Apparently I suck at hiatuses

Well, also, I do take requests, and fastlad, my dearest friend who I haven't talked to in way too long, has asked me to snark about this stupid article, which I will because I love him and also because it's a really stupid article and I feel like being bitchy on a topic that a) merits it b) but isn't important enough to make my brain explode.

It should be short. I mean, here's the title:

Brooklyn Virgin Discovers Naked Dancing"

Here's how it starts:

Somehow it happened that in all the years I’ve lived in New York City, I’d never been to Brooklyn. But when I heard that choreographer Noémie Lafrance had a new show opening in Williamsburg, I decided it was as good an occasion as any to venture beyond Manhattan for the first time. I loved the music video she choreographed for Feist’s “1234” in 2007, and “Rapture”—her piece for aerialists staged on the side of a Frank Gehry building at Bard College—was undeniably awesome. So on Tuesday night, I boarded the L train (heading away from the West Village) and made my way to hipsterville. I’d heard from my more global friends that Brooklyn is a charming borough inhabited by cool young families, gourmet cheese shops, and creative intellectuals. It has parks! And trees! And slow walkers aren’t mowed down on the sidewalk! But I’m what you might call a bona fide Manhattanite. Or, to be more precise, a bona fide Upper East Sider. I’ve traveled the world, I said to myself—how exotic could Brooklyn really be?

Perhaps my tweed J. Crew jacket and Tory Burch ballet flats weren’t the best wardrobe choice for that day, but I overcame the fact that I was a total Williamsburg misfit and hoped my foreigner status wouldn’t be glaringly obvious to the natives. (It was)..

It gets more annoying from there. Apparently girlfriend was shocked, shocked, at the realities of downtown* theatre, from lack of proper accomodations to nekkid performers to I can't even read all that shit to be honest. Short version:

"I'm a total pointless snob with nothing remotely interesting to say and particularly not about this show I'm supposed to cover, (I don't know much about Art, but I know what I -don't- like, even if I feel totally insecure about it); but if I write this piece in an archly kidding-on-the-square 'ironic' tone (see, I AM hip, I know 'irony' is what all the cool kids do these days...maybe) people will think I'm ever so charming and clever and amusing."

Not.

-plonk-

The first comment sums it up really:

good riddance and don't come back. we don't need you.

just sorry I never invited her up to my former digs in Queens, and don't I feel DARING for saying that. or, um, not? i did and do consider myself damn lucky to have a (nice, at that) place to live in the city (or anywhere for that matter, look around you you stupid toff) at all?

Oh yeah, and yes, it is depressing that this is a (presumably paid) piece for Vanity Fair and not someone's livejournal, as another commenter noted. Indeed.

(*Williamsburg is often considered an extension or 'new'(er) "downtown," i.e. the East Village moving East. Yes Virginia, that certainly DOES include, nay, is probably by now OVERWHELMED by, a fuckload of privileged gentrifiers and/or other annoying UES twits faux-"slumming" it for the length of the nearly-as-inflated-as-Manhattan-by-now-lease or the evening, respectively, so girlfriend there shouldn't have felt remotely out of place unless she's really so damn insecure that a couple of equally-pretentious hipsters glaring over their black-rimmed glasses gives her the vapors)

We briefly interrupt this quasi-non-hiatus to say: Fuck Amazon.com

Here's why. It's not just affecting LGBT "adult" books either. Also see re: why it matters.

If you'd like to let them know your feelings, here's their express customer service form. or call 1-866-216-1072. or just join the boycott.

good a reason to patronize indies as much as possible anyway. Powell's still seems to be okay, also.

eta: "Book Depot" in the UK looks promising. free worldwide delivery!

eta again: someone cynical theorizes this is a sophisticated trolling effort of some sort. if so, as far as I'm concerned all it means is "hey, still another party is (also) an EPIC asshole!"

and, this is also not the first time this sort of thing has been discussed wrt Amazon, apparently.

but, yeah. "lulz." wtfever. well, hey, if it turns out to be the case I guess we'll hear it from the PR eventually. can't wait for it. so far the response, "skeleton crew" or not, has been less than satisfactory.

In other but sort of thematically related postage: I can't get behind lesbian comic author Erika Moen anymore, much as I've liked a lot of her cartoons in the past. Here's why. And disgusted with Annalee Newitz--another person I -wanted- to like-- for similar reasons: here's why. (including comments section).

O.K. Really, I'm...busy. no more blogging for a while. hold my calls. Really. Oh, and happy Zombie Rabbits And Candy Eating Day.

p.s. Doctor Who special was v. disappointing. why can't Tennant stick around for Moffat? whhyyyyyyy???

later to all 7.8 of my readers...

ETA okay, whether he's actually behind it or not, I think we can all agree that "Weev" is a smug entitled POS

Hay dude. Amazon removed its customer-based reporting of adult books yesterday. I guess my game is up! Here's a nice piece I like to call "how to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code".

I really hate reputation systems based on user input. This started a while back on Craigslist, when I was trying to score chicks to do heroin with. My listings like "looking to get tarred and pleasured" and "Searching for a heroine to do the paronym of this sentence's lexical subject" kept getting flagged. The audacity of the San Francisco gay community disgusted me. They would flag my ads down but searching craigslist for "pnp" or "tina" reveals tons of hairy dudes searching for other hairy dudes to do meth with. So I decided to get them back, and cause a few hundred thousand queers some outrage.

I'm logged into Amazon at the time and see it has a "report as inappropriate" feature at the bottom of a page. I do a quick test on a few sets of gay books. I see that I can get them removed from search rankings with an insignificant number of votes.

I do this for a while, but never really get off my ass to scale it until recently.

[some code which I have no fucking idea about really]

...and I have a neat little list of the internal product ID of every fag book on Amazon.

Now from here it was a matter of getting a lot of people to vote for the books. The thing about the adult reporting function of Amazon was that it was vulnerable to something called "Cross-site request forgery'. This means if I referred someone to the URL of the successful complaint, it would register as a complaint if they were logged in. So now it is a numbers game.

I know some people who run some extremely high traffic (Alexa top 1000) websites. I show them my idea, and we all agree that it is pretty funny. They put an invisible iframe in their websites to refer people to the complaint URLs which caused huge numbers of visitors to report gay and lesbian items as inappropriate without their knowledge.

I also hired third worlders to register accounts for me en masse.

...The combination of these two actions resulted in a mass delisting of queer books being delisted from the rankings at Amazon.

I guess my game is up, but 300+ hits on google news for amazon gay and outrage across the blogosphere
ain't so bad.

Funny. Really funny.

More on why Amazon still isn't off the hook:

What I think is going on: there is a severe vulnerability in the Amazon flagging-for-inappropriate system, and it's been found and exploited by one or more nerds with too much time on their hands. Amazon's mistake, vis a vis the brave new world of social media, is two-fold:

Refusing to acknowledge a vulnerability. People are reaching the point not just that they like transparency in dealing with people who hold lots of important info on their behalf, but they are coming to demand it. Amazon's "nothing more to see here" approach is damaging to the relationship they have with those outraged by the exploit.
Refusing to acknowledge the pain of affected people. If you have an entire relationship built on trust (with personal info, with commitments to move products, with referrals and wishlists, etc), you have the obligation to have that uncomfortable sit-down when a betrayal is introduced to the relationship. Amazon hasn't done that yet. Yikes.
There's a livejournal blogger out there now claiming responsibility for the exploit. I won't link over, because I actually think he's full of crap, as do those who've attempted to reproduce his exploitative code. It's a well known practice for those with no skillz to take responsibility for things they have no part of to build up their hacker cred. Please. You know what tipped me off, for the record? The references to wanting to have anonymous sex with women and heroin from Craigslist. Fetishy-objectifying of women is common in the hacker community, for sure, but this guy is just… silly.

This doesn't mean that someone didn't come up with something similar– I'm almost positive they did. Which means that Amazon has a serious problem, and they better have a better explanation than the "glitch."

There's a bigger picture here: cultural implications

From a tech point of view, recommendation systems and flag-as-inappropriate tools that aren't built to handle gaming the system are just no good. It's unacceptable that a masterminding giant such as Amazon wasn't prepared for this kind of attack. Especially considering how much it affects Amazon's contract and relationship with the people that provide them with the goods its users demand, and how much users trust Amazon to do the Right Thing.

On a wider cultural scale, as I'd mentioned in the article in the WMC, the cultural implications of these attacks — especially when it's big enough to get this kind of attention — are huge. Geek culture is one of the last vestiges of an overtly sexist and toxic environment for anyone who's not a straight guy, most likely white and middle-class. (Not limited to the nerds of computer love, either– check out this post on misogyny and comic books from Amptoons.) When these attacks occur, it reveals not just the hatred that the hackers themselves have for women and LGBT folk, but the wider cultural intolerance we still have running rampant.

...Some would react by clamping on the anonymity, the level of free speech and the accountability, often all at once. Sure, keeping trolls off your comments section is probably a good idea. Enacting laws making it impossible to operate independently and anonymously online? Bad idea. Very bad. We need to be addressing the root causes of our misogyny, our racism, our homophobia — not piling on bandaids, duct tape and bailing twine to keep people's mouths shut...

Hiatus-ish.

I'm trying to attend to Real Life duties as well as finally catch up on some other writing, so am recusing myself from much of the blogosphere, at least, till further notice.

Okay, there's some kind of Universal Principle Of Something here, just can't quite name it yet.

Am belatedly zeroing in on the comments of a random troll Queen Emily had and was later mocking, because, well...look at this:

I really would rather be the loneliest person in the world than adapt my opinions (which you missed, by the way) in order to have friends. Fair weather friends, and those who demand compliance to some view before they will be "friends" are such a waste of time, wouldn't you agree? I'd rather have enemies than friends like that. At least with enemies, you know someone hates you. With friends who demand some adherence to a principle, you have no way of knowing where their loyalty and friendship lie. Such a lonely existence. Friends! Who cares if I do or don't? At least my friends aren't required to pass an ideological test!

I really would rather be the loneliest person in the world than adapt my opinions (which you missed, by the way).

Ayn Rand, is that you? Camille? Bueller? no, not that...

Dear Person(s): "adapting your opinions" is part of -life.- There's a fine line between "being true to oneself" and "being so ego-invested that the slightest hint of the gentlest disagreement threatens the entire fragile structure." Bless your heart.

It is an excellent distillation of the crucial ingredient in 90% of arguments (on the Internets and elsewhere) that have put these fine permanent dents in my forehead, though, so thank you.

A trans woman totally stole my uterus in a womens' bathroom.

-deer in headlights stare- ...I got better.

(burn 'er anyway!)

...srsly, stupid people. how frigging hard is it for "progressives" and "feminists" to just agree "yes, if Focus On The Family is for it, we should probably be agin' it?" Especially if it's scaremongering over minorities? dear supposed feminists: you do remember that OH NOEZ EV0L MAN-HATING HAIRY LEGGED PREDATORY LESBEANS WANT UNISEX BATHROOMS was used to help torpedo the Equal Rights Amendment? And that the current iteration of "oh noez scary tranz, tiem for BATHROOM PANICS NAOW" is being brought to you by -exactly the same people?- Who, once again, supposedly only have womens' best interest at heart, yes. Hint: Phyllis Schlafly, despite her presumably still intact female bona fides, is -not- a friend.

Oh, yes, meanwhile, Vermont finally overturned their stupid governor's ruling and made same sex marriage legal, joining Iowa and...well, not California on account of The People Has Spoken, but well never mind. According to people who've been fighting over this for a long time, this latest ruling may well help fuel the momentum to either finally mean a whole lot of longtime together couples don't have to worry about being separated by deportation or denied hospital visitation rights and custodial rights and suchlike; or, the Forces Of Darkness are about to "impose same sex marriage on all fifty states." So, yay on -that.- Maybe in a few years, we'll actually take it for granted that yes, your gonads and/or birth-assigned gender/sex shouldn't be a detriment to marrying the person you love and want to spend your life with.

I wonder how many years it'll take for us to also take it for granted that yes, your gonads and/or birth-assigned gender/sex shouldn't be a detriment to being able to take a crap in peace in a public building.

ETA: Hello.

Asian Women Carnival-First Edition!

Over in the lj comm yennenga, go have a read.

And while we're on the subject of vajayjay problems you didn't know you had to worry about:

(see here for earlier reference)

"YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE. YOUR VAGINA IS HAUNTED."

Best. Review. Evar. Especially since I don't even have to read the original to get the lulz. Be sure to read the comments, too.

h/t thedilettante

Chay Magaine #3 is out

a publication about sex in Pakistani society, from a feminist and gender-inclusive perspective.

Check out the latest feature articles, lots of good stuff.

Derailing for Dummies!!

It's So Easy! Just Add Assholery And Stir!

(found via helen-bop, dilettante, Ren Ev)

I had often pondered attempting something as erm multi-purpose as this. Closest I got was here, I think. This is way better.

My favorite bits:

You're Arguing With Opinions Not Fact

If you really want to excel as a Privileged Person® you need to learn to value data, statistics, research studies and empirical evidence above all things, but especially above Lived Experience©.

You can pretend you are oblivious to the fact most studies have been carried out by Privileged People® and therefore carry inherent biases, and insist that the Marginalised Person™ produce “Evidence” of what they‘re claiming.

Their Lived Experience© does not count as evidence, for it is subjective and therefore worthless.

and

A In B Situation Is Not Equivalent To X In Y Situation

Your Marginalised Person™ may put in a last-ditch effort to be patient and reasonable by using an analogy. If you are yourself a member of a Marginalised Community™ exercising privilege over the group you’re arguing with, the Marginalised Person™ may use an example of discrimination towards your community and how there are parallels in discrimination towards theirs. This will be to try and appeal to your basic humanity and provide you with an experience you can relate to, hoping you will use that relation to apply compassion.

Don’t worry! You can still get out of this one!

Simply become indignant and be very sure to emphasise that your experience is absolutely and one hundred per cent unique and there are no similarities whatsoever between the two situations. Be sure that you are very derisive of their experience, thereby indicating you believe it unworthy of consideration. You must also behave insulted, so as to indicate their issues are so worthless that it's deeply offensive your own would be compared to them!

Of course, the Marginalised Person™ was not trying to equate the two, simply trying to provide grounds for commonality. It’s very important not to give an inch, however, so feign utter ignorance of this at all costs.

Remember: you want them to feel they really are less than human. It weakens their position and that’s important if you want to win.

and

You Have A False Consciousness

In conversation, there are few things as degrading, enraging and hurtful than to tell someone their experiences are false, or that their perception of them is.

The idea behind this one is usually that oppressed people are simply too oppressed to know they’re oppressed and therefore Privileged People® have to share their wisdom and insight with them.

This one crops up a lot in issues that affect women: women who enjoy dressing in conventionally feminine ways (they’re engrained in the patriarchal construct of femininity and therefore are incapable of making a choice), women who are kinky, regardless of the gender of the person they play with (they’re engrained in the patriarchal construct of gender roles and therefore are incapable of making a choice) and sex workers who claim to enjoy their work and/or practice it with autonomy (they’re engrained in the patriarchal construct of female sexuality and therefore are incapable of making a choice).

But this also affects People with Disabilities who are routinely told they simply don’t understand what is best for them and need a Privileged Person® to make decisions for them. People with Disabilities are not able to make any decisions for their own protection. Remember to stress that: it’s for your own protection.

With the trans community, you must routinely deny their gender identity by equating their experiences as having happened to someone of the gender they were designated at birth. For example, denying the reality of gender dysmorphia means you can tell a trans woman her childhood experiences happened to a little boy, because that's how she was being raised, and so communicate your belief her reality as a little girl was false, thoroughly undermining it.

In arguments about race, it takes a slightly different form, generally in white people telling People of Colour that they’re “seeing race where none exists”. You, on the other hand, are “colour blind” and we live in “post-racial” times. It’s them who are making everything about race and their experience of racism in their daily lives is simply imagined. If only they could let it go, the whole world would live in post-racial harmony!

You really want to ignore any claims the Marginalised Person™ may make about having done thorough research, deconstructing and unpacking of these issues. You also really want to deny their autonomy. There are few things so infuriating as infantilising an adult and telling them they’re delusional about their own reality. But they need to understand that, no matter what, you know better.

While we're on a literary note:

An lj comm for a reading challenge: 50 books by writers of color in a year (or pick your time frame).

I have a lot of books I need/want to -finish-, I suppose that would count. my attention span's shot to hell in general wrt finishing books lately, I've noticed (I Blame The Internets). Among them:

"Women, Race and Class" by Angela Davis

"Time On Two Crosses" by Bayard Rustin

and on the SF tip, I've been meaning to give Octavia Butler another go, maybe Kindred, maybe something else.

I want Toni Morrison's essay collection "What Moves at the Margin;" I liked "Playing in the Dark" a lot. ( "Writing Without Whining" is something I could probably learn more about: )

and I think I must be the last person who hasn't read "The God of Small Things," so, one of these days.

In other news: the Klassik Arthers are better enjoyed if we don't have to know they had Teh Homosexshul. It's True You Know.

Okay, literary meme time

Via the lovely Natalia.

1) What author do you own the most books by?

Was gonna say Neil Gaiman or Shirley Jackson, or possibly Somerset Maugham; and then I realized, fuck me, I have all seven of the Harry Potter books…

2) What book do you own the most copies of?

I actually got rid of my duplicates in the last purge I think.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

What for?

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

…mind hazy, ask again later.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?

Probably “Of Human Bondage” by Somerset Maugham.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

When I was -ten- I was reading the friggin Sweet Valley High series. srsly. I had better taste when I was five (The Wizard of Oz and so forth). uh besides that probably Harriet the Spy was up there.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

I don’t think I’ve completed anything that godawful in the past year. Life is short and so is my attention span.

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

Un Lun Dun by China Mieville.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?

Collected essays by George Orwell, the one including “Politics and the English Language.”

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?

fuck if I know, I’m so not paying attention…

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

“Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell,” if they could actually do justice to it (I’m dubious)

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

See above re: dubious.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.

Have dreamed at least once of writing a great story that of course I forgot once having woken. Not that weird, but deeply aggravating.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?

I’m going to have to go with the National Enquirer book about Michael Jackson (”Freak!”)

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

I’d say “Ulysses” or “Gravity’s Rainbow,” but truth is I never read either completely through or even close. Can tell you all the dirty bits in both of them, though.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?

It was so obscure I’ve forgotten it.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

The Russians. They’re funny even in their angst. Or especially. The French are just insufferable.

18) Roth or Updike?

…I guess Roth for “Portnoy’s Complaint,” but I’m not really interested in either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

Not interested in either.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?

Shakespeare.

21) Austen or Eliot?

Austen.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

A whole shitload of “classics” apparently. A lot of WoC writing I’ve been meaning to get to. Pretty much everything ever really.

23) What is your favorite novel?

Probably “American Gods” at the moment. Used to be “Of Human Bondage.”

24) Play?

Would’ve said “Angels in America” once, seen too many mediocre productions to still think so. “Skriker” by Churchill, maybe, although “favorite” isn’t exactly right.

25) Poem?

“The Queen of Wands” by Judy Grahn.

26) Essay?

“Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool” by Orwell. A couple by Joanna Russ from “To Write Like a Woman” come close.

27) Short story?

…can’t think of a “favorite” off the top. Some I’ve liked a bunch: “Bliss” by Katherine Mansfield, “Grail” by Neil Gaiman (actually quite a few by Gaiman), “Come Dance With Me In Ireland” by Shirley Jackson

28) Work of nonfiction?

Jon Ronson, “Them!” for the lulz

29) Who is your favorite writer?

Orwell or Joanna Russ for nonfiction, Gaiman currently for fiction.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

Judging by what little I’ve seen of his work, I guess I’d go with David Sedaris. I don’t get it.

31) What is your desert island book?

I’d be too busy freaking out to settle down with a book, sorry.

32) And… what are you reading right now?

Couple of books on leadership by Arnold Mindell, “Love Belongs To Those Who Do The Feeling” (Judy Grahn’s newish collection), Perdido Street Station finally, the latest “Angel” comic (shut up)

*********

I tag whomever the spirit moves, here, there, or anywhere. Here is fine. MOAR COMMENTS PLZ /subtle hint

clearly, i have missed out on many Classic Films

The upcoming roster at the Castro Theatre has a number of promising offerings. Among the most promising, however, is this last entry during the April 19 "Midnite Madness" presentation:

8:00 LADY TERMINATOR (1988) - Directed by Jalil Jackson
Be ready for the walls of the Castro Theatre to fall during this jaw-dropping, late-80s TERMINATOR knock-off. A female scuba-diving anthropologist is violated by an ancient snake (stolen from an evil sex-witch’s vagina) causing our heroine to go on a gratuitously nude and violent rampage, culminating in the ultimate climax... a hearty chomp from her carnivorous vagina! You will never forget this night, I promise! Preceded by more robust robot trailers. 35mm print. 82min.

The best part? Just a few nights beforehand, they are screening "The Vagina Monologues." Perhaps this was one of the missing monologues.

"I have HAD IT with these motherfucking snakes in my motherfucking vagina!!"

Also see. Or, not.

random general thinky thoughts about conflict and school and spirituality and life and shit

So, I'm reading these books on conflict resolution, one entitled "The Leader as Martial Artist" (look, Maw, I'm a Badass Ninja! (TM) (et seq), you're a ninja, he's a ninja, she's a ninja, wouldn't cha like to be a ninja too...)

...which is very much in line with the sort of schooling I'm getting right now, trying to wed the personal ("innerwork") with the political ("worldwork") and the spiritual/metaphysical (he speaks of "timespirits" as a concept, which sounds pretentious until you realize o yeah it's just the translation of "zeitgeist," I guess that works),

...and doing the work at school, and it's all very nice, and i think i'm like getting all evolved and shit, you know.

and so then I'm talking on the phone to the best friend, and he's betching about his asshole boss, and I was all, "You should just, like, kill her."

and then I was all, y'know, at the same time I'm theoretically and - hopefully- practically learning to be this more wise and compassionate etc. etc. etc.? increasingly and more quickly I find myself coming to the conclusion in various given dwamas:

"Fuck, no, I don't want to deal with that bullshit. Where's my brick?"

OI LOVE MOI BRICK!!!1!!

"Maybe we're seeing another side to belledame. A more caring, considerate--" *thunk*

"AHHH, FECK IT!!"

"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

More good advice

Trollspotting: a book-length guide

No direct link, you have to click on "Trollspotting" once there. Geared toward neopagans but fun for the whole family. (h/t Sunflower)

"Well, the troll started demanding food from everyone in the village. Trolls are very hungry creatures, you know. So, we all started feeding the troll."

"Couldn't Mr. and Mrs. Mayor keep up with its appetite?"

"Not after a while, no. The troll always complained that they never gave it enough food. They were always starving the poor thing!"

"You just said trolls are very hungry creatures. Do you imagine anyone could have kept up with the appetite of this troll? All by themselves?"

"Ummm... Probably not."

"So the troll's complaints were blatantly unfair. Just like with the sunglasses, and the bath."

The sheriff looked uncomfortable. "I guess so."

"Kind of a lie, you think?"

"Well, the troll explained how reality is subjective anyway, and it felt like they were starving it."

"I see. What did Mr. and Mrs. Mayor say about the complaints?"

"Uhm, well, the troll asked us to keep the complaints quiet. Afraid of beatings, you know. And then, next election, we got us a new mayor. One who wouldn't be so mean. You know?"

Jack sighed. "Doesn't seem quite fair. You got rid of the Mayor, on the word of a troll whose tales just don't add up, and you never even bothered to check those stories out with the Mayor or his wife. Sad case. So, whatever happened to them?"

"Well, after a while, uhm, the troll, uhm, well, sort of ate them."

"Ate them?"

"Uhm, yes. Ate them. Mr. and Mrs. Mayor. Both."

"I see. Did you get rid of the troll after that?"

"Certainly not! It was so cute! And besides, can you blame it, after the way they'd treated the poor thing? No, it moved in with Old Isobel."

"Why in the world would Old Isobel let a person-eating troll move in with her?"

"The troll explained that no one has the right to impose their system of ethics upon anyone else."

"I see. How did Old Isobel get along with the troll?"

"Pretty well. Uhm. Until it ate her."

That said: I have to concur. Bil of Bilerico, you're wrong here.

Here's why. Also see. And. And. Or just go straight to the person you were threatening to excuse me fantasizing about sic(cing) Lily Law on.

And for the record, Bil, I consider a lot of things "unacceptable;" it's why this nice respectable cis white dyke has finally taken you off the roll, much as I've valued a lot of your work. I'm sure you'll manage fine, obviously; but hey, for the record.

p.s. and I have the strangest feeling of deja vu.

ETA: No, you hopeless dumbass, "Die In A Fire" does not LITERALLY mean someone is coming after you with the jug of kerosene and a torch.

also? if you've been avoiding sidewalk cracks all this time? Moms thanks you, but really: it's okay to -step.-

The axe is totes real though. Srsly. BE AFRAID.

ETA again: okay, I know DIAF is actually not exactly cute or funny for people who've been seriously threatened with kerosene and torch, or knew people who, yep, died in a fire. I'm not snarking at people who don't like the term, and it does seem like people are actually getting triggered or -something- right and left here. I was specifically snarking at the guy who suggested that Bil note the common Internet acronym as a "2nd threat," because, you know, if that's the yardstick you're using I think yeah, you -would- be handing out a lot more bans. Like, probably half your commentariat at one point or another (if it's not that, it's something else) Which is your prerogative, ban away (RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!), but ffs any random person who invokes that isn't making a -threat-, all right? For a start, besides being common, it's not a threat, strictly speaking, that, it's a curse.

I mean, there's a lot of shit that gets casually uttered on the Internets (and elsewhere) that's actually not necessarily dandy just because everyone says it.

Beyond that, I'm not following this crap anymore because it's making me want to double-spork and I'm running low on eyeballs here. Regardless of how "real" -any- of the growly motions and handwaves are--and yeah, it does at least seem more -realistic- to suspect that someone offering to report someone's info to the police means business than someone talking about "heads on pikes," all right? --yeah, bottom line, Bil's been clueless, so's the HRC (and way beyond clueless) and it really blows that the very -real- and imo justified anger at the White Normative GAY andlesbian (and sort of bi)
... .... ... ... ... ...((((((((((((((((((((((((((((and okay trans when we need 'em for a symbol but meanwhile we'll collectively keep throwing real trans people under the bus every chance we get))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

...face of the "Umbrella" movement gets dismissed, again, because OH NOEZ MEEN SCARY DWAMA DWAMA DWAMA.

It's good advice, it really is

This. Specifically that piece is regarding RaceFail '09. but applies in multiple situations I'd say.

mind you I also resolved I'd be going to bed by midnight, kicking Coke and eating more green vegetables.



and yet still somehow I cling to my idealism, despite it all.

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.

You know, there's a reason why I write "satire" increasingly sporadically

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

"Lippy"

Via Sylvia. Fifteen year old girl/woman of color gets taken into custody, kicks her shoe off in the general direction of the cops, and gets viciously beaten in response.



Some guy responds by trying to tell YouTubers to have some empathy and -not- automatically go to "she got what she deserved."



Unsurprisingly there are a few of those in the comments.

yep..cops abuse their power for sure.. but ya know what. go anywhere else in the world and call a cop a fat pig and see what you get..criminals got it easy in the US. we are too light on criminals in this country.. not saying the little girl deserved it..she didn't. but if it was a 18 yr old boy..then it would be a-ok with me.

...Police Officer do 1000 good things and none gets mentioned. Only negative events get attention as if that's all they do.

Would you like MS 13 or Aryan Nation to conduct law enforcement in your street instead of local Police?

People who cry about Police, Military have dirt on them and that's why their hate any law or authority.

People like you twist the truth to fit their fantasy world.

I was going to say something snarky about the fail of people in general and youtube commenters in particular, but actually most of the comments on that one are thankfully not along the lines of the above.

Of course you go elsewhere, like "Right Pundits," and get commentary like this:

http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=2970

This video is currently all over the internet and national news. Frankly, I believe the media spends too much time worrying about police brutality, a minor, insignificant issue in American society. For every cop that beats up a little girl, for every cop that accidentally shoots a criminal, there are about 10,000 criminals brutalizing and humiliating law-abiding people on our streets every day. While nothing justifies violence, police brutality is not a major problem in American society. A much bigger, much more dehumanizing, much more embarrassing problem for America is CRIME.

Every time the media reports on police brutality, I feel that as a responsible citizen I need to remind people that the bigger problem in American society is crime, not the police who defend us against it and rarely overstep their bounds. Instead of focusing on a cop who lost his cool, perhaps we should also focus on the fact that this 15-year-old girl is hurling insults at grown men in authority and getting herself arrested. Police officers don’t just randomly beat and shoot people. They are put in extremely tense situations by criminals and forced to make life or death decisions on a moment’s notice. Sometimes they make mistakes. Most of the time, they do not. It’s the criminals that create and force these situations. They are the real problem, not the police.

Perhaps this girl did not deserve what she got in the video. I’m sure a million-dollar civil lawsuit will determine that. Unfortunately, she will be rewarded for her bad behavior, while a police officer will likely lose his job for one mistake.

Oh, per "one mistake," Schene's had a few (but then again, too few to mention):

Schene had previously been in the news in 2006 after he fatally shot Pedro Jo, a mentally ill man, during a struggle after a traffic stop on Interstate 5. It was the second officer-involved shooting of his career.

An inquest jury ruled the shooting was justified. Jo viciously attacked Schene, trying to strangle him with his own radio cord.

Jo then ran back to his car and disobeyed Schene's orders to stop. Schene said he saw Jo reach for something in the seat, so Schene fired 11 times after Jo ran back to his car.

and

Thursday, June 8, 2006


The University of Washington student shot to death in his car by a King County sheriff's deputy was a convicted felon, but friends remembered him Wednesday as a would-be teacher dedicated to social work.

Pedro Jo, 33, was shot multiple times Tuesday morning after a violent scuffle with the deputy, who pulled him over on Interstate 5 in South Seattle for driving erratically.

While all the facts of the shooting -- and the deputy's name -- have not been released, the Seattle P-I has identified the deputy as Paul Schene, who works out of SeaTac. A five-year veteran of the force, Schene, 28, is currently on paid administrative leave -- a standard procedure in officer-involved shootings.

It isn't the deputy's first shooting-related leave. It happened in 2002, after Schene shot and wounded a 23-year-old car-thief suspect who had led deputies on a wild chase in Burien, according to court records.

After three women fled the car, deputies approached on foot. The driver rammed one of them in the legs with his vehicle and sped away, records show.

During the pursuit, Schene used his patrol vehicle to bump the thief's car, causing it to jump a curb. The driver, who had a long criminal record, got out and began heading toward Schene, ignoring the deputy's order to stop, according to police. Schene then fired three shots, hitting the man in the chest, arm and leg...

Too damn cute to be legal, probably

Baby otter rescued by kindly Scottish woman. As if it isn't ridiculously cute enough on its own, (tickling! tickled baby otter! "wee noisies!") it -befriends and cuddles with a tiny white kitten- ffs.

I am totally sympathizing with Fuck You Penguin's ire, and shall take up the cause forthwith. Little bastards!



More forgivable, perhaps because the Engineers understand how to put the Cats in their proper place (squeezes and yodeling), is this. (h/t Alex)

Seriously, do we need to tack a gorram Venn diagram onto every feminist blog, or what?

little light commenting at feministe:

THIS IS THE GODDAMN PROBLEM. To you, WOC and queer people are allies to feminism. They are adjunct groups, special interests, separate causes distract from women’s issues.
Let’s unpack that a little.

Women of color, in bringing up their concerns, are allies to (regular) women, who are just doing plain old feminism. Women of color are allies to feminism. Queer people are allies to feminism. Issues of racism, gender identity, and orientation, plus the accompanying oppressions and concerns, are “interesting” side dishes to feminism, which is for women.

Women of color and queer women are women. We are women. Our issues are women’s issues. They are inextricable from our womanhood. They are part of our feminism, and part of we want feminism to pay attention to, because these things are women’s issues. Your version posits that there’s regular women, who just do feminism, and then there’s those allies who drag those regular women in the trap of paying attention and giving energy to other causes–like the concerns of the women next to them who are brown, trans, and queer.

What does that make these regular women, the core of feminism, so gracious as to allow in the interesting sidebars on race and gender and orientation and ability and class, so vulnerable to falling into the trap of paying too much attention to those issues? White. Straight. Cissexual. Able-bodied. Not working-class. Those are “just plain women” in your frame. Their issues are “WOMEN’S issues.” Other women? Women who are different? Their issues aren’t “WOMEN’S issues,” except for the ones they share in common with white, straight, upper-class, cissexual, able-bodied women. Their issues are an occasionally-interesting distraction from real women’s issues.

Thanks but no thanks for your inclusion, pal.

Right on

via Ai'shah and Renee:

"choke on your rainbow flag, homo. do i go around saying i’m straight?

no, dear heterosexual. you do not flap about telling everyone that you’re straight, because you have no need to. you’d think this understanding would be enough to silence the people who resent gay men and lesbians for parading our “lifestyle”.

of course, dear heterosexual, it isn’t at all necessary for you to assert your sexuality because it is assumed. that’s what being part of a majority entails. you’d correct someone if they had your name wrong, or your marital status wrong, so why the resentment? we aren’t flaunting anything, we’re doing what you’re doing really. we just happen to have to correct people more often.

for all you queer folk; categorization is a horrid thing. sometimes necessary, which adds to it’s general unpleasantness. if you have somehow managed to surround yourself with groups of people who cannot for one moment step outside their narrow existence and think twice about all of the people that they have so carelessly labeled and discarded; deeming them “things that i know and have processed”, don’t accept it.

resist all attempts made by these people to rationalize you; keep them guessing. scare them. unbalance them. you don’t have to accept their perspectives. they have to accept yours. don’t read me my rights and their rights and our rights, we all have them, but we also have the responsibility to operate in a logical manner when dealing with these societal issues. this is why your in-your-face dance with the rest of the world is justified. you cannot be argued with because the other side has no logical basis to build upon.

and the winner is?

Ode to Bobby Lee (of MAD TV)

Just rewatching some favorite sketches and giggling my head off.

"Attitudes and Feelings, Desirable and Sometimes Secretive." Be sure to pause to read all the subtitles.















and just for lagniappe, and le rowr rowr:

In which I channel my inner radfem, or something:

I am liking this website right now. Anti-bra.

Why? Simple. I hate the fucking things.

I am sorry that the 70's era bra-burning thing is a myth (although I'm sure someone tried it somewhere), because in theory it sounds very satisfying, although in reality I imagine it'd be something of an anti-climax, plus setting that microfiber whatsit shit on fire probably'd be bad for the environment, and smell terrible.

It's not really a the result of lengthy, deep, forehead-crinkling "examination," this conclusion of mine; although, yes yes sure obviously the fact that I wear 'em even though I can't stand 'em is about Teh Pat, or The Man, or The System, or what you will. But I'd happily keep wearing them if I actually got any use or pleasure out of them. It's very personal, and very physical. I realize this is not gonna be one size fits all (hah), lots of women really do feel better with 'em on, I buy it. I'm just not one of 'em. I. Just. Hate. Wearing. Bras.

Well, let me clarify. I'm femmey, in a low key way. I could like bras as fetish wear, or fashion sometimes, same as I like corsets. But I so hate them as effectively -mandatory-. I'm sure I'd have felt the same way about corsets if I were expected to wear one all day ever fucking day. I can't even wear tight jeans for very long.

And even the most comfortable bras, even the ones that -do- fit, sort of, it's like--it's elastic digging into my shoulders. It's multiple metal hooks near my bare skin. It's a pinchy band right on or around my solar plexus where none was required or desired. Don't even get me started on the underwire ones, or the ones with itchy twee lace. I may be femmey, but comfort comes first 95% of the time. And for me--not speaking for anyone else--bras are NOT comfortable. Ever. At best, they're tolerable. And yeah, I did the "find your real size" thing, and still, except for very -rare- occasions where yeah I really do want "support" because it hurts if they jiggle--nope. Still uncomfortable. Still would rather go without. Still remove it first thing I get home, practically before putting my purse down, sometimes before taking off my shoes.

And, thing is, bras: as a very Zaftig person, yep, I -do- get policed regularly should I visibly go without in public. On the street, I mean. Certainly at any kind of corporate or "real" job I ever did, I didn't even think of trying. But I mean, I consider it par for the course to have to put on certain kinds of "drag" for certain situations. Bras? It's basically been: anywhere outside my apartment. Because, it's very -obvious- if I go without, let's say. Oddly enough, (or not) the disapproving comments (and even a catcall, once) seem to come from women at least as often as men.

So, I like this site, because it reminds me I've been thinking of just saying fuck it and doing without more often anyway. The gallery of the range of "normal" breasts is worth looking at especially, check it out. (Of course Not Safe For Fucking Work, it's bare breasties! and, well, proving the point...)

I don't love everything they say. The emphasis on "but breasts are for babies!"...yes, it's true, obviously, and the weirdness this culture has about public breast feeding zomg is certainly fucked up. And they're not obnoxious about the whole, breasts aren't -inherently- sexual although they certainly can be, pretty much on board; just, I've seen too many cultural feminists take that shit and torque it into their own weird eroticization is always bad mkay, did we mention we canz has BABIEZ??? oh, too bad for you if you're one of the women who can't, but, you know, the -principle- of the thing, MOON WOMB SPOON JUNE.

As for the anti-augmentation--yes wrt the industry and health concerns and all; but again, I've seen too many feminsts use it as an excuse for misogynist bashing to not have my knee jerk a little. especially when they make aesthetic criticisms of the way surgically enhanced breasts look--lookit, artifice is fine too, you're willing to expand your generosity of beauty appreciation to all kinds of "normal," leave other women's bodies the hell alone; even if you think they're only doing it to please someone else or harming themselves, (also consider the possibility that you may be incorrect) exchanging one form of shaming and tsking and hectoring for another isn't a way out.

The cancer connection--well, maybe. I don't know anyone who wears the things 24/7. I imagine there might be something to that severe a constriction that consistently not being great for the lymph nodes, but I really don't know. But yeah, wrt the whole "o you need to wear a bra or they'll sag earlier"--which I've gotten, yep, thanks Mom--fuck it.

a) really, only makes a difference as long as it's actually on
b) anyway, so the hell what if they do sag? It's called "gravity," generally a good thing or we'd all be floating on the fucking ceiling innit?

They -did- make the same argument about not getting rid of the corset, back in the day, of course: but but but the waistline will just expand out of control unless you wear one, at least during the day! And: well, um, yeah. They do that. And?

I will say that the camisole solution--in general, don't prefer it, more comfortable when it's not too hot, sure, but when it is it's just one more layer to put up with, and there's still the Annoying Little Strap issue to contend with.

You can fill in the rest, I'm not saying anything eight kazillion other feminists haven't said. Just rabbiting into the void here, really. And, hey, if it inspires anyone else who also hates the fucking things but hasn't quite gone as far as pitching them, solidarity, yo.

If you're like, hey, but I love my bra, as far as I'm concerned, for whatever it's worth, you are totally golden. Work away. All's you have to do is -not- give -me- static if I go without, and I will most certainly not give you static for adoring your Wonderbra, or indeed silicone or other high artifice/bodily modifications.

If you are thinking, hey, this isn't her usual subject matter, what's up with that? It is because I cannot be arsed to write about anything that involves more research or thought or care than "hey, I just clicked this link, say that reminds me: did I ever mention I hate bras?" and, well, I'm just sitting here, really.

And, that is all.

ETA: Comrade Physioprof spotted something in that site that I missed:

The first comprehensive study on this subject was done by medical researcher Sydney Singer, after his wife Soma Grismaijer discovered a lump on her breast. She got rid of hers in two months by quitting wearing bra, doing regular breast massage and exercise, drinking only purified water, and taking some herbs and supplemental vitamins and minerals.

Yeah, no. Really: No. I mean, I'm sure all those things are fine to do, too, -before- you find something? but sorry, but if you have a lump, go to the fucking doctor. Yeah, patriarchal Westernized medicine and all; somehow I'm not gonna take whatsis' husband's word for the self-healing spiel, thanks. I'd like to see how exactly they conducted the "comprehensive study," too, now, frankly.

'K, I rescind endorsement of the site. The gallery is still cool, though, and I still think it's worth repeating:

No one should have to wear uncomfortable tit-slings if they don't want to.

Really, why do people need to tart it up with this other crap? *sigh*

I'm just bored of this massive asscramp by now, but I must say

big thank you to Natalia for calling out this bullshit. Ren (and again) and Trin and Dw3t-Hthr too, of course. And moving on to more interesting material, potentially, at SM-feminists.

Nothing more to say to Mr. and Mrs. Iconoclast to be, except that I presume then toasters as well as violet wands are off the registry? Damn.

ETA: I agree with this comment by Ernest Greene (over at Renegade's)

Though the social and political links between BDSM and queer cultures may have unraveled a bit, you still can't bash one without bashing the other, as both arise out of the same need to be understood as authentic and inherent definitions of sexual identities rather than as the hateful projections of those who abhor them.

Just as there are abusive relationships among gay people, there are abusive relationships among BDSM people, but no decent, rational observer builds a loathing of an entire sub-culture on the basis of a few pathological examples.

That way of thinking is common to both gay bashers and BDSM bashers, and ND and her pals demonstrate this in spades, pardon the pun.

The common struggle shared by gay and BDSM people is for the right to be who you are and love who, and how, you love without risking exactly the kind of organized opprobrium to which ND and her merry band have subjected us all day in and day out ad nauseum.

She can declare herself something other than a homophobe and her loyal acolytes can rush in to trash anyone who dares call her out for acting like one, but the song remains the same, regardless of the singer or the intended audience.

You either do or do not despise people because of their sexual orientations, regardless of how ethically those orientations are expressed. If the former, you may not be a homophobe but you're no better. If the latter, you're some kind of humanist and can fairly claim a measure of tolerance for diversity.

and then, too, of course, you don't even have to search very long among those same loyal acolytes to find overtly homophobic crap like this. Perhaps not voiced so blatantly by many, but how often challenged? I recall "faggot" (used unambiguously as a slur, yes) go (largely, if not totally-I don't remember, can't dig up the link now) unremarked upon at a Big Radfem Site at least one other time.

There's more to say, and I know I've already said about some of it, about the rather strange position Teh Gay (even the word choice here matters, is different from either "queer" or "lesbian," much less others, but I'm using it for now) has among...well. Hm.

Do I say feminism as a whole? That's a whole nother post. Do I focus on this narrow band of idiots again? I've done it before. Too often.

Just a general note, then, apply as you will: In general, lesbian is strangely positioned within radical-influenced-feminism. Often sort of romanticized and erased at the same time. Appropriated, if you will. Especially when it comes, of course, to Teh Sex.

And separately, perhaps, of course by now most good liberals/Dems/progressives (a lot of others as well, at least publicly) know you don't overtly gay bash any more than you engage in any of the other oppressions that of course no one -really- does except people wearing white sheets or committing crimes. Homophobia is bad mkay. Duh. Next?

Except...

Except for: kind of really still there, same as everything else. See: the recent femisphere implosion part XXVII over racism for just one example. See: ableism run rampant all over the fucking place. See: well, and then there's the transphobia, which I could apply some similar etiological parallels wrt gender with queer sexuality as EG is making wrt kink and queer sexuality. Have done, more or less. i.e. yes there's transphobia w/in LGB/queer as well as feminism as well as everywhere; yes, trans =! homoseckshul...and individual trans homophobes too, sure. But, as with kink in its respective way: the language, the arguments, the rationalizations, they always seem VERY familiar. Too familiar to ignore, or even not take personally. I mean even more so than in other oppressions that I don't happen to share, even though there's a good argument that there are fundamental patterns to and reasons for for all of them, and that kick in the gut feeling -should- be the same regardless.

But I digress.

Back to kink and queer sexualities, then:

What EG is talking about is what's always been at the core of why I've ID'd with "sex positive" feminism, even though by now the phrase hits my teeth the way a lot of platitudinous New Agey stuff does, for similar reasons: it's not that simple, and it's certainly not all that relentlessly cheery or feel good, fuck knows.

To wit:

At the end of the day, despite the "pornsick" culture some people like to rabbit about, how TERRIBLE, all this deviancy and degeneracy...fact is, "normative" sex, and the punishment for transgressors thereof, is an axis of oppression of its own.

Over and beyond, or more accurately I suppose intersecting with, the piece about transgressing what's considered proper for one's assigned gender/sex.

I mean, they're hard to disentangle altogether. For damn sure, you can have homophobia/het priv operating within a kinky context. Ditto plain' ol sexism. Never even mind racism, classism, ableism, etc. etc.

But. Sex negativity, then, which is a phrase I -do- still keep, even if adopting its natural converse gives me wincey feelings, because it is an entirely valid concept, and no, it is not limited to, nor originated with, any kind of feminism. Is in fact anti-feminist at its core, I would say, which is the other reason I've been so involved in the Endless Wars.

It's a strand, at least, in itself. Winds itself through homophobia and sexism and everything else as well, even as those things wend themselves through the sex-negativity.

But that's why the arguments feel so familiar. Because they ARE.

And while you might hairsplit about, o well some of my best friends are yadda yadda, I don't care what they do in bed as long as they don't do THAT, or--gosh, this bit wasn't at -all- familiar--*talk about it at work.* (which naturally none of us pervs can help doing, -flaunting it.-)

...doesn't matter. Shoe fits, ND and co. Wear it well. And if you don't like it, consider changing your behavior. At least to the point of shutting up and listening for a while.

It's certainly the least one could ask considering all you're demanding from other people who have more on their plates without the added burden of your assholery.

ETA again: via trin, yeah, people really should read this post. This one too, for that matter.

Belatedly: The first WOC and Ally Blog Carnival is up!

At Tell It WOC Speak: Hear Us Roar. Check it out.

Well, that certainly livened up the evening

So I just get this phone call, right.

"[My RL first name!]"

I go, naturally enough, it being my first name and all,

"Yes?"

The tone is familiar, but I don't recognize the voice...

"It's David! How are you, darling?"

"David!..." I repeat, trying frantically to remember if I still know any Davids.

As he continues to talk, I figure, oh, shit, of course, it's one of those stupid salespeople trying a new trick, I hate that shit, I'm
about to hang--wait, WHAT?

"...I've got the photos. Something mumble crushing the bugs with the Manolo Blahniks."

"I beg your pardon?" I say, as politely as I can.

A slight pause.

"Is this [my first name?]"

Me, slightly wary now, even though I've already said "yes."

"Um..."

"[My first name] [a last name that's not remotely mine]?"

Ah. "No, I'm sorry."

"Oh, you're kidding. Is this San Francisco?"

"Yes."

"Is this...[gives a phone number that isn't mine, although close]"

"No, I'm afraid it's not."

"Oh, my God. I'm sorry..."

Me, laughing, even as I'm thinking this is probably a mistake,

"Well, you got it partly right..."

"Oh, your name is [my first name?] Oh, you're kidding..."

"Mm. Anyway, it -was- the wrong number, so--"

"I'm a photographer. From England."

"Yes, well, it -was- the wrong number, try again, and good luck with that," and I hung up.

***

So, whether this was some weirdass crank call or a weirdass semi- coincidence: how many times do you get some random caller talking to you about crush porn? With Manolo Blahniks, yet. I mean, as these things go, it's a lot more interesting than heavy breathing...

Deep fucking thinky thoughts on recent online events

such as they are, and such as I have energy for. (I know you will be thrilled to read them, because they are from Me, and as all such things are inherently, endlessly fascinating):


She's got a point there, kids, srsly, who was supposed to give a shit in the first place?, gorgeous, ohmyfuckingGOD, shut UP, can't deal with the meta/irony today, sorry, other extremely deep, abstract and difficult thinky thoughts you should read, sums it up, pop-psych "I'm Okay-I'm Okay, What Is This "You" Concept That You Speak Of? language gets over/misused too, unfortunately, especially when it's employed as yet another defense wrt systemic problems like racism, sorry this shit never seems to fucking end, and word, word, word, word, word and -snerk-, word, word, fail, ETA and an accurate observation of still more epic fail.

Elsewhere:

absotively, sorry, I can't even read this shit, speaking of "torture", kthx buh bye then.



-returns to studying for RL exams/papers n shit more or less-

ETA: And yet, you're still talking. Like, A LOT (hint: "we're sorry, we fucked up, shutting up and listening now" and then -doing it- would've been better, rly, and yes, it's been done before, many times, among other things it's called "Hugo Schwyzer," and if that doesn't strike fear into your heart then yeah nothing more to say here)

Note to self: do not ever hire Choe, Jackson and Weitz.

should I ever happen to be in L.A. and in need of anti-sexual harassment/workplace discrimination legal representation.
See here for why. And then here, here, and especially here.

Klassy.

ETA: more details, and a guide to reporting to the California Bar Assoc. if you feel so inclined.

ETA again: okay, the skinny if you haven't clicked the links.

Basically, there's this guy called Luke Jackson. See links above. Creepy-as-fuck douche who works as an anti-sexual harassment/work discrimination lawyer by day, appallingly racist/misogynistic/hateful troll calling himself "Igor Sanchez" by...well, day, too, now apparently, as Kynn called him out and he's now posted K's ex-wife's personal information on his blog and engaged in gross transphobia under his own name in retaliation. and posted the contact info of people who wrote letters to his law firm as well. Which, thus far, I was just noting the general WTF?

Looking back now, though, there's increasing layers of creepy, and this was the bit I wanted to note here:

(via Kynn)

At one point, he posted as Luke on the MySpace of Sunny Leone, a desi- Canadian porn star living in Los Angeles, to dedicate one of “Igor’s” racist graphical rape/murder fantasies to her:

This was inspired by YOU:

http://igorsanchezDOTlivejournalDOTcom/552.html [NSFW, possibly triggering]

***

Besides the kind of shit he writes being fucking hateful as hell, if he's writing that kind of mash note to actual porn stars + he's shown himself willing to cross the line wrt peoples' personal info AND he (for FUCK'S SAKE) works as an -anti-discrimination lawyer-, I am thinking: seriously, this guy reads like Kyle Payne on steroids (now with more racism!!) except that he hasn't actually gotten caught committing sexual abuse. "Just" incitement to harassment/outing of personal information. So far.

Fairly comphrehensive rundown on the Australian wildfire

at Larvatus Prodeo, including comment thread. Basically, familiar sounding territory for anyone think "Katrina" or, well, you name it. Go, don't go, they should've gone, what were they thinking building their houses out of ___/living there in the first place, it's global warming it's environmentalists it's arsonists it's totally normal and to be expected it's God's punishment for legal abortion (yes, that again). and so on.

meanwhile, over 180 deaths and counting, devastated wildlife, entire towns burned off the map.

Oh, how much have I not missed this

Catching up a bit with my usual blogs, I must've missed this beaut captured by Renegade the first time around:

I think that anal sex is also a good way of saying, "I hate myself." I work in the microbiology department of a medical lab, but you don't need to be a microbiologist to know that the rectum is a filthy place. Here's my favorite statistic: 60% of the mass of a turd is bacteria.

Why would a man put his penis, which is supposedly his crowning glory, into a shithole? Seriously. Oh, don't try criticizing anal sex for any reason on a liberal site, all the faggots will cry, "Homophobe!" and they'll eat you alive. I don't care. It's disgusting and filthy, not to mention not good for the tissues back there. There's a media doctor here in the states who's always on about rectal prolapse and anal sex.


I believe that men wouldn't put their dicks in such a disgusting place if they didn't feel that they were disgusting themselves. They probably just extrapolate from that that if someone consents to anal sex, they are just as disgusting, too, and therefore, deserve any bad treatment they wish to dish out. And women consent to stuff like that because they have low self-esteem which was caused by men in the first place because they felt bad about themselves. - bonobobabe

Fail. Just...so much fail I can't fail even fail say anything fail but fail. FAIL.

and yes, that's real, and no, that isn't a fundamentalist religious zealot, that is, you guessed it, a putative radical feminist.

nice moniker there, too, not too ironic.

uh, I said -content-, didn't I? yeah. soon, really. Just...yeah.




fail.

ETA Regardez! Encore une faile de plus! via Trinity:

on January 31, 2009 at 11:00 pm bonobobabe
I fucking hate the concept of consent. The human mind is a pretty fragile thing, and you can get people to “consent” to most anything. It’s fucking meaningless.

That Glenn Marcus is a sick motherfucker. BDSM is abuse, pure and simple. If a person gets off on giving or getting abused, that person has something wrong with them mentally. Seriously. They need therapy.

It used to be a couple decades ago, people were willing to see themselves as fucked up. Everyone was in therapy. Now everyone thinks they are just fine and dandy as they are. “I eat shit. I’m awesome! I dress up in a teddy bear costume. I’m special! I like watching women in high heels step on mice and kill them. I’m a living miracle!”

Fuck the lot of them.

on January 31, 2009 at 11:54 pm delphyne

I feel the same way about consent bonobobabe. Consent to me seems like a concept invented by rapists - getting people to agree to be abused or raped and then blamed for what the rapist/abuser did to them.

Either you want something or you don’t. Consent is just another way of saying someone acquiesed to somebody else’s ideas and desires.

Thanks for the suggestion of therapy, though, fr srs. I'll have to keep that in mind, as I enter my ninth year of personal and/or group therapy and my second semester of training to oh noez become a therapist myself. And when I finally do hang out my shingle, as I join this organization, I'll keep y'all in my heart, for truly.

Meanwhile, among other things, I've now relinquished the last bit of guilt I was holding wrt (no doubt accurate in some cases) accusations of ableism for doing this very thing, i.e. consigning people to the wastebasket of fuckeduppitude because of things I didn't understand and/or my own personal shit. At least as such accusations have been raised by delphyne, in particular. Yeah, tu quoque doesn't make it right, but hey, it's not like we're actually engaging, here; I take the critiques on board, and as for the rest, this shit, for a shining example: yer still an asshole. (Yes, I can say that. It's my lunch hour).

Beyond that, there's just a shitload of arguments I could be taking up with this--oh, where to begin really--probably with that whole "consent was invented by rapists (!!) business, but there's just so *much* to choose from (Glenn Marcus=teddy bear fetishism=buttsecks! the real problem with nowadays is -too much self-esteem-, especially sexually!)

--but I'm tired and I'm busy and other people are already on it and I kind of can't be arsed right now and I've been to this rodeo a dozen times by now and it never changes and it's not like the people who most need to hear it ever will in the next kalpa anyway.

So, here is another FAIL icon instead.

WOC and ally blog carnival

Deadline February 15. See Womanist Musings for details.

I'd like to thank the academy...

According to a very clever methodology as used by/noted at Fem2.0, this blog would appear to be among the top 30 in the "femisphere." Number...14? looks like, to be precise.

so, a w00t and also yay for Renegade, Renee, Cara and many other fine folks.

of course, which also means (in my head at least) more pressure to have more, like, actual content, again.

soon, really.