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)

Fucked up books of my childhood

Respectively, the Sweet Valley High (and satellites) books, as examined at The Dairi Burger

and VC Andrews (Inc), Trapped in the Attic.

If you, too, had your formative years at all warped by these literary classics, and had blissfully put most of the details out of your consciousness, now's your chance to have it all come flooding back to you, with hilarious commentary.

If you don't know what I'm talking about...check the sites out anyway. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll spork. Most important, you'll realize "Twlight" had nothing on the 80's for professional Mary Sues. Tragic orphans! Terrible accidents! Murder, even! Ghosts, werewolves, and vampires! And that's just the Sweet Valley series.

Perfect size six suburban twins with sparkling blonde hair! Perfect helpless heroines locked away in secret-and-spider-riddled garrets! With sparkling blonde hair! Many, many lovingly described outfits and other material details, which were of course in no way why I read the things in the first place. And of course, a whole shitload of men, some of whom are teh sexxy and buy pretty things before revealing themselves to be as bastard-y as all the others, not that there is ever any other ultimate goal besides landing one.


******

Edited to update:

A conversation elsewhere got me thinking more seriously about this essay by Joanna Russ in To Write Like A Woman on the modern Gothic, "Somebody's Trying To Kill Me And I Think It's My Husband." It's basically second-wave feminist analysis applied to lit crit, but she's by far one of the better ones out there.

More details and quotage shortly, but essentially her point is that in the Gothic the female "subject" position isn't really much of one; the protagonist doesn't really initiate plot, she stands there and things happen to/around her. Her main task is figuring out the "mystery" of what the hell is going on around her. Much of which involves figuring out other peoples' feelings
(especially the Man, natch).

It's interesting because her thesis not only fits the gothics she was writing about as well as the more sensationalistic VC Andrews books that probably came out after she wrote the essay, but also applies to True Blood and of course Twilight, no doubt among other contemporary hits.

As far as that goes, I was snarking when I first noted that the Sweet Valley Books, once they started not just jumping the shark but doing trapeze acts with it, eventually have all the elements associated with more standard "gothic" books like the VC Andrews books, but actually, it's not that dissimilar. There *is* no real action in SVH as such-the girls don't really *go* anywhere, despite having cunning plots to defeat rivals and hook boys and career aspirations and such-they stay forever frozen at a perfect age, and they don't ever really set anything in motion. So in order to be "exciting" it has to get soapier and soapier...

I had figured that the reason for this in the SVH books was more because having them actually change and grow would defeat the magic fantasy stasis of Perfect Teen Suburbia, but actually the Mary Sue-ism isn't at all unrelated to that fetish. I mean, it's specifically a woman's fantasy Perfect Teen Suburbia (Francine Pascal, more or less, via her many ghostwriters), a retro one, I mean. So the "waiting for something exciting to happen, which will almost certainly come from a Man" is probably kind of implicit in that.

Anyway, here's Russ in her own words:

The Modern Gothic is episodic; the heroine does nothing except worry; any necessary detective work is done by other persons, often the Super- Male. Whenever the Heroine acts...she bungles things badly. [Hi, Bella!] There is a period of terror, repeated sinister incidents, ominous dialogue spoken by various characters, and then the sudden revelation of who's who and what's what. In terms of ordinary pulp technique, these novels are formless. Even so, they obey extraordinarily rigid rules. There must be a reason for these rules.

I would propose that the Modern Gothics are a direct expression of the traditional feminine situation (at least a middle-class [white] feminine situation) and that they provide precisely the kind of escape reading a middle-class believer in the feminine mystique needs, without involving elements that either go beyond the feminine mystique or would be considered immoral in its terms.

...and here she puts a finger on the Mary Sue phenomenon in all but name:

Most striking about these novels is the combination of intrigue, crime and danger with the Heroine's complete passivity. Unconscious foci of intrigue, passion, and crime, these young women (none of whom are over thirty) wander through all sorts of threatening forces of which they are intuitively, but never intellectually, aware. Most of all, *they are of extraordinary interest to everyone*-even though they are ill educated, ordinary, characterless and usually very hazily
delineated (as one might suspect) as a stand-in for the reader.

Sometimes Heroines are very beautiful (although they don't know it) or heiresses (which they don't know, either) or possess some piece of information about the Secret (which they are incapable of interpreting). Their connection with the action of the novel is always passive; they are focal points for tremendous emotion, and sometimes tremendous struggle, simply because they exist...

In the face of this really extraordinary passivity-for if the protagonist of a novel is not active in some way, what on earth is the
novel about?-it is tempting to see these books as genuine family romances, with the Heroine as the child who is trying desperately to figure out what the grownups are up to...At their best Heroines merely stand (passively) for love, goodness, redemption, and innocence. They are special and precious because they are Heroines. And that is that."

This becomes a lot more evident with VC Andrews, who made the "family romance" part way more explicit than any of the earlier goffics Russ was examining.

As per the Mary Sueism, passivity and all, I think that's what had irritated me so much about True Blood, more so in the first season. Sookie is a *classic* of the type. And she only gets more special and precious and besotting of others as it goes on.

BTVS, whatever its flaws, was satisfying because it explicitly *doesn't* do this: Buffy really is a true protagonist, a Hero with a journey, not just someone who radiates goodness while all the fighting takes place all around her.

That said, I'm digging True Blood more in its second season probably precisely because there's so much more focus on all the subplots and secondary characters, most of whom have a more interesting "story" imo than Sookie.

So Russ concludes:

"The Modern Gothic, as a genre, is a means of enabling a conventionally Heroine to have adventures at all. It may also be a way that conventionally feminine readers can see their own situation...validated, justified, and glamorized up to the hilt, without turning Heroines into active persons or into sexually adventurous persons, both of whom violate the morality of conventional femininity.,

[It'd be interesting to see her take on the later Judith Krantz and such genre. wherein the Heroines do become much more sexually adventurous-within certain strictures-and nominally have careers, but a lot of this still applies. The "Lace" books as I recall them could be termed the Cosmo Gothic. More sex, more designer name dropping, the women become successful fashion designers or that sort of thing, and the rest is still pretty similar]

...

1. Housework, etc. is banned. I'm on holiday.

2. I'm upper-middle class, not lower-middle class.

3. My upward mobility is achieved through marriage.

4. I'm a good girl-modest, not too pretty but quite pretty, not too rich but rich enough, womanly, loving, dependent, and somehow "average" (even though I am uniquely precious)

5. The Super-Male *really exists* (all evidence to the contrary)

6. He really loves me, even though I am not strikingly beautiful, brilliant, talented, famous, or rich. I do not see why he loves me, but he does. He may appear to treat me badly or brusquely; still, he loves me.

7. I do nothing. I do not have to do anything. Merely because I exist, violent emotions and acts spring into being.

8. I am rewarded for being good. Aggressively sexual, beautiful, worldly women are wicked and are punished accordingly. Men don't *really* like them.

9. I have intense emotional relations with places-houses, weather, nature. (Scenery-painting is often the best-written part of these books).

10. I have pretty, romantic clothes (but not sexy or flamboyant ones). Clothes really are very important.

11. *My sexual value is my personal value and is respected by all but villains and villainesses.* Men's desire is a testimony to my personal, individual worth. I have no character, interests, or achievements, but those who do come to a bad end (if female).

12. I am a virtuoso at interpreting faces and feelings. [Sookie in True Blood takes this one further by being actually *psychic.*] This ability is not "wasted" on the everyday drudgery of infants' needs or husbands' grumpiness-it is vital in saving my life and the happiness of all about me. (Even if I come to the wrong conclusions, my intense over-reading of everybody else's emotions is still justified).

13. If I don't know what's happening, that's all right: my man does.

14. I can't save myself, but my man will do it for me. [More often torqued these days, if not consistently; Sookie's killing Rene in self-defense has shades of Final Girl, but she still has the men running to her aid, the distraction helps enable her to defend herself, and they do outright rescue her on many other occasions]

15. Life with the Super-Male is *really satisfying.*

Sookeh! SOOKEH!!!...

annnd

*sparkle out*

Yes, that'll work.

Maggie Gallagher of NOM! sez conservatives should have Moar Babeez in order to stave off gay marriage.

Which will totally work, because if there's one thing that never happens, it's the children of right wing conservative homophobes growing up to be Teh Gay. Trufax.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with any -other- right wing Population Anxiety...

Oh.

See what The Nation had to say about this, two years ago:

“The real root of racial tensions in the Netherlands and France, America’s culture warriors tell anxious Europeans, isn’t ineffective methods of assimilating new citizens but, rather, decades of “antifamily” permissiveness–contraception, abortion, divorce, population control, women’s liberation and careers, “selfish” secularism and gay rights–enabling “decadent” white couples to neglect their reproductive duties. Defying the biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply,” Europeans have failed to produce the magic number of 2.1 children per couple, the estimated “replacement-level fertility” for developed nations (and a figure repeated so frequently it becomes a near incantation). The white Christian West, in this telling, is in danger of forfeiting itself through sheer lack of numbers to an onslaught of Muslim immigrants and their purportedly numerous offspring.”

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.

"Stop being so full of ressentiment, you ugly pathological lefties of subnormal intelligence. Shouting is viceful."

I found another fuckwit, y'all. Yes! On the Internets!! Inorite? I'm too lazy for a recap, I've been busy slapfighting with her, because I am out of chocolate and booze and it seemed like the thing to do, but here, enjoy.

"When I say I want to talk about you, I don't mean I'm actually INTERESTED in what YOU have to say for yourself," part infinity-four

This edition, a slight twist on other versions of this wank, at least for this blog: a feminist who has decided that not only is sex a -positive- thing, it's positively -mandatory.- Whether you actually want it or not.

Clarissa explains it all for us:

Asexuality

A recent post at Feministing illustrates the point I was trying to make about tolerance that sometimes turns into a parody of itself.

The post responds to a message from somebody who feels asexual and finds anybody's touch "absolutely repulsive. The thought of sex makes me gag a bit." The response that the author of the message gets to her post takes the idea of political correctnes to the extreme that is even a little scary. The main idea of the response is "Asexual people of the world, unite!" Don't worry about beinng asexual, it says. You can always get together with other asexual people, date them, and form yet another neat identity group.

This attitude does not come exclusively out of the desire to show the world how tolerant and accepting one is. It is also the result of a deeply Puritanical view of sex, which refuses to see human sexuality on terms of a physiological process. If anybody found the idea of eating or sleeping (also physiological processes) "absolutely repulsive", we wouldn't be as likely to dismiss this problem with a lot of well-meaning but ultimately empty words. Nobody would (at least for now, I think) suggest to form an identity group around this problem.

Another problem that the response to this post brings to light, is the deep-seated fear that many Americans feel towards psychology as a field of knowledge. While several people suggested that the author of the post look for hormonal causes of her asexuality, nobody mentioned that it might be helpful for her to search for psychological causes.

a) "Political correctness"=pretty much automatic fail already. Sure enough:

b) "I'm all for 'tolerance,' but when it comes to something I'm too lazy to learn about and/or still want to make fun of/wax superior over, that's going -too far.-"

c) "For instance, the very idea that people might want to have meaningful relationships without sex, and that that might be about -their happiness- and have -nothing to do with me-, rather than about forcing poor put upon me to be "tolerant" of yet another "identity group."

d) "Blah blah blah one size fits all boilerplate which certainly has something to it but still doesn't have anything to do with this person whom I don't know -here- lecturecakes blah."

e) Glad you mentioned psychology. I happen to be training in psychology. And the first thing you learn in -my- school, at least, is you meet people where they're at. I.e., you don't try to "fix" them according to -your- standards of what would make -you- happy before even learning the first thing about -that other person who isn't you.- Those would be the second and third things as well, actually.

f) Also, armchair diagnosis over the Internets, while a fun party trick (I've done it myself): really not for the sake of the actual person being "helped," you know, so much as for the gratification of the person making the diagnosis and/or third party observers. Pretty much that would be always.

So, okay, so a bunch of people argue with her, many self-ID'd asexuals. And I was -going- to go over and throw in my tuppeny, but quickly realize I actually couldn't say the whole "you are not the center of the universe! no, really! p.s. this ain't feminism (or sex positive either, for that matter)" any more clearly than a number of other commenters already.

And then, to confirm my suspicion that anything I had to say over there would be both redundant and unheard, at the very bottom:

Clarissa said...
For those who feel the need to participate without reading what was said previously, I repeat: this discussion is closed.

I'm always ready to discuss anything with calm, reasonable, and polite people (such as pretzelboy, Allison, and more recently Erbs).

Those, however, who come to repeat things that have been discussed 100 times, or those who are so enraged with the fact that somebody somewhere dared to have an opinion do not interest me as interlocutors. Coming here to scream "batshit," "SILLY" and "LEARN" in capital letters is not, in my opinion, an acceptable way to engage in a discussion. I don't even want to imagine what would make people want to seek out blogs of those with differing opinions and to engage in such public fits of hysteria. Curiously, these are always the same people who scream "tolerance above all".

If there are still people who fail to understand that for me this is not about the asexual community, I can't help you.

Once again: the discussion is closed until the participants start behaving in a way I find more acceptable.

Oh, cupcake.

Putting everything else aside (woo, tone argument for the epic fail! "Cut his mike!" "I can spout ignorant offensive bullshit as though from the Papal office and then ignore any counterarguments that don't suit me if I want! IT'S JUST MY OPINION!" is that a universal BINGO card I see before me?):

Friend, if -you- can't understand how calling a post "asexuality" and then proclaiming, quite truthfully apparently, that "for me this is not about the asexual community" might just be a wee tiny bit fucked up...well, I can't help you either.

And aren't you glad you -asked- for my -help- and thinky thoughts?

--Especially wrt this, now I notice:

As to you parallel with homosexuality, I still fail to see how it applies. As I said, sexuality is a physiological process, like sleeping or eating. depriving yourself of sleep will be detrimental to your health. This is my firm belief and I have a right to it. Since gay and lesbian people do not deprive themselves of sex, there is no reason to believe that they might suffer detrimental effects of sexual deprivation.I find that trying to bring homosexuality into the discussion of sexless lives is nothing but a tactic aimed at diverting the conversation from the actual topic.

Oh where to begin.

Yes, sex is important to -most- people, and being "deprived" (i.e. "unable to obtain something you want and need, not something other people think you want and need) can seriously fuck up your emotional health and eat away the rest of your life. Been there, done that, got the scratchy hairshirt. Yes, I believe that sex-negative culture has had a lot of deleterious effects, individually and structurally. Yes, I even think Wilhelm Reich was onto something (at least some somethings).

And yet: no, actually, the individual -doesn't- need sex like sleeping or especially eating: if you don't eat, you're gonna die. As in, literally and physically, in a relatively short amount of time. This is not how sex works. That's not a "belief;" that's a fact. Unless you are some other species that I am not aware of.

And, I for one also really do not appreciate the implications of "deprive -themselves-" from what sure looks like a blandly oblivious heteronormative perspective; there's a lot to say about the ways in which internalized as well as externalized homophobia can cause "deprivation" and "detrimental effects"--see above re: unable to obtain something you want and need--but I for one sure wouldn't have found that sort of smug tone implying there was yet something -else- wrong with me remotely helpful, ever. One gets quite enough of that all around.

ETA: and yeah, as someone else noted, the whole "sex is a natural biological process" business is a wee tad 'normative itself. and annoying.

veyz. yeah, I can't actually get into all of the ways this irks right now. more later. maybe.

ETA: it crystallized a bit more:

Re the parallel with the queer umbrella sexualities and why it's a relevant parallel: most of us have direct experience with having been pathologized and disprespected for our sexuality (yes, "sexuality" includes "lack thereof," in fact) even when said sexuality is in fact none of anyone else's business, isn't harming anyone else, and in fact the people who say or imply they're lecturing us/attempting a "cure" "for our own good" clearly do -not- have our best interests in mind, but rather their own agenda.

Anyway, really, the definitive comment was made on an earlier (and equally headdesky) post at feministing some time back:

UnHingedHips said:

Dear Woman Doing Something: I am a feminist and want women to be able to make their own choices. However, YOU are too (young/old/poor/x/y/z)and I think your choice to (have babies/not have babies/sail around the world/a/b/c) while being so (young/old/poor/x/y/z) is reprehensible and you should be loudly condemned for daring to do something like *that*, even though it has no impact on my life.

I hope you see the error of your ways.

~Another Woman

ETA again: Just for the record's sake, here's one of those other commenters from over there.

Shain Neumeier said...
To both Clarissa and Anonymous 5:40 a.m.,

I think the main problem I have with all of this is that people who are not me are trying to tell me what I and people like me should be and disguising it as what we "are" and are refusing to accept, or what we should want by saying it's what any functional person would really like. It's unfair, and frankly condescending, to say about people that the puritanical patriarchy has brainwashed them into not wanting sex (I find this a bit antithetical to feminism anyways - isn't it the belief that women ARE smart and capable enough to make their own decisions about their bodies?), or that they're immature and will grow out of it. If someone happens to eventually want or at least like sex, or if the benefits of having it outweigh the costs for them at some point for whatever reason, then great. But at the point that someone is coming out as asexual, I can think of no way in which it helps anybody, you or them, to invalidate the conclusion they've come to about themselves.

As far as the argument that sex is good and even necessary for one - If I may, I'll accept, but revise, the food comparison. I would say that asexuality is a little like having an aversion to a food that most people like and/or that's very good for people. Would life be better for someone who couldn't stand the smell of bananas or the texture of salad if they could eat these foods without throwing up? Maybe. But if, as things are, they get sick if they try to eat these foods, the health benefits might not be worth the costs of trying to learn to like them. So let them use their multivitamins or whatever other compensatory measures to make up for any lost nutrients, or choose to do nothing at all. It's no one's business to tell them what they need or should want in case like this.

Likewise, maybe it's true that one gets headaches and irritability from not having sex. But you know what? I'd rather stock up on ibuprofen and get some hobbies that allow me to vent my anger in a productive way than let someone do things to my body that I'm uncomfortable with. I can imagine that someone will want to jump on me for that description of sex, but that's how I see it. I'm simply uncomfortable with invasive physical contact, as I am with a number of other sensory experiences, and sex falls under the category of invasive physical contact. I get emotional fulfillment from others through a lot of things, like watching movies, making up stories and having good debate, but sex just isn't conducive to trust or love in my mind. This is abnormal, but, as it does not interfere with my day-to-day or overall functioning, it's not by definition disordered. Such is the case with many asexuals, whether or not they're repulsed by sexual contact as I am. So who is anyone else to tell us that we should be otherwise?

If I'm unhappy or unhealthy because I'm not having sex, I'll see an actual psychologist or doctor about it, and work something out that makes me better without making me uncomfortable. All I want - and, I think, what most "aces" want - from people who are not being paid for medical advice is acceptance and the belief that we are capable enough to define ourselves as makes sense to us.

"Everyone in favor of dissolving the Gunderson marriage? Motion carried."

If only. If ONLY.






ETA: "Where are your goats?"

That's not fresh at -all-, no.

Fifteen sexist vintage ads. mmMMMmm, Lysol douche. No, seriously, they did.



See, that proves it, though: it's -good- to use "douchebag" as an insult, because what you're actually saying is

"Dave? I need you like I need Lysol in my cooch. Byieeeeeeee!"

h/t various folks on Twitter including Neil Gaiman.

ETA: if you're interested in this kind of thing, Pink Think has more. and yes, I believe the book includes the Lysol douche ad, albeit not that particular iteration, with the locks.

All I have the energy for today

in light of the decision that is not a surprise:

At what point do the reactionaries notice that the couples who've been and continue to be married legally haven't destroyed the institution or sent the state sinking into the sea? Is there an exact number it needs to hit before the tipping point? Or was Traditional Marriage (tm) -already- destroyed during those few months and we just didn't notice? Is it -partly- destroyed, now? Did we turn straight marriages into a newt? Awful sorry.

"I got better."

Should be busy around this neck of the woods today.

More later, probably.

ETA: Oh, I lied, adrenaline's already going again, people are out in force and they're arresting, including clergy and a 19 year old trans kid...following it on Twitter, not even outside right now. #prop8protests, don't think you can link directly.

Bitch PhD=fail.

Follow the links at Questioning Transphobia to see why. No, I'm not gonna bother directly linking, or going deeper into an analysis of -how- she's being such a total asspillbox*. It's the same old shit, basically, and QT covers it all. Just FYI.


*While -literal- pillboxes can have a certain retro charm, I feel obliged to point out that they do not, in fact, cover one's ass. No matter how ironically one tries to angle them.

ETA: What she said.

and particularly what little light said in the comments:

There’s so much to unpack just here:

I didn’t admit, because I know people can be quite sensitive about these things, that I know I wouldn’t be able to work it, no matter how appropriate with a pre-op T-girl. Pity, she was a pleasant enough fellow.

Here’s the assumptions on hand:

1. It’s a normal, understandable, obvious thing that a straight man wouldn’t want to sleep with a trans woman, or at least a trans woman with a penis. He just wouldn’t be able to “work it.” This is unfortunate, because

2. It’s particularly appropriate to engaging in teabagging, considered exotic and degrading in the context of this piece–the kind of act you’d use to hate-fuck someone–with a trans woman. They’re into that kind of thing, or can at least be paid to do it. Both 1. and 2. are really because

3. She, being a trans woman, is actually a “fellow.”

These are just the assumptions forming a baseline foundation for the joke, that Ann Coulter looks “exactly like” a trans woman. You need all those assumptions to unpack that this means that she looks like a perverted man in drag, which is degrading, which is part one of the joke. The other part of the joke is that while it might be acceptable to hate-fuck a Michelle Malkin or Michelle Bachmann look-alike, and therefore by proxy either of those women, someone who looks like Ann Coulter–and who therefore looks like a trans woman–and therefore looks like a man–isn’t even worthy of hate-fucking. She’s not even worth sexually degrading out of hostile feelings, even if she volunteers, which she would, because that’s how trans people are.

That’s the basis for the joke. That’s what’s underneath it. It’s premised on saying that no matter how much you might want to fantasize about taking a neoconservative woman down a peg or two with sexual degradation, Ann Coulter, being or being like a trans woman, is so polluted you wouldn’t even do that because it involves touching her.

Wow, I’m just all over giggling right now. That’s just the funniest joke I’ve ever head. Sorry, BPHD, that you can’t feel “safe” to make a joke like that “yet” because people just aren’t cool enough, and are still too oversensitive, to get your hip humor. Life is so hard.

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.

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?

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.

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.

It's official: pretty much anyone at all might invoke "feminism" in service of their ends

Really, I don't know why people keep saying the -word- is out of fashion and needs preservation; it seems to me the -word- is about as endangered as, well, the Traditional Nukular Family and Merry Christmas. As for the proper -spirit- of such things, well. I wouldn't know, being a degnerate heathen and all, but anyway: here are the thinky thoughts of one Father Joe, on "preserving purity:"

How should couples act prior to marriage? I would like to offer certain recommendations:

FIRST, the whole dating scene is a mess. We should opt for the older practices of courtship. Dating today is an excuse for “making out” and compromising virginity. Younger children should not go out on dates and older teens should be chaperoned. Young adults need the mindset that stepping out with the opposite sex is not simply for a good time, but part of the search for a future mate. Dating is transitory. Courtship plays for keeps!

SECOND, both men and women should prize their purity and do all they can to preserve it as a gift for their future spouse. There should be no double-standard for men. As for women, it is not true feminism or liberation to be as sleazy as certain men. Restraint in this area shows strength of character and a discipline that will keep them in good stead within marriage. Today, we must also contend with sexually transmitted diseases which infect millions, sometimes with lethal consequences. Sex kills! This is contrary to its very purpose. The only sure way to remain clean of infection is for a couple to remain pure and to enter upon the marriage bed undefiled.

THIRD, modesty in speech and dress should rule the day. Vulgar flirtation and immodest dress is in vogue starting with pre-teens and going into adulthood. Many complain that styles are so risqué that it is hard for true ladies to find decent clothing. Some women have resorted again to making their own dresses. Men and women are not the same. One pretty but flirtatious girl who had every boy’s eye remarked to me that she stopped short of getting the boys’ motors running. Poor thing, I explained, boys’ motors are always running! The best of young men can be quite weak in the flesh and they need good girls to keep them good. Young men should not lie or compel favors from women with their physical strength. Women should not tempt men with their clothes, or lack of clothes, and suggestive speech...

And so on, and so on, and so on. See, -true- feminism would be, uhhh, ummm, well...anyway, something better. See. Yeah. Isn't it always? Thanks, Father Whosit! We Value Your Opinion.

Oh, I like this bit, too:

FIFTH, while showing compassion to those who make mistakes, we need to retain a sense of shame for scandalous activity. I recall a teenage girl who had a child and everyone kissed and admired the beautiful baby. We were thankful that a prolife decision was made. However, I was troubled that she showed no remorse or embarrassment at having given away her virginity or having an illegitimate child. Most babies in the past born to such girls were given up for adoption. The stigma served a purpose and its eradication is no service to other girls who might make a similar mistake.

Clearly, the Magdalene Laundries were a hotbed of True Feminism. Not to mention True Christianity. Because if there was one thing the message of Jesus was all about, it was stigmatizing people, women especially, who flouted sexual convention and/or were already the untouchable caste in their respective societies. "Lock 'em up and throw away the key, the dirty sluts," sez Jesus. Also, hierarchy, "family values," and rigid adherence to ritual. That whole "whited sepulchre" thing? Or the railing about "scribes and Pharisees?" Don't worry about it, really.

The nuclear hetero family=endangered wet trees.

(Hey, baby, wanna plow my huge tracts of land?--shit, I don't know...)

In which the Pope is unclear on multiple concepts:

Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Credo, the Church cannot and should not confine itself to passing on the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public. And in so doing, it ought to safeguard not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation, belonging to everyone. It ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, it is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term “gender”, results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator.

The tropical forests are deserving, yes, of our protection, but man merits no less than the creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition. The great Scholastic theologians have characterised matrimony, the life-long bond between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator himself and which Christ – without modifying the message of creation – has incorporated into the history of his covenant with mankind. This forms part of the message that the Church must recover the witness in favour of the Spirit Creator present in nature in its entirety and in a particular way in the nature of man, created in the image of God. Beginning from this perspective, it would be beneficial to read again the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sexuality as a consumer entity, the future as opposed to the exclusive pretext of the present, and the nature of man against its manipulation.

I'll be sure and do that, reread the Encyclical Whosit; I missed a few nuances the first few times around, I'm sure, seeing as how I'm not actually Catholic and there's supposed to be this nifty separation between the Church and State around and all; but thanks so much for looking out for us all, really. Because if there's anyone I look to for the definition of "love," it's Pope Palpatine wielding crucifixes against us as though we were vampires.

"Sure, I-- I mean God-- just compared you to pollution, which if unchecked will lead into ecocide/genocide, but you shouldn't take it -personally- or anything."

Does His Holiness have anything to say about this, I wonder:

A woman in the San Francisco Bay area was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday.

Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.

"It just pushes it beyond fathomable," he said. "The level of trauma _ physical and emotional _ this victim has suffered is extreme."...

Or this:

Here we go again in Memphis, TN. A transwoman was shot in the face and is in critical condition.

Memphis police say the shooting happened sometime around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday, December 23, 2008 in the 3100 block of Boxtown Road in south Memphis near T.O. Fuller State Park. Leeneshia Edwards was last seen about an hour earlier at the “C.K.’s Coffee Shop” on Union Avenue in midtown Memphis.

Edwards' cousin reports that Lenneshia was shot in the jaw, side and back and is undergoing multiple surgeries.


...Oliver A. FP said...
Hmm... let me get this straight.

So, mysteriously, a woman who called out the Memphis police on her ill-treatment is dead.

Mysteriously, the police investigations into her murder and the murder of a physically "similar" woman have been incredibly lacklustre.

And MYSTERIOUSLY, another physically "similar" Memphis woman has now been shot.

Gosh, the world is sometimes full of brain-teasers...

Wait, don't tell me, I know: of -course- the Pope and Rick Warren and all their enablers don't support -violence-. Heavens no. They might vote against laws that recognize us as full human beings, whether it's marriage equality or a trans-inclusive ENDA, even put tons of effort and money into making sure we can't actually any of us take a dump without fighting for years for signed permission from Traditional Values, Inc;

But, you know, they -mean so well-, do these great unctuous "spiritual" leaders of ours. Certainly they never EVER meant to endorse -actual concrete results- of their demonizing and scapegoating and politicization of their -beliefs-, especially when those results are a lot of dead or maimed bodies. It would be wrong to suggest that the young men who violently, often fatally, attack people simply for bearing the "wrong" gender markers or sporting a rainbow sticker on their car, are the shock troop enforcers of these -values.- Punishing uppity women, sluts, sodomists, freaks and deviants for their/our transgressions; after all, we're a-threat-, right? And of course these men wouldn't ever be police or (uh oh) priests or ministers or other fine upstanding members of the community; they're probably just "thugs," most of them, right? Suspicious dark poor people leaping out of alleys; just make sure we concentrate on getting -them- off the streets and into the prisons and workhouses, and we'll all be golden. Oh, and pray, of course, I keep forgetting that one. Piety makes all the difference, really.

In fact, now we learn: apparently, what they are, these various angry violent men, are radical environmentalists.

Perhaps Ben and Jerry's will make a new flavor, now that Rainforest Crunch is long out of vogue. "Heavenly Hetero Hash," perhaps. "Family Values Fudge." "Crusader Crunch."

Sleep in heavenly peace to you too, motherfucker.

-Groan- FFS, Obama...

Yeah, I get that it's a symbolic sop, but as gestures go it's pretty fucking shitty. Did you really have to pick this guy?

The congressional committee putting together the inauguration earlier this afternoon announced that the program for President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural would include an invocation by Rick Warren, the celebrity preacher at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

People for the American Way, one of the best known liberal advocacy groups in the nation's capital, is letting it be known it's not happy with this choice.

An excerpt of a PFAW statement attributed to Kathryn Kolbert, the group's president:

It is a grave disappointment to learn that pastor Rick Warren will give the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion...

I tend to agree with these commenters, off the top:

Yeah I get it. But at the same time there are other evangelicals that are less harsh than this guy.
For those of us who already feel kicked in the head by prop 8 and those, like Rick Warren and his ilk who believe in legal discrimination, it really hurts to see this guy share the stage with our new President.
Posted by: todd | December 17, 2008 6:16 PM

and

Why in the name of, well ... God, would Obama choose someone whose outspoken beliefs are substantively no different from the James Dobson's of the world? There's a thriving progressive religious community in every faith, and many believe the religious left is ascendant...

...Including the evangelical Christian left. I mean, yeah, why not Mel White? Or if that's too outre, what about Jim Wallis?

ETA: So apparently he didn't make the pick, it was the inaugural commission.

ETA again: or, not. well, unsurprisingly,

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday defended his choice of a popular evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, rejecting criticism that it slights gays. The selection of Pastor Rick Warren brought objections from gay rights advocates, who strongly supported Obama during the election campaign. The advocates are angry over Warren's backing of a California ballot initiative banning gay marriage. That measure was approved by voters last month.

But Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to "come together," even when there's disagreement on social issues.

"That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," he said.

Obama also said he's known to be a "fierce advocate for equality" for gays and lesbians, and will remain so.

Yes, well. Time will tell, won't it. I'm not personally gonna write him off totally over a symbolic gesture that's essentially a quid pro quo* but, you know, money talks, bullshit etc. And yes, need it be said, I'm turned off. Again. Still. Somewhere in between. Whatever.

Clinton was and is no doubt in his heart as fierce an advocate (i.e. he's yer basic social liberal, really believes social discrimination including Teh Gay) as any number of other bleeding hearts; but when push came to shove he fucked us over as well. (Signed DOMA, "Don't Ask Don't Tell"). Could it have been worse? Has it been? Might it be again/still? Sure; and that plus yep there are other issues is why I voted for him i.e. the mainstream Democrat who seems at least halfway competent, and barring extraordinary circumstances (which I reserve the right to redefine at any point) probably would/will do again, despite it all. Shit's too important.

(And yes, that goes for reproductive rights as well; Warren's pro-life, Obama's put his money where his mouth is when it came to policy in the past, which I put before his noises about "safe legal and rare" and lack of insistence on when life begins and so forth. But again: he'll have his chance to prove NARAL's 100% rating on a national level soon enough, policy wise).

But ultimately, you know, he's only gonna stretch as far as he thinks he can reasonably do without fucking over his own career. And yes, before anyone squawks, that went for Hillary too; and it goes for just about every mainstream Democrat with the exception of Frank, who's got his own full baggage of bullshit. Guess why.

So now what? Do we all go, right that's it, I won't be satisfied until we get a queer person in the WH and/or 30% in government, no matter how giant a chode they might be otherwise? Find a suitable mascot/acronym for the disaffected, maybe? Emus are nice, there must be a good acronym that goes with "EMU". No, wait! I have it! GOOSE! Gays Outraged Over Straight Enablers. Catchy, innit? Oh yeah, feel the power, baby. ROAR, I mean HONK.

(Actually, that's more or less what MILK is about, but y'know, for reals. Then again, nowadays, well, in many ways things are different; in others...not s'much, but hrrm. Much as I was going "hell yeah!" for historical Milk, I am thinking that a party of Barney Franks, Andrew Sullivans and Bruce Bawers, with inclusiveness even unto the Log Cabiners and rabidly transphobic "lesbian feminists" and the everyone else who enable them, is not what I had in mind either. Not that it matters since, oh wait! Teh Gay doesn't even have enough clout to make that a possibility in the first place!...

And of course loving the drearily predictable squawking from PUMA-land about neener neener, serves us right, should've gone with Hillary or ffs PALIN, because of course they're both -sooo- much better, not exactly the fucking same or much worse when it comes to Teh Gay, respectively. I mean! They're -women-! So what if they're straight! They MUST be more sympathetic to Teh Gay than a (straight) black male! And it's not like you can ever expect a representational Presidential candidate of your very own, or at least any time in the next zillion years even though that's exactly what we're bitching about ourselves being shafted over in the first place. Where's your loyalty? Where's...)

zzzzZZZZzzzzzzz

But, yeah, ritual snipe at Those Who Continue To Fail On An Epic Scale aside, there was a reason I sent money to the anti-Prop 8 campaign and none to the Democrats or the Obama campaign this year.

*Going through the google hits, btw, this does shed a bit of light, although I really think courting World Nads Daily types is a fool's errand, you know...

Rick Warren, the best selling author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and senior teaching pastor at Saddleback Church in California, has invited Sen. Barack Obama to speak to the congregation of the faithful on Dec. 1, 2006. In doing so, he has joined himself with one of the smoothest politicians of our times, and also one whose wickedness in worldview contradicts nearly every tenet of the Christian faith that Warren professes.

So the question is "why?"

Why would Warren marry the moral equivalency of his pulpit – a sacred place of honor in evangelical tradition – to the inhumane, sick and sinister evil that Obama has worked for as a legislator?

According to press reports, it is because of a mutual respect that each feels towards the other over the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the African continent. That rationale, however, is not only dishonest, but is not even logical given the two distinct positions that the men come to on the matter. Because of this supposed shared concern, Warren is ready to turn over the spiritual mantle to a man who represents the views of Satan at worst or progressive anti-God liberals at best in most of his public positions on the greatest moral tests of our time.

Warren's stand on the matter in this instance is what is in doubt – not Obama's!

Barack Obama has a long history of defying the intended morality of Scripture. As a state legislator, he actively worked to preserve availability of abortion in all nine months of pregnancy. He opposed parental notification. He opposed any and all bans on partial-birth abortion (an act that includes delivery of the baby up to the head, the crushing of the baby's brain, the suctioning of the brain matter, and then completed delivery of the child's deflated cranium). In his run for the U.S. Senate, Obama even asked his wife to pen a letter to Illinois voters that reassured them of his commitment to fighting for the right to butcher children in the womb.

Barack Obama has long supported the advance of the radical homosexual activist lobby in its pursuit to destroy traditional marriage. He supported the creation of "special rights" for people who engage in homosexuality for the sole purpose of putting them at the front of the line on issues of employment, housing and litigation. He has also solidly backed the advancement of all "hate crimes" legislation, which ultimately may be used to silence clergy who believe according to their own convictions that homosexual behavior is wrong and preach so from biblical texts. Obama has a perfect voting record against the defense of marriage.

-ironic cough-

What's that one ancient wheeze my grandmother used to tell? Marriage broker in Chelm goes to a poor family and says, Listen, I have the perfect girl for your son. She's beautiful, she's intelligent, she's rich, she's cultured and talented, speaks several languages, wonderful personality, everyone who knows her loves her.

So the family is all excited. Who? Who??

The shadchen says, Marie of Romania.

Outrage. Horror. Marie of Romania?! A shiksa! Unthinkable.

No, no, says the broker, just hear me out, hear me out. So it's one tiny flaw. Look at all her other amazing qualities! Besides, I have it on good authority that she's willing to convert.

Doubt. But, isn't she already married? Handwave. Listen, you know how these things are. He's not so healthy. She's not happy. I can't tell you everything I know, but...It shouldn't be a problem.

Hours later, the broker's convinced the family that, alright, Marie of Romania is O.K. by them, they suppose, if that's really the best he can do.

Broker goes outside, takes a deep breath, wipes his forehead. Okay, he says out loud to himself, that's -half- the battle...


This creaky old yarn has been brought to you by Traditional Family Values (tm). I mean, -thank G-d- that the institution of marriage hasn't changed at all over the years and cultures, eh?

ETA again, again: This. The OP, that is, all of it; and also too this, from the comments:

Sigh. If only we’d gone with the spouse of the man who signed DOMA into law. She’s chummy with Billy Graham, who could probably have been wheeled to her inauguration.

Innit though. Yeah, six of one.

So this is the only relevant part about Bristol Palin's pregnancy, as far as I'm concerned:

No, Sarah Palin is not a hypocrite as such on -abortion- because her kid got pregnant and is having the kid. And no, the scandal as such should not be an issue. And, sure, "choose life," fine, it's still a choice...but here is my concern, well, one of them.

a) -Is- it really -Bristol's- choice? I mean it's great and all that Mom is speaking up -for- her, but um. Where's Bristol herself in all this? She's seventeen and still very much under Mom's thumb; the pressure to do what Mom wants must be enormous. I'm not saying she may not really want to keep the kid and participate in "family values" with the father. I'm just saying: if it so happened that she didn't? She'd kind of be screwed, it seems to me. I mean, hi: no pressure, there. True for many minors; I think it'd be -worse- when Mom's a major public figure (which she already was, lest we forget, even before the veep selection).

also: -mono-?

b) And here's where the "hypocrite" part does have some resonance: What about sex
ed, y'all? What messages did Bristol get, exactly?

Because, Sarah Palin, you know, is for "abstinence only"(...among other things.)

3. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
JB: We should not exclude abstinence-until-marriage education programs.
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support...

The above, btw, is taken from an Eagle Forum questionnaire that "was sent to all candidates for [Alaska] Governor with their responses listed in the order [Eagle Forum] received them." Note that all of the other candidates did not respond to this one, including the other three Republicans.

And then, too:

SP: I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.

2. Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience?

SP: Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

So, among other things, we do learn that the buck stopped with SP, for what Bristol was "taught" wrt sex ed. Which apparently, assuming Palin was consistent, would've been limited to, "don't do it."

How's that working out?

And more to the point, how's that going to work out for a lot more young women if Sarah Palin gets into the second-highest appointed office in the land?

Oh, btw, here's McCain himself on the issue(s):

Republican John McCain, whose running mate disclosed that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, has opposed proposals to spend federal money on teen-pregnancy prevention programs and voted to require poor teen mothers to stay in school or lose their benefits.

...In Senate votes, McCain has opposed some proposals to pay for teen-pregnancy prevention programs. In 2006, McCain joined fellow Republicans in voting against a Senate Democratic proposal to send $100 million to communities for teen-pregnancy prevention programs that would have included sex education about contraceptives.

In 2005, McCain opposed a Senate Democratic proposal that would have spent tens of millions of dollars to pay for pregnancy prevention programs other than abstinence-only education, including education on emergency contraception such as the morning-after pill. The bill also would have required insurance companies that cover Viagra to also pay for prescription contraception.

also:

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn.** He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

Mr. McCain: “I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

...Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

I feel reassured, don't you?

ETA: Renee over at Global Comment has a number of salient points as well:

Though Bristol is going to have a difficult time having this child in the public spotlight, there are many issues that she will not face. If Bristol lived in Harlem, and her name were Latifah, this conversation would take a very different tone. That Bristol is a child of privilege, and is white, will forestall the questions of who is going to pay for raising this child. If Bristol were a Latina, there would be cracks about whether the baby was conceived to drain the limited social safety net and achieve US citizenship

Race and class will protect Bristol from the attacks that poor Black and Latina women face on a daily basis when they decide to become mothers. She will not have to negotiate social services trying desperately to get pre-natal care. She will not be looked upon as a social leech, or a raving whore. The aforementioned are labels that are attached to WOC. She will not lay awake at night wondering where the money to raise this child is going to come from.

...We will pretend that we are having conversations about morality, while ignoring the real issues of race, class and gender in our understanding of motherhood. In the end she will emerge reborn and reconstituted, a tribute to what white women are meant to do - breed.

But hey, we can hold office now, too, a very few of us at least, and that's what really matters, right?

**ETA again: Btw, in case you, too, were wondering, "whom?" this is "Dr. Coburn:"

Tom Coburn is a Republican Senator from Oklahoma, and he’s not a subtle guy. During more than three years in the Senate he has spoken out against both sex education and contraception (which didn’t prevent Bush from appointing him co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS). A 2007 article on his government-sponsored website likens sex ed to pornography.

He is a self-proclaimed unwavering defender of the sanctity of “life”. That being said, he believes unequivocally that anyone performing an abortion should be put to death by the state.

Coburn’s Chief of Staff is Michael Schwartz. During the 2007 conference entitled “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith” Schwartz distinguished himself with a speech in which he advocated

“the mass impeachment of judges” and denounced the Supreme Court for giving Americans “the right to commit buggery.”

In the 80’s Schwartz was a founding member of Operation Rescue, the vigilante “pro-life” group that has advocated militant tactics...

Yeah, THAT Tom Coburn. Senator Tom Coburn. It took me a minute because I wasn't used to thinking of him as "Dr.," for some strange reason. You know, this guy:

In 1997, Coburn introduced a bill called the HIV Prevention Act of 1997, which would have amended the Social Security Act. The bill would have mandated HIV testing in some situations, would have allowed physicians to demand an HIV test before providing medical care, and would have allowed insurance companies to demand an HIV test as a condition of issuing health insurance.[25]

...Abortion
In 2000, Coburn sponsored a bill to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from developing, testing or approving the abortifacient RU-486. On July 13, the bill failed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 182 to 187.[15] On the issue, Coburn sparked controversy with his remark, "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life."[16] Coburn also objects to legal abortion in cases of rape, and he has justified his position by noting that his great-grandmother was raped by a sheriff.[17] In the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings concerning Samuel Alito, Coburn asserted that his grandmother was a product of that rape.
26]

...Coburn has also been quoted as saying:

“ "The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power... That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That's a gay agenda."[6]

but best of all wrt the good Dr.:

A sterilization Coburn performed on a 20-year-old woman in 1990 became what was called "the most incendiary issue" of his Senate campaign.[27] Coburn performed the sterilization on the woman during an emergency surgery to treat a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, removing her intact fallopian tube as well as the one damaged by the surgery. The woman sued Coburn, alleging that he did not have consent to sterilize her, while Coburn claimed he had her oral consent. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed with no finding of liability on Coburn's part.

The state attorney general claimed that Coburn committed Medicaid fraud by not reporting the sterilization when he filed a claim for the emergency surgery. Medicaid did not reimburse doctors for sterilization procedures for patients under 21, and according to the attorney general, Coburn would not have been reimbursed at all had he not withheld this information. Coburn says since he did not file a claim for the sterilization, no fraud was committed. No charges were filed against Coburn for this claim.

This, once again, is the guy to whose opinion McCain is deferring on all matters reproductive and sexual, the guy he "really respects."

Just noting.

I guess, you know, he would count as a sort of "maverick," would Coburn, on account of he's "someone simply uninterested in being popular" (so sayeth George Will, at least). It is a nice way of saying he's stubborn and has a bad tendency to say jaw-droppingly rude and ill-considered (at best) things. Moderate, though...not s'much.

And McCain himself? Still think he's a "moderate?" Still think Palin's probably at least sort of okay on account of hey she's got female bits? Still think Obama wouldn't be any better? Feminists? Moderates? Bueller?