly solipsistic. At worst? Well, you do figure: human beings being what they are, eventually, if one's martyrdom is NEVER properly appreciated by you UNGRATEFUL BASTARD PEOPLE, all that self-loathing -might- just suddenly snap outward one day and oooops, here comes nice, pathetic, humble little Marvin Milquetoast or Hubert Hairshirt with the kitchen cleaver.

"REVENGE! REEEEEVENNNGGGGE!..."

See, I like people who have a healthy sense of self-preservation, me. Who -don't- make it all about themselves, but are also willing and able to cheerfully say, "You're not my table, sorry," when it really ISN'T, sometimes. And I do mean -cheerfully-, because getting overly defensive is another whole deal and, well, we've talked about this.

But, you know. I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, I don't -want- some dude I don't even know to wear sackcloth and ashes for my sake or the suffering of Class Woman or whatnot, ffs: what on earth good does that do? Do something -useful-, or at least--look, it's a nice day, go play in the sun. Be happy, Chuckles. At least -someone- should be. And it's a fuck of a lot more straightforward that way than, well...I've rambled about this.

* the I-express-my-anger-just-through-tears thing, which--cool, look, Noli Irritare Leones expanded on this, "Denying the Shadow."

To which I'll respond: It's not that I don't think a guy could react in sorrow to something he's "supposed" to get angry, to, ever. It's not even the skeeved out reaction I had to "lookit me, I'm weeping with sensitivity over these porn slides; I'm just THAT sensitive," which of course becomes a lot more darkly hilarious in light of the subsequent charges, that bit.

It was this bit, specifically:

For as long as I can remember, I have been told that I do not get
angry - as an activist, a friend, a lover, and as a colleague.

And, yeah, he goes on to explain no, it's not true, here's how, but I'm sitting here thinking: first of all, why is he telling us this? And then, if -everyone-, even your most intimate companions, notices this about your persona, and the following story is about how moved you are on someone else's behalf, but it's -not- about -anger- as such...well, effectively what he's saying is: no, he really -doesn't- get angry. At all.

Because, one gathers, among other things, that would be not only too traditionally masculine, but, perhaps, -selfish.- Which, he is not. Even if he -does- lose control of himself just like everyone else, every so often, it's in a -good cause- when he does it. For The Sake Of The Suffering Women, not himself. See. He -feels deeply-. Passionately, even. But he doesn't get -angry.- Certainly not so's his nearest and dearest would ever discern. He is the UBER Nice Guy, apparently.

Big ol' red flag here.

* The other thing about people who wear their uber-sensitivity on their sleeve: yes, it's true, there IS more of a taboo about men crying than there is for women, it's a point, sure. But...personally, I'd also have felt skeeved out reading that particular anger/tears story, written in the same way, from a woman. Maybe I would've speculated that there's some social conditioning going on in there if she didn't mention it, but ultimately? Yeah, there are good reasons to mistrust people who make a huge show of their supra sensitivity, sometimes.

Or, well. Particularly, in this way:

There's a book called "The Sociopath Next Door" by a Martha Stout. Less a clinical text than kind of a layperson's field guide to Dangerous And Skeevy People To Avoid. And while I still agree that no set of red flags is going to be 100% foolproof, and I do honestly see the danger that this, too, can be "othering" in a way that means "whew, the rest of us are off the hook," then, I DO still see the kind of red flags as laid out in frames like this more potentially useful than "see, I knew you couldn't trust a man/porn user/radical feminist."

Specifically, this piece of advice, paraphrased because I don't have it in front of me:

Someone who fucks you over and then (or simultaneously!) goes into poor-sensitive-piteous-me mode is someone to stay right the hell away from.

Because, it's a -great- weapon, or can be, crying. The classic misogynist trope is that women cry in order to manipulate, and often, yeah, that accusation IS an abuser move ("stop being so sensitive! stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about!") But, truth is: yeah, tears/sensitivity CAN be a -great- tool in the arsenal of the predator: because most people, if they AREN'T predators themselves, DO lower their defenses when someone else (apparently) bares their throat. Kyle here demonstrates nicely, if perhaps not in the way he meant to, that indeed, it's not a gendered thing: men can use tears as a defense and weapon too, yes they can. So, thanks for that, Kyle. (You shitbag).

Mostly, I guess: if there's any lesson at all to be taken from this, and I'm not at all sure it does work out so neatly, it's: trust your instincts. Trust -yourself.- Just because someone says all the right things and meets all the right demographic boxes and all your friends think they're wonderful and they won awards and shit, doesn't mean you have to make yourself vulnerable to 'em if it doesn't feel right. Even if they're "nice guys." Even if they're "feminist." (Or aren't). Even if they're anti-porn. (Or aren't). Even if they speak with authority and a soft voice. Even, yes, if they're women.** And if it did feel okay and they blindsided you and fucked you over anyway, well, they're scumbags and that's all there is to it.

Beyond that?

"By their deeds you will know them."

**ETA: And here's why I have a problem with "oh, okay, the moral of the story is 'you can't trust any man, feminist or otherwise.'" Not because I think Evelina Giobbes are as statistically significant as Kyle Paynes--for one thing, I DGAS mostly about who's-got-it-worse stats, I say this to forstall.

Because, even if you don't give a shit about mens' tender fee-fees, whether as actual victim of crimes committed by men or women (yes, it does happen) or unjustly accused innocents, here's the thing: women do victimize women, too. And when you make it all about "right, we want this to be a SAFE space! No mens!" the implication, at the very least, is that women are safe because they're women.

And...no.

Really, no.

And so what you get, besides the Giobbe case, are a lot of female on female abuse cases that are dismissed by the mainstream because, well, homos, what'd they expect + your basic misogyny, AND, then when the victim goes to her feminist/lesbian community for support, the same ones who were right there whenever a man was the abuser (hey, maybe that's how she hooked up with her current abusive female partner to begin with: nice trusted pillar of the anti-violence feminist community, just like Giobbe) are suddenly nowhere to be seen.

Because, women don't do that.

Because, if we can't trust one of our OWN, now, who CAN we trust?

Oh, yeah, and also, the partner can follow her to the DV shelter. Hell, she might actually -work at- the DV shelter. Certainly some of their mutual friends will.

So the upshot is: a woman is hurt, betrayed, and has nowhere to go: and the whole "men versus women" thing made it WORSE, even without any actual men in the picture.

It'd be great if it were that simple, wouldn't it? All you need to know is that You Can't Trust Men. Oh, sure, it's -hard- to get rid of all that feminine training, male pleasing and so on: but the good part is, that's a really clearly defined goal, and once you get there, it'll be so much better, won't it? I got all my sisters with me. Yay safety.

Too bad it doesn't work like that.

ETA: Thanks for this, from the SAFER blog: Kyle Payne and Screening for Sexual Assault Advocates.

Kyle Payne, please report to HQ for your eternal damnation.

Just an update to say that even though I did see this entry, somehow I missed the bit where apparently he's PLANNING TO WRITE A BOOK BASED ON WHAT RAPE SURVIVORS HAVE CONFIDED IN HIM. (thanks, Ilyka and Wolfa, for highlighting this):

One day I’ll write a book. Well, hopefully several. But this book in particular will be a compilation of all the stories shared with me by survivors. Women (of a variety of different backgrounds) raped, beaten, groped, stalked, threatened, drugged, coerced, tortured, pissed on, and emotionally abused by men (of a variety of different backgrounds). It always strikes me, when listing these abuses, that the words are almost meaningless out of context. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Why would we take men’s violence seriously if we cannot begin to understand, on an emotional level, its effects on the lived experiences of women? I would never try to publish this book - these are not my stories to tell. But sometimes I tinker with the idea of creating something - maybe a work of art - that could somehow demonstrate to people that this problem is real. That the “shocking,” “disgusting,” and “evil” stories they hear about barely scratch the surface.

--oh, right, sorry, he'd "never try to publish it." So this is, what, a coffee table book? Privately bound, kept under the bed?

Which, you know, makes me feel a lot better, because now we know that if nothing else, he's for sure -been directly told- all these stories in confidence, and you know, he's just such an -honest- guy, I totally trust him to keep his word about not eventually deciding to start sussing out publishers after all. I mean, hey, bail is expensive.

Please note the date of when he wrote this, p.s.

Fuck you, Kyle Payne.

ETA again: Also, Renegade has a continually updated list of all the other people covering this, here.

So, I'm surfing around, procrastinating, you know how it goes, and I find what appears to me at first to be yet another garden variety (as these things go, there aren't actually THAT many of them I don't think) male radical feminist blog, one Kyle Payne. Since I'm in the mood to snark, I read and roll my eyes a bit: yeah, your classic: all of 22 years old and teddibly teddibly earnest, doesn't seem totally rabid or nothin' but your basic pompous, sanctimonious hetboy dweeb fangirling Andrea Dworkin and other Famous Not The Fun Kind Feminists for whatever reason. Yeah, there are a few of these around, mostly kind of, well, um, creepy and risible in a milquetoast way at best, foamingly horrid at worst. Ime, imnsho, etc.

But this one, thus far, well, I am thinking, trying to be relatively charitable, not really sure why--basically he just seems like this character, albeit with politics I find particularly teeth grinding. Oh, whee, yet more hairshirting and lecturing about the horrible awful pr0nz and such small portions.

More on this in a bit.

But okay, self-examining to the point of actual rectal-cranial inversion AND hara-kiri, squeaky clean, "articulate," nice trimmed fingernails and suchlike, he kind of reminds me of ummm certain more prominent "mainstream" male feminist bloggers whogo shall(koff) be nameless, mostly on account of I'm feeling passive aggressive. But mostly making me roll my eyes -really- hard overall, this one, and okay, shit like this kind of puts me on red alert:

For as long as I can remember, I have been told that I do not get
angry - as an activist, a friend, a lover, and as a colleague. I
assure you now that this perception is simply not true. I experience
anger much the same as anyone else. Events and circumstances pose
threats to me and my view of the world, causing me to want to lash out
and reassert a personal feeling of control. Yet the way I engage this
conflict, and ultimately, resolve it, may be somewhat unfamiliar...

...Despite how horrifying mainstream pornography is, absolutely none of the
information I provided was new or shocking to me. I had spoken about
pornography countless times before, addressing a variety of audiences.
And my research had revealed that the “woman-hating” in pornography
was not merely a fringe issue, relegated to a particular genre or
subgenre. Instead, the entire industry, along with its intimate
connections with prostitution and sex trafficking, is rooted in an
ideology of hatred toward women (and a system that enforces such
hatred). Yet, no matter how familiar I am with patriarchy’s firm grip
on sexualities in our society, I can’t help but break down emotionally
when speaking of such an atrocity.

Stifling sobs and brushing tears from my cheeks again and again as my
presentation went on, I was embarrassed and worried that my audience
had missed important messages in the speech. Perhaps they didn’t even
take me seriously, given my uninvited display of emotion during a
formal presentation. Regardless of reactions from audience members, I
felt strangely fulfilled having expressed myself so openly. For the
first time in my academic career, I felt I had allowed myself to be
human as a presenter. I regret that, at least for some, my tears may
have been distracting or confusing. Yet I see no reason to apologize
for them, given the subject matter.

Right, so, putting aside (for now) the pr0nz business, what I hear him saying, Kyle, (-nod- -nod- -nod-) is that he DOES TOO get angry, just like a non-saintly human being, he's just moved to piteous tears instead of your more masculine way of being...angry. And, he's not sorry. Well, okay then, I...tend to find people of any gender who disown anger as such (no, really, tears of sorrow aren't anger) kind of creepy, but...whatevs, get down with your sensitive self, I guess. And hay, I mean, presumably he's totally fine with the idea of women farting, whether or not he expresses flatulence in a traditionally masculine way himself. In fact--well, no, let's not actually go there.

Just...okay, charitable, schmaritable, fact is, I'm pretty skeeved out, on account of I always think, with guys like this, they really protesteth way the fuck too much. That the flip side of all that earnest--well, NOT chivalry, clearly, whatever you want to call the left-wing equivalent: 'ray the strong feminists, down with Patriarchy, down with masculinity, goes to anti-porn conferences and Sheila Jeffreys speeches for fun, lectures his fellow menz on being less patriarchal, and wears his shame with pride...

That the flip side of all this is, well, something a lot darker and uglier. That I just don't trust someone who goes on and on and ON about how TERRIBLE and ALL PERVASIVE all the misogyny in the world is, specifically the -sexualized- misogyny, of course; and only a handful of feminist celebrities and their adoring male acolytes can put things to right. But this is all very general thus far.

But so anyway, I'm skipping about, and I come across this rather cryptic entry:

I want to be very careful how I share these words with you. Given the
numerous accusations and attacks I have received lately, I am finding
it very easy to respond in ways that are defensive, confrontational,
and antagonistic. While those behaviors might be appropriate if I was
enlisting in a battle for my place in the hierarchy of our dominator
culture, they are neither relevant or productive in this context.
Furthermore, I worry that these actions would be interpreted as yet
another reason not to listen to a word I have to say.

I am upset that there is gradually developing a bizarre and twisted
understanding of who I am and what I am about. And I am angry that
individuals, who I presume are otherwise capable of critical thought,
are jumping to the most outrageous conclusions. I am also deeply
disturbed at the joy others have taken in painting such a disturbing
picture of me....

So, not really knowing what the fuck he's rabbiting about there, never having heard of this particular dude before, but thinking it's probably some potentially marginally amusing Internets wankfest. And I'm really trying for any excuse not to get on with the move and other shit I need to do, so I dust off the ol' binoculars and google his name.

o.O.

A few days ago I stumbled through tag surfer into this blog, ostensibly written by a male feminist named Kyle Payne. I thought his branch of radical feminism was a little extreme for my taste, but nonetheless, I left a comment and got one back. Today, I received the following comment (news story) from a reader (ryan) and thought I’d post it here, rather than in my comments:

Here is your feminist Kyle Payne:

Storm Lake Privacy Invasion

Thursday, 14 February, 2008 12:00 AM

(Storm Lake, IA)–An arrest is made by Storm Lake Police in relation to a ten month long investigation into an assault and invasion of privacy of a Buena Vista University Student.

A search warrant was executed at Pierce Hall room #B10 on April 26th of last year. Authorities seized a computer and a digital camera from 22-year-old Kyle Payne’s room. A search of the Ida Grove man’s car turned up photographs described as personal in nature that also showed the woman may have been assaulted physically without knowing it.

A search of Payne’s Ida Grove home turned up more evidence including another computer. All items were sent to the DCI Crime Lab for forensic analysis.

Through investigation it was found that Payne, on January 3rd of 2007, was serving as RA for Buena Vista University when he attended to an intoxicated 18-year-old female student in her dorm room. He allegedly physically assaulted her while she was unconscious and video taped the act and downloaded the images onto his laptop.

Payne was arrested at his Ida Grove home Wednesday and charged with 2nd degree burglary, a class C felony, invasion of privacy, and assault. He was taken to Buena Vista County Jail and booked on an $11,300 cash bond..

The comments at that link at Eleanor's Trousers (thanks), many purporting, credibly, to be aquaintances of Kyle Payne's, are...illuminating. And, well, it doesn't sound good. Nonetheless, I'm a bit hesitant to blog this on account of the whole "innocent till proven guilty" thing, okay, sure.

Well, as it transpires, as of just one week ago there has been an update:

Iowa Blogger Pleads Guilty to Secretly Photographing Woman's Breasts

An Iowa blogger who claimed to use activism and education to promote “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” for women, especially those women who have been victims of sexual violence, has pleaded guilty to photographing and filming a college student's breasts without her consent.

Kyle D. Payne, 22 of Ida Grove, presented his guilty plea Monday in Iowa District Court for Buena Vista County. He agreed he was guilty of felony attempted burglary in the second degree and two counts of invasion of privacy, a serious misdemeanor.
Lynda Waddington :: Iowa Blogger Pleads Guilty to Secretly Photographing Woman's Breasts

In documents filed with the court, Payne agrees that "with an intent to arouse my sexual desire, I photographed and filmed Jane Doe and her breast without her consent." A portion of the plea agreement stating that Payne was of sound mind when the incident took place in early 2007 was stricken from the document, leaving only the portion where Payne agrees that he is currently of sound mind.

At the time of the incident, Payne had been employed by Buena Vista University as a dormitory resident adviser. Police reports indicate that while attending to an intoxicated and unconscious female student, Payne reportedly assaulted and photographed her. The guilty plea entered Monday did not include assault charges. Tips received by police and campus security following the incident led to a 10-month investigation that resulted in Payne's arrest in February....

Payne, who identified with radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin, attended a training for feminist anti-pornography activists in January at the University of Texas in Austin. An article in the Ida County Courier stated that Payne had "written papers and given several public presentations on feminist critiques of pornography, prostitution, and the 'rape culture,' in addition to serving as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence." According to a resume previously posted on his blog, he has attended many such conferences since 2004.

Payne faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $7,500. As a condition of the plea deal, the state has agreed that no other charges will be filed as a result of this incident. Sentencing has been set for Aug. 11.

Oh, yeah, wrt "other charges:" according to several of the commenters at Eleanor's Trousers, he'd been previously accused of other assaults and/or allegedly having child pornography on his computer, last year.

So, okay, well, I mean, it's not as though we've never heard of, o I don't know, anti-gay legislators who get caught cottaging, televangelists who're winged by sex scandals, all that jazz.

Of course, -sexual assault,- as opposed to just fucking around like the rest of us mortals, ceases to make anything like schadenfreude even remotely amusing.

The best part for me, though, is that throughout this all, the dude is -still blogging- as though nothing had happened. Charges brought in February; guilty plea on July 1. This is an entry from early May:

If we are serious about rape prevention – in other words, not rape
avoidance, defense, or something along those lines – we need to begin
with where rape begins, in men’s decisions to assert dominance over
women through sexuality. Ultimately we are talking about subverting
patriarchy as a system, but of course, it is largely men’s choices
that maintain that system. We are talking about taking rape away from
men, along with their unearned advantages in this society, and of
course, their unjust (as if there were any other kind) dominance over
women...

Tell us about it, Kyle.

And then, this post, as included in the May edition of the Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution:

Bob Jensen made an important point to the group as our time together drew to a close: “Not everyone gets better.” This is certainly true of survivors of sexual violence, who are far too often met with frustration, even blame, from loved ones who simply cannot understand why they haven’t “put the pieces back together.” And I think it might be a fair statement regarding anyone doing anti-rape or anti-pornography work. It is the most heartbreaking experience for me as an advocate not to be able to tell a survivor that everything will be fine, that with the right amount of support and determination, she will be able to move on with her life, and in some sort of meaningful way, feel okay. The reality is that not everyone gets better, and whether we call it the “rape culture” or “porn culture,” we are living in a society that actively prevents healing from taking place.

Yeah. You might say that, Kyle. You might, at that.

And I...suddenly realize that all the commentary I was going to make from here on out just feels...completely redundant.

Renegade Evolution has more.

ETA: This really interests me, though, from a commenter at Eleanor’s Trousers:

July 8, 2008 at 11:02 pm

Any one who lives in Storm Lake or close to Storm Lake should go to this sick S.O.B sentancing on 11-Aug-2008 at the Buena Vista County Courthouse. Payne has asked for open sentancing. This means the Judge will listen to all that want to talk then decide what the sentance should be. He needs to do time.

So, basically, if I’m reading this right, he’s throwing himself on the mercy of his peers. Hence the trying to keep a low profile (I take it), the acting like everything’s normal, the charm: he doesn’t want the pitchforks and torches, he wants to show up there and be all “aw shucks” and hope for a slap on the wrist. Is what I’m getting from that.

Seems like it’s probably worked for him in the past; apparently there are other charges pending from the university he’s at–child porn on the computer, alleged by the commenters at ET, although that’s not official yet apparently–and the same commenters were also pretty clear that this is an ongoing problem at the university, shit like this getting swept under the carpet.

If you look at his vlog (latest entry about Independence Day; the article about his guilty plea came out on July 2. He's...well, see for yourself, how he presents himself, would do for a court. Smooth. He's 22, and clearly an ambitious little thing, probably well-heeled and reasonably well connected as these things go.

I…would not let this one go.

Natalia Antonova asks the "realness" question

to wit, in this instance, "Who's a 'real' woman, anyway?"

more specifically,

How many times have you heard some idiot** say something like, “man, I hate American chicks, might as well go to Thailand/El Salvador/Moldova, that’s where the REAL WOMEN are at.”

Now, we all know what he probably means here - women who are at a similar economic level are not submissive enough, and women who are not are “easier” to deal with. There’s also the fact that a certain woman’s upbringing may make her more “susceptible” to what the man perceives to be submissive status, or else give the appearance of such status.

That’s all pretty much clear, or so I think. What isn’t often clear is the motivation of the “submissive foreign woman” in question. Based on my experience, scenarios vary wildly. A lot of women consider the arrangement a step up, and will tell you to fuck off if you try to lecture them on who to marry and how to carry themselves.

Were you born outside of Donetsk to an emotionally sadistic mother who cleaned hotel rooms and slept with guests for extra cash? Did you have an alcoholic stepfather who tried to bash your face in with a wrench after you refused to blow him? Did your mother then kick you out of the house for “trying to steal [her] man”? If not, you’re probably not going to have a whole lot of authority in the eyes of the eighteen-year-old who just wants a nice, stable life with some aging paramour in Milwaukee...

So what do you do about all of this? I don’t know. I know that until conditions markedly improve in my native Ukraine, people are going to want to get out. Until more men realize that women’s sole purpose isn’t to gratify their sexual and culinary needs, they’re going to seek out the vulnerable among us.

And we will keep on keeping on.

Though if I have any ideas about any of this, it’s to stress that all of us, the rich, the poor, the in-between, the misogynists, the crusaders, the quiet and shy, the loud and abrasive - we are all as “real” as the next person.

I think here, as with the prostitution...talks...in feminism (among others), what happens here is that...well, I dunno, there's a whole comment thread there and I'm not currently up to opining very eloquently or originally. Just: well, yeah, the situation is...grey and complicated. As are people, including women.

**in case you were wondering whether this was a rhetorical question, some lovely examples of said idiots came up in the course of the conversation. f'r instance, as found here,

I salute those men who have gotten the hell out of the feminist matriarchal West, and have managed to find some remaining enjoyment in their lives by going Expat.

...The poor schmuck who dares marry invites the host of Hell upon his head. At any time , for any reason, a wife may “cash out” and strip the man of his assets; and if he has children get child support and alimony in addition to the house and car. Men walk on friggin egg shells in their sexless marriages as the wife manipulates him mercilessly over the barrel. That they flee the country is no surprise.

Worse you do not consider, because of your isolated perspective, that many men do not have sex at all.

or from right there in the thread, for that matter,

“Firstly women from these countries often act a little more ladylike (e.g. avoid swearing, farting, obnoxious - not playful - man-bashing) and traditionally (e.g. support men making the money, and women tending to the home and family, and often more religious).

And secondly women from these countries believe marriage is a lifelong commitment, and certainly don’t use terms like “starter husband” in their native cultures (http://www.marieclaire.com/life/sex/advice/starter-husband). A lot of men have heard the horror stories and read the statistics about divorce in America, and want more than just Til-Inconvienence-Do-Us-Part”

...That being said...If a woman cheats, farts, and walks all over her man, that says more about him than it does her.

Doesn't it, just? -poot- oh, excuse me.

The things I learn. So, apparently, if I'd been married traditional, like (and if my husband kept me in line, of course), I'd cease to be flatulent again, EVER? wow, no wonder they want to keep marriage sacrosanct. -poot- goddamit. -urp-

...blimey, this homosexual agenda's more insidious than I thought.

My favorite, though, speaking of, was this one, as ganked from another thread and reposted here:

This string has me in complete disgust! Let me tell you all…all of you feminist, male bashing\hating\demeaning bitches, you are the reason so many American men are looking for (and finding) beautiful , intelligent , talented, warm and loving women abroad …Ukraine and Russia in particular, because they are disgusted with your feminist bullshit! Go to your Gay Pride parade but don’t expect any intelligent and decent man to accompany you !

so, basically,

"I'm NOT going with you to the Gay Pride Parade! I'm going to Russia instead! Because I am an intelligent and decent MAN, and you don't deserve me, you, you LESBIAN!"

I bet he has a great big gub, though.