Tiger Beatdown

A Friendly Reminder

2009-08-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

TIGER BEATDOWN IS NOW AT TIGERBEATDOWN.COM.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS.

Where In The World Is Tiger Beatdown? Part Two

2009-08-17T08:33:00.001-07:00

Tiger Beatdown is no longer at this website! It is over at Tigerbeatdown.com, an entirely new website. I encourage you to visit it! All of your old comments and such are there to keep you company, along with an FAQ and many other exciting features! It still needs work - specifically, work on the "not being ugly as hell" issue - but it is where you will find all Tiger Beatdown posts in the future!

Here at Old Tiger Beatdown, meanwhile, you will find this venture into quirky indie cinema animation. Watch for 1:38, wherein we learn what popular anti-rape slogans lead to in practice! (HINT: Stabbin' dudes in the eyeball.)

And Now, A Domestic Interlude: On The Importance of Print Media

2009-08-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Sady's Gentleman Associate Theater! This is a feature in which we discover that Sady and her gentleman associate have been living in the same apartment in the same terrible section of Queens with the same lack of air conditioning for about three months now and have settled into that phase of the Living Together Adventure where they drink lots of beer and talk about their various ideological differences!

OH, IT GETS HEATED.

This week: The Importance of Print Media, and whether the Internet and/or Sady are destroying civilization as we know it!

SADY: It's just. Whenever I read something that says the Internet is destroying print media or whatever. I want to punch a hole in the wall.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: But it is! It is destroying print media!

SADY: Maybe it is destroying print media. But maybe, also, it is salvaging the idea of media as connection and community! There are all these voices now that are livening up or shifting or challenging the discourse, and without the Internet they would not have access! So if print media is suffering maybe that's because it couldn't keep up with the needs of its readers.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: Good point, Ayn Rand!

SADY: All I am saying is that more voices are being heard! More conversations are being had! Conversations that are not bougie-ass NYT things about how you can't Tweet at Milk and Honey any more or how hard it is to live on a six-figure salary in New York or how the economy means your daughter will only get one pony for Christmas or whatever.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: Yes, but with the Internet, you only have the conversations that you want to have. You only hear what you want to. You're not participating in a national conversation as such. There's no community!

SADY: No, there are communities, and lots of them, which is great if your community is marginalized or excluded or inadequately represented or addressed by "the conversation" as it stands. Because "the conversation" has historically been straight, white, male, and middle to upper-class.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: But what about picking up the local paper, and seeing what is on the front page, and conversing with the people around you about what is in the paper? Even if what you are saying is "the paper sucks," there is a unifying thread. There is centrality.

SADY: Even if what you are saying is "the paper consistently fails to cover the issues that affect me and my community?" There is value in reading the paper if the paper is not relevant to your needs as a person who seeks to be informed?

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: Yes! Because it ties you to place! It creates a sense of where you are! It connects you to the people around you.

SADY: This is ridiculous. This is A RIDICULOUS THING THAT YOU ARE SAYING. The thing you are saying is that the front page of the New York Times could consist of NOTHING BUT PICTURES OF MAUREEN DOWD'S POOPS, and we would all still have to read it. Because it is The Paper.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: Okay, so... what do you know about what is going on in Afghanistan right now?

SADY: Not much! Maybe I should LOOK IT UP. On GOOGLE.

So, anyway. We let it drop. Then, last Thursday, the New York Times ran a story about how "hipsters" now have "pot bellies" if they are dudes! (It is a rebellion from the PERFECT BODY of President Barack H. "Ab Force One" Obama, apparently.) So here is the conversation I had this morning:

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: So, you know that conversation we had about print media? I think this pretty conclusively proves that I WIN.

SADY: Oh, God.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: Dear New York Times, I have an idea for your Style section! "Girls: Longer Hair Than Dudes, Most of the Time!"

SADY: Oh, GOD.

GENTLEMAN ASSOCIATE: "White People! They Are In All The Hottest Clubs!"

Sexist Beatdown: Revenge of the Nerds' Girlfriends Edition

2009-08-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

Why, hello! Welcome to Friday! Friday, in case you have not noticed, is Sexist Beatdown day. It is also the end of my blogcation!

But what, you ask, could be so troublesome as to lure me from my blogcation paradise? (I read two books! I went to a concert! I learned to bake! It was nice.) Why, THE EVILS OF THE INTERNET ITSELF, of course. Also, nerds. For, behold! The lovely (and recently vacationed) Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper's The Sexist has uncovered a tragic tale of a young man who shared his hatred for his girlfriend (and love of bacon soap) (???) on the Reddit, a popular nerd website. His fellow nerds approved! His girlfriend, however...

ILLUSTRATION: Nerds, beware - if you post unflattering comments about Kelly LeBrock on the Internet, she will FUCK. YOU. UP. That includes you, Shockingly Young Robert Downey Junior!

SADY: why hello! i hear the nerds are UP TO NO GOOD.

AMANDA: are they exacting their ... revenge?

SADY: this is what they tell me! at least there are no gorilla masks and disturbingly rape-like scenarios this time around, though. only comments on the internet! and UNFORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES.

AMANDA: so, why do internet commenters hate girlfriends?

SADY: well! i have been spending a really regrettable portion of my day looking up youtube clips of men railing against "feminists" on their "vlogs," so, one idea: it gives them something to talk about? also, the people who rail against girlfriends the hardest give the unmistakable impression that they are angry because they don't have them.

AMANDA: yes! this is what i wanted to talk about, because i need to figure something out and i think you can help me. i once (okay ... 2 hours ago) thought the very same thing: the phenomenon of "nerd sexism" may be a result of guys who think they're not cool, or attractive, or whatever, lashing out against the people who can make them cool and attractive: girls. and they can sort of get away with this, because it's not as if they're privileged or anything, like most men. they're pathetic nerds, and they're at the bottom of the social ladder

SADY: right. well, i also think so many of the things that are Nerd are gendered in the dudely direction: video games, comics, internet whozimatronical codes and what have you. not to say that girls don't use them, but they are generally considered For Boys. so the nerds end up in these all-dude or 99%-dude environments most of the time!

AMANDA: but then, some dude, who is really into kickball, posted this comment on my blog about why he doesn't like me, and he diagnosed exactly why i don't enjoy kickball: because i need a good fucking. and i realized that this is something i hear over and over again as a feminist: you "hate men" because you're single, you can't get dudes to fuck you, and you're ugly, etc. and they can tell all of this based on about 300 words i wrote about kicking balls in the air. and not to brag, but i do fuck, so i thought, maybe i am wrong about the nerds? maybe they do all have girlfriends?

SADY: true enough. perhaps there is an unfair nerd stereotype! for example, I will now brag by telling you that i had a roommate who specialized in the internet whozimatronical codes, and he had the various anime DVDs, and he suggested starting a concept band about robots. and i would say that this is Nerdy, but - BUT, and this is important - he was totally cool with all that. and he did have lady friends, sometimes lady friends who worked in the whozimatronical code industry.

AMANDA: the whozimatronical what now

SADY: I HAVE NO IDEA. the computer skills, i lack them! but it's easy to forget that Nerd or Geek or whatever is its own subculture, and the people therein are enthusiastic and happy about it. it is not like they are all in a leper colony. YET, they are marginalized, and looked down on, and here is a thing i have noticed about dudes who are marginalized and looked down on (and live in a very male-gendered environment): they DO, in fact, tend to lash out at the ladies!

AMANDA: i see. but they lash out at the cool dudes, the football players, too, right? but i guess the problem is that the quarterback is rarely actually an unseen minority lurking in the nerd forum, like female nerds are. although i love the idea of a quarterback wearing his football jersey and crying silent tears when his after-school activity is pwned on some WoW forum

SADY: oh, I BET IT HAPPENS. OFTEN.

AMANDA: haha. oh the layers

SADY: well, it's weird. because, basically, nerds are culturally emasculated. right? like the stereotype is that they are all unsuccessful, and can't get ladies, and can't beat anyone up, and that is what men are supposed to do. ALL THE TIME. like, if you are a dude and you are not either having sex or punching someone in the face right now, you're a gigantic pussy. unless you're just waiting for your truckload of cash to show up. so one way for dudes who feel emasculated to, like, reclaim their iron john manhood or whatever, is to talk shit about ladies. OR - just a suggestion - basically bring kelly lebrock to life using a computer and a barbie doll (RIP JOHN HUGHES). whereas, the nerd ladies i've met all tend to be really awesome and feministy! which, dealing with the double-stereotyping of Nerd and Lady, I can see why you would get tired of stereotypes and spend a lot of time talking about them.

AMANDA: NERDS.

SADY: oh, and also? some of this might be due to the evils of the internet itself? and not nerds?

AMANDA: that's true. there are a lot of assumptions made on these internets, and while i like to attribute stereotypes about women and feminists and lesbians or whatever to misogyny, i think a lot of times it's just carelessness. and it's still misogyny, but it's misogyny that can be addressed and explained and all a lot easier in face-to-face conversation

SADY: yeah, exactly. OR - controversial statement here - the fact that you can develop a fake personality on the internet for attention. like the dude you posted about! i am not saying he is not a douche, but the odds are high (in my mind) that a lot of his offensive statements were conceived, not while thinking, "oh how i hate the women of the world," but while thinking, "this will piss people off and/or prove what a loose cannon i am." see his shock when his girlfriend read his comments and was like, WOW, you come off as a dick here! if she thought he was a dick of that order in the first place, they wouldn't be dating.

AMANDA: yeah. totally. he then goes on to say that he's joked about her being a bitch to her face and she doesn't care when that happens. but obviously, there was some sort of disconnect where he didn't understand that the internet is not his real life, and taking the bitch joke behind her back to share with his internet friends she didn't know existed was not on the same plane of reality as he thought it was

SADY: right. there is a difference between tomfoolery and being like, "oh, ha ha, BITCH" in private and basically showing up in a googlable forum for all the world to see and saying that your girlfriend is a bitch because she doesn't like bacon soap (???). which: lesson for us all, there! with the twitters and the facebooks and the blogspots and what have you! people post hundreds of thousands of words a day and i think a lot of us don't understand that YOU CAN NEVER ERASE THEM and ANYONE IN THE WORLD CAN FIND THEM. as someone who has read my bosses' craigslist ads, i can attest to the foolishness of this endeavor.

AMANDA: and yet, for the people in this googlable forum, it's perfectly obvious that she IS a bitch.

SADY: yeah, people do show up to call his girlfriend a bitch. but that's their own form of posturing. like, i am so sure that the "don't let that girl push you around" "take the stick out" people would not weigh in this way were it a lady and a dude that they both knew.

AMANDA: that's probably true.

SADY: OR - alternate take - people on the internet are just jerks. i don't know. personally, i would have dumped him just for having the intense alternate life on reddit! NERD.

AMANDA: NERD!

Where In The World Is Tiger Beatdown?

2009-08-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

Tiger Beatdown is on a vacation! Or, "blogcation." Or, no, "vacation," actually. What does this mean for you? It means that I will be summering in exotic Queens and trying to figure out some basic junk about how to move the site over to a different location, etc. But not posting things on the blog itself! Until Friday!

Anyway, since I will not be here to share my very important reflections on the Ladybusiness, I figured you should meet my substitute. His name is... oh, let's say Chet. He is Hal Sparks' weirder-looking cousin, and he has thoughts to share. Here are his thoughts!

Do you know why Chet does not have a girlfriend? Did you guess FEMINISM? Yeah, okay, me neither. It turns out to have something to do with toasters and his grandma, in the long run.

Hip To Be Square: Part Two In a No-Doubt Ongoing Series

2009-08-09T12:45:00.000-07:00

Say, does anyone remember when the trailer for The Hangover was released a few months ago? All the pop culture trailer reviewers were like, "oh my, this looks like the best!" Okay, yes. So, does anyone remember when the trailer for I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell was released last week? All the pop culture trailer reviewers were like, "oh, no, it feels like someone pooped directly into my eyeball!"

Okay. So, hey, has anyone noticed that they are basically the same trailer?

Weird, right? You can't attribute the different critical reactions to changing tastes, since they're only being released a few months apart. Nor can you attribute it to one movie being ripped off from the other, since they were probably being made at roughly the same time. I know that, last week, I did this fun little thought experiment where I compared mainstream frat-dude misogyny (DEPLORABLE!) to cute hip fashionable pseudo-indie misogyny (IRONIC!) and it turned out that they were basically the same thing and the differing reactions to them were attributable only to a phenomenon scientists refer to as "bullshit," but let's not jump to conclusions. Let's puzzle out the vastly differing critical reactions to these no-doubt vastly different trailers step by step, with this handy checklist:

1) BACHELOR PARTY: Check!
2) BAND OF BROS: Check!
3) CASTRATING HARPY WHO DOESN'T WANT HER BOYFRIEND TO EVER HAVE ANY FUN EVER, AND THEREFORE EXPRESSES RESERVATIONS RE: BACHELOR PARTY WITH BAND OF BROS: Check.
4) CASTRATING HARPY WHO SCREAMS INTO THE PHONE ABOUT WHEREABOUTS OF HER BOYFRIEND: Check.
5) STRIPPERS AS PUNCHLINES: Check, indeed! (Andy from The Office gets married to one! You can hear him scream the comedy-gold line "I married a whore" in a different version of the trailer; presumably later he gets down with her on the basis that she is not a castrating harpy.)
6) CONFRONTATION WITH POLICE: Check, again! It is getting pretty tiresome running down the list, actually. Oh, but:
7) HILARIOUS FACIAL INJURY: Check, and:
8) PRESENCE OF BELOVED "INDIE" COMEDIAN (WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS) THAT ENSURES PEOPLE WILL GO SOFT ON THE WHOLE THING EVEN THOUGH SAID BELOVED INDIE COMEDIAN IS BASICALLY SIGNING UP TO BECOME WILL FERRELL (SOME OF US REFER TO THIS AS "SELLING OUT"): No! Sadly, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell lacks this crucial element. Also, Tucker Max is beloved by gross sexist "frat boys" as opposed to gross sexist indie dudes (THOSE DON'T EXIST! INDIE DUDES ARE ALWAYS TOTES SENSITIVE AND COOL AND UNCONVENTIONAL, ha ha, J/K), so that's a strike against it. This movie looks terrible. Fire away, everybody!

So, there you have it. Zach Galifianakis is basically a pair of gold hologram leggings. Glad I could help you puzzle this one out.

Today, In Unsubstantiated Rumors: Lady Gaga's Ladybits

2009-08-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, we all know about my weird thing with Lady GaGa right? Like, basically I think she is an undercover performance artist attempting to decode the whole "sexy pop star" thing and its implications re: gender and sexuality and also sort of taking the piss with the whole sexy pop star thing whilst wearing corsets with exploding breast cups and disco ball dresses and what-have-you and singing songs about the disco sticks and the bluffing of muffins and I love her. Embarrassing, but true!

So, here is something else going on with Lady Gaga: there is a video of her ladybits circulating the Internet. Some people claim that they appear to be the ladybits of an intersex lady! I have seen the video, though I'm not embedding it here (although it is at the link, because it is everywhere) because it is gross and ties into the whole fetishization of trans and intersex folks and also the whole "DECEPTIVE TRANNY" meme where it is somehow your business to know exactly what is happening in the underpants of everyone around you. But, yes, there is a video of Lady Gaga's ladybusiness on the Internet. And here is a quote attributed to Lady Gaga "about" her ladybits, and it runs like this:

"It’s not something that I’m ashamed of, just isn’t something that I go around telling everyone. Yes. I have both male and female genitalia, but I consider myself a female. It’s just a little bit of a penis and really doesn’t interfere much with my life. The reason I haven’t talked about it is that it’s not a big deal to me. Like come on. It’s not like we all go around talking about our vags. I think this is a great opportunity to make other multiple gendered people feel more comfortable with their bodies. I’m sexy, I’m hot. I have both a poon and a peener. Big f*cking deal."

If were true, and Lady Gaga had said it: good job, Lady. This would be a very lovely thing to say, were you the first intersex pop star to be publicly outed as such, and it would quite possibly make me love her whole postmodern Sexy Lady Pop Star Sexiness project even more.

Oh, too bad it was all made up, though! The quote is from a "satire" site, apparently. And why a perfectly reasonable statement about being cool with your ladybits and your intersexness is "satire," I have no idea, but here's my first guess: the world hates intersex and trans people.

Oh, and here's the reaction on Bossip:

Not that anyone wanted to before but are any dudes still trying to chop this down now that she’s the one with the axe?

Sex as an act of force? The idea that trans and intersex people are inherently unfuckable? Oh, hurrah! And the commenters file suit, contributing perceptive thoughts such as, "That’s just plain ol’ nasty….a dick & a pussy yet she say she is bi…I don’t get it," and, "Why are people staying “she?” Isn’t there a proper pronoun for hermaphrodite?" (Someone else weighs in with INTERSEX SENSITIVITY TRAINING, instructing "Yes, it’s she/he or it.") And, of course, there are the requisite promises to throw away her CDs.

So, yeah. It will always puzzle me when cisgendered people don't see how the marginalization and oppression of trans people affects them. Because the fact is that there are a ton of trans people in the world, and you don't necessarily know who they are, and they're not required to tell you. But when people get a case of the Deceptive Tranny Fever, nothing - not decency, not tolerance, not basic fact-checking, not even Google - will get in their way.

And Amanda Hess Is Out Of Town This Week: ROISSY Makes It Big

2009-08-06T15:03:00.001-07:00

Friends: let us go back in time. A time when I also fought with people about my blog! Or, to be more precise, a time when I fought with a person about my blog. That person was my gentleman caller, and he was basically the only person who read it, and the fight was about the fact that he could not for the life of him see why I had written a post about noted doucheblogger Roissy in DC.

Why give him the attention, was the question? Why notice him? Why care? It only made him more popular! And so my vast network of findings about Roissy and the men who read him - links to a blog by an adult man about how he only dated teenage girls, endless comments about when it was okay to abuse a woman (answers: before sex, during sex, after sex, if she has ever had sex before, if she will not have sex with you), blog entries by Roissy himself about how he had to be "careful" with certain women so that they wouldn't "accuse him" of rape - which, you know, made it sound A WHOLE LOT as if he might have ACTUALLY RAPED SOMEONE: these went unreported. Because I agreed. Really, who wants to give Roissy more legitimacy? Who wants to acknowledge that he exists?

Say, you know who wants to give Roissy attention this week? Lots of people! Because a man who kept a blog about how women were monsters because they wouldn't sleep with him eventually, in a stunning twist, ended up shooting a whole lot of women, and himself. And Roissy, basically, approved:

When men kill women, the underlying reason is almost always an unfulfilled psychosexual need. This goes for spree shooters, rapists, and serial killers... celibacy is walking death and anything is justified in avoiding that miserable fate.

There you have it, ladies: fuck or die.

Here is someone who never stopped covering Roissy: Amanda Hess of The Sexist! And, a week before Roissy's murder-approval post went up, she covered a post on his blog entitled "Shady Character Game." Which is, basically, about how women like murderers, and you should pretend to be one so that they'll fuck.

With the right props and an inscrutable demeanor, you can take advantage of women’s instincts to be attracted to violent, unpredictable, enigmatic men. What’s that you say? Hot babes don’t go for criminals, thugs, or cold-blooded soulkillers? Keep telling yourself that.

If your lying eyes aren’t enough to convince you of the depraved nature of women’s desire, take it from the commenters at Roissy who have every incentive to prove me wrong... Do you want a woman eating out of your palm? Make her think you’ve killed people!

Is it unpredictable that someone who buys into this kind of thinking - about how women owe men sex, about how women are worthless except for their ability to provide sex, about how force and cruelty can get you sex because women are "depraved" and only go for men who can hurt them - decided not to "pretend," and actually just killed people? No. No, it's not. Because the entire Game line, the entire Pick-Up Artist culture, is based on the idea that men are nothing unless they fuck, and women exist solely and entirely for the purpose of being fucked, and women matter so little that lying to them, coercing them into sex, or hurting them emotionally (or physically, apparently, in some cases) are actually good, desirable behaviors - behaviors women like, whether or not they'll admit it, the lying whores - because they result in men getting to fuck and therefore feel powerful.

Of course some women got killed. Of course women get sexually assaulted. We can pretend that it's "fringe" behavior, and yeah, maybe some people on the extreme fringes of that fringe will take it to a level where everyone can agree that it's gone "too far" - like, for example, mass murder - but it's not. It's a bestselling book, and it's a series on VH1, and it is totally acceptable within a misogynist culture. We only notice that something is up when there are bodies on the floor.

So, basically, if anyone ever asks you why you're paying attention to this stuff, why you're giving it so much focus, why it matters - why you talk about publicity-based monsters like Paul Janka or Tucker Max or Mystery or Roissy in DC, when that only makes them stronger - I have a suggestion for how to explain it to them. Tell them you're afraid for your life.

META-POST: Do I Really Want To Hurt You? Do I Really Want To Make You Cry?

2009-08-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

You know: it's been a weird week. A week in which I have been required to defend my murderously insensitive stances on a variety of topics, including Zooey Deschanel, divorce, and dead kittens. And, following the advice of some close personal friends, all of whom are probably sick of having conversations that begin with me stating, "THAT'S IT! I'M QUITTING THE INTERNET," I have decided that it is time to address matters. With shouting!

For starters, you may not be aware of this, but you are reading a blog called Tiger Beatdown. When I look up "Tiger Beatdown" on the Google, I often come across lines such as, "Tiger Beatdown is fucking venomous." And that is from a positive review. The less positive reviews tend to use the word "cunt" a lot. Which is to say: I have a sharp tone. If you don't watch out, you might cut yourself. Whoops.

Is this incompatible with maintaining a safe space? I would argue that it is not! Because here is the subject of this blog: structural oppressions and privileges. Lady issues more often than not, but also issues relating to race, class, sexuality, and transness. I want people to come here and see that stuff subverted and resisted, not reinforced. I maintain a "safe" space in that I don't want anyone to be devalued on the basis of what they are.

As for who they are: well, that's different. Each and every one of us is a special and unique snowflake, and some snowflakes happen to be more obnoxious and tiresome than others. This blog is about structural oppressions and privileges, yes. But here is what it is not about: your parents' relationship, your pet cat, your favorite movie stars, or your personal awesomeness in general. The blog also isn't about my personal awesomeness in general - if it were, the posts would be called things like, "Will I Put On Pants Today? Sources Say No!" - so this does not mean that I don't like you. I like pretty much every single person I've spoken with on or through this blog! I feel very lucky to have the readers that I do! But that's not what the blog itself is about.

What does this mean? It means that, if I fuck up on covering structural issues - if I say something that is racist, or sexist, or anti-trans, or anti-queer - you can and should call me out. If I say that Cheerios are the best breakfast cereal, and you prefer Frosted Mini-Wheats, and you feel tempted to write a multi-part screed on how I just don't care about people who love Frosted Mini-Wheats and, you know, you don't see enough coverage of Fruit Loops either... well, have you considered NOT doing that? You should. You really, really should.

I know, I know. HARSH. And this gets particularly sticky when we are talking about things that are close to people's hearts - like their pet cats, or their parents' relationship. I do, in fact, have compassion for people who are extremely sensitive about those things. And I want to tell you why I have this genuine compassion by telling you a little about myself.

Throughout my early twenties, I was a very fucked-up individual.* This is because I was dealing with a variety of things: several incidences of sexual assault, a relationship with a fairly toxic dynamic (which I played a big part in creating, being fucked-up and all), my abusive dad (who FAKED HIS OWN DEATH, basically, in the middle of my junior year of college: literally, there were two months during which we actually thought he had actually died, and then he showed up, and it's a long fucking story). It reached a peak somewhere in the middle of that junior year, wherein I literally would not stop talking about how horrible my life was, maybe just to be heard, maybe to get empathy, but probably just to get pity. Like, I took all of these non-fiction writing courses and EVERY SINGLE ASSIGNMENT turned into me writing some hyperbolic J.T. LeRoy shit about something awful that had happened to me and then we'd get to the "workshop" portion where everyone would read it and look at me with these "YIKES" faces and, basically, just focus on the grammar, because what else do you say?

I will tell you what else you say. Because, on the last day of junior year, this other woman with a very sharp tone noticed me about to launch into yet another story about how awful my life was, and she said this:

"You do know that everyone else goes through hard times too, don't you?"

And she also said this:

"I'm really tired of being held hostage to your personal breakdown."

This is an unflattering story, in case you haven't noticed! It is a story in which I am the villain! But I get the sense that a lot of people might be in the same place I was, years ago, and that is why I need to speak to you about this. Focus on the issues: sure, fine, great. The issues are often about people being hurt, so noting the existence of pain isn't taboo either. But, for the love of God, do not try to turn this public forum into a referendum on whether or not your pain matters. Because, basically, that is also a referendum on whether or not you matter. And you have to decide that question for yourself. Some woman you've never met who runs a blog can't answer that question for you. Nor can you resolve it by hosting a My Life Sucks party on the Internet, derailing an entire conversation to talk about whether or not you have worth as a person and how much pain you're in and doing that passive-aggressive codependent bullshit wherein if people don't immediately weigh in to talk about how much they pity you they're all terrible monsters so they'd better do it RIGHT AWAY. You can get all the pity in the world, but at the end of the day, it matters fuck-all, because you still feel like shit. All that matters is where you stand with yourself. And if you don't get that: let me tell you, you will be chasing the pity forever. You will always want more. There are just not enough people in the world to love and support and care about you, there's not enough attention, there's not enough praise, there's not enough consideration, ever, because deciding that you matter is your fucking job and everything else that is offered to you just gets sucked into the black hole that's where your self-respect should be and almost instantly disappears.

So, yeah. I get that your life might be tough right now. But don't make me the person who's supposed to fix it. Because I'm just writing about ladybusiness.

And, on a ladybusiness-related note: have you noticed that it's pretty infantilizing, this stuff? I mean, we've been demanding the right to be treated like adults, proclaiming our strength, clamoring about how we want to be full participants in society and democracy, for over a hundred years. But here's the thing: democracy means one person, one voice. It means everyone gets to participate equally, everyone gets to be heard, no-one is privileged based on what they are and no-one is denied access because of what they are. It's a noble goal. But "one person, one voice" does not ever mean that all of the voices are going to agree with you. You can lay out your arguments, you can discuss, you can converse, but making it all about your personal pain at being challenged or disagreed with: well, shit, if you can't handle that, why did you get out of bed this morning? You're not a child. Don't ask people to treat you like one. Because people can pat you on the head and treat you like a special little princess and continually protect your fragile being, but when the time comes to go to war, to stand up, to be a force to be reckoned with, you're going to be completely unequipped.

The world is fucked, kids. You know it. You've seen it. If you are basically anyone other than a thin able-bodied white dude who likes the ladies and makes truckloads of cash, a substantial portion of the world is convinced that you just do not matter. Wishing aloud that the world catered more specifically to your personal wishes and desires... well, that's not how it works. It's missing the point, actually. Because the point is not, and never has been, you. The point is everybody. So you get up every morning, and you put on your armor, and you make things change.

*UPDATE: An e-mail from a reader suggests that this post may be insensitive to people with depression or other forms of mental illness. Some of the behavior that I am describing is, in fact, common to people who are depressed. Here is the official Tiger Beatdown position on this: if you are depressed, or think you might be depressed, please go to the doctor. Seriously. If I could possess your body for 24 hours and drive you there and get you the prescription or the referral or whatever it's going to take for you to treat your potentially lethal illness, I would do that. But I cannot! Which is good, since I cannot actually drive and would wreck your car! So that is - as I said above - your job! It is really super self-destructive to seek help via derailing Internet conversations: it not only puts people in the position of having to provide help they're neither trained to provide nor capable of providing, it can - if used as a substitute for real treatment - actually endanger your health still further. People have, historically, tried a lot of substitutes for medical treatment of depression - Jesus, beer, Livejournal - and really, they don't ever work out well. So don't try to make this blog one of them.

Annals of Fashion, or: Your Raging Narcissism Will Destroy Us All

2009-08-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Oh, Google Alerts. Whatever would I do without you? Live a life less full of outrage and yelling, most likely. However! Had I not Alerts from the Google, I would never see headlines like the following. And I think we can all agree that would be a loss:

Crisis pushes men to therapy, women to handbags

Blammo! Yes, the men, poor dears (we all know that they are THE MORE AFFECTED BY THIS RECESSION, right? Right) are quite literally going insane due to the dark economic times that are upon us. Whereas women, as I believe Judith Butler once said, be shopping!

Do you know what is fun about this article? What is fun about this article is that it provides just about no supporting evidence that men are seeking therapy in greater numbers! What it does provide is some quotes from a "gender marketing expert" (oh, goody) named Diana Jaffe about the tortured male psyche and the fact that a man's very sanity depends on having a big fancy job, like so:

"Women are also worried about their jobs, but not to the extent that they feel their mere existence is being threatened...Many male managers are suffering from a huge loss of status, many feel under an enormous amount of pressure or are suffering from burnout. They just don't have the resources to think about buying luxury goods and prefer to go to a life coach," [Jaffe] said.

Also, there is this, from a dude who has some job relating to handbags:

"Men are more affected psychologically by the crisis than women. A bag can be bought on impulse, whereas a jewelry or watch purchase is not."

Actually, the bags being discussed in the piece are Hermes bags, which (a) cost more than just about anybody could afford without careful financial planning and saving up over a period of time, and (b) actually require you to register on an extensive waiting list in some cases, so "impulse" is pretty much exactly the opposite of what these purchases would be for many or most folks.

But, whatever. Let's talk about how women are buying more luxury goods than men! (Or just more handbags? Because we all know how the men were with their fancy handbags before the crisis, am I right, ladies?) And not how it is driving those men LITERALLY OUT OF THEIR MINDS WITH DESPAIR, or whatever, since the article seems not to prove that this is actually happening. Let's talk about the relationship women have to shopping: why we be shopping as often as we do.

Because we're ladies! And it's our job, basically! There are several entire industries devoted to convincing us that (a) our worth lies in how attractive we are, and (b) in order to be attractive, we need to buy stuff. LOTS of stuff. If you are a lady, you seriously need to be pretty and sexy and cute, because otherwise nobody will care about you. And, obviously, you can't do that in what you're wearing now. What are you wearing now? Yeah, that is terrible. Buy something else!

But here is the problem: if you actually buy into these things, and support these industries, then we get to talk about how frivolous and superficial and silly you are. Stupid woman! You are out buying handbags while the men are tightening their belts and crying noble tears over the economic future of our nation! Need we any further proof that you are of a lesser order?

Now, begone from my sight, empty-headed female! And take your butt-ugly shoes with you. Gladiator sandals are just so painfully last summer.

What's Your Tucker Max Personality Type?

2009-08-05T07:14:00.000-07:00

Hey, you know what I love? Quizzes! Like the ones you get on the Facebook from your former co-workers and such. What's Your Meyers-Briggs Personality Type? What Kind Of Kisser Are You? If You Were A Sandwich, Would You Have Mustard On You? Love those things! Which is why I never do them and have not been on Facebook for several months.

You know what I've never done, though? Designed a personality quiz. Luckily for me, my future husband Tucker Max has just released his new movie trailer. For "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell!"

(Why is Tucker Max my future husband, you ask? Why, because I cannot think of him without kind of wanting to throw up or cry! There is not a man on this Earth who inspires me to more revulsion, and having watched several romantic comedies, including "The Ugly Truth," I now know that this means we are going to fall in love and be together forever.)

Anyway, here's my boyfriend's trailer!

Okay! Done throwing things at the computer monitor? Super! It's time for my awesome new personality quiz: Which Woman From The "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" Trailer Are You?

1) DO YOU TALK TO TURTLES? If you answered Yes, you are That Lady Who Talks To Turtles! You are crazy and stupid, like a woman would be. Also, you appear to be the only non-white person in the entire universe.

2) ARE YOU NOT A REAL PERSON? If you answered Yes, you are That Fat Girl Over There! You are a barrel full of laughs at your own expense, like all women, but especially fat ones. Also, it's okay to talk about killing you because you don't give Tucker Max a boner.

3) ARE YOU A CLINGING, CASTRATING HARPY WHO DOESN'T WANT YOUR BOYFRIEND TO EVER HAVE ANY AWESOME FUN WITH HIS BROS? If you answered Yes, you are The Girlfriend Who Yells Into The Phone! You are a very busy lady, as you were last seen yelling into the phone at Bradley Cooper in "The Hangover" trailer (OH HAI I THINK YOU MADE THE SAME MOVIE TWICE GUYS YOU MAYBE WANNA LOOK INTO THAT) and are currently scheduled to appear in several Judd Apatow movies. You are no fun, because you are a woman.

4) ARE YOU 98% OF THE WOMEN IN THIS TRAILER? If you answered Yes, you are a stripper! You probably don't have any lines. You do have boobies, though! Boobies that are presented for the delectation of Tucker Max and his awesome bro-band, because you are a woman.

5) ARE YOU FULL OF SELF-LOATHING AND GIGGLES? If you answered Yes, you are The Lady Who Makes Out With Tucker Max! You also do not have any lines, because you are basically a prop to show that Tucker Max can put his penis into a real live vagina if he wants to, because you are a woman.

6) ARE YOU KIND OF GROSSED OUT BY THE SIGHT OF SOMEONE MAKING OUT WITH TUCKER MAX, AND DO YOU EXPRESS THIS BY ACTING LIKE MARGARET DUMONT IN A MARX BROTHERS MOVIE? You are Gertrude. You're next!

7) DO YOU FIND THAT NONE OF THE ABOVE DESCRIPTIONS ARE AT ALL RELEVANT TO YOU, YOUR LIFE, OR YOUR PERSONALITY? Take it again! This is a professionally made movie, by professionals, who got paid to provide you with their professional film. It is not as if one can become a professional director or screenwriter if one has absolutely no functioning knowledge of what women are like and relies on obnoxious stereotype instead of insight or creativity! So, seriously, take the quiz again, because the only other option is that you are Tucker Max. And nobody wants that. Not even me. His lover.

Mommy's All Right, Daddy's All Right: Or, Why "Hipster Racism" Was Invented By Your Drunk Grandpa

2009-08-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

You know what I love? Comments. I love them! Thanks to comments, and thanks specifically to a comment by favorite person Snobographer (SNOBOGRAPHERRRRRR), I finally think I may have pinned down what bothers me about "ironic" racism and sexism and what have you. Here is what bothers me about "ironic" racism and sexism and what have you: it's just. So. Fucking. Bougie.

Yes, that's right! My crankiness about the young people has turned out to be, in fact, merely another example of my crankiness about the moral codes of the white middle class! Which makes sense, given that the hipster thing is, in and of itself, a pretty white, middle-class phenomenon. This was the entire point of Stuff White People Like, right? This is not a new point that I am making! But, to explain how it ties into hip racism and sexism, I invite you to go on a journey with me. A journey many of you may have taken before. A journey to your white, middle-class parents' house for Thanksgiving.

(Don't have white, middle-class parents? No worries! This is a journey of education.)

Okay, so the first thing that happens at your white, middle-class parents' house is that some gay dudes have moved in next door. Everyone is making a big show of how tolerant they are! But then, somebody - let's say your mom - leans over to you, and lowers her voice, and says something really, really fucktacular about The Gays. And you gasp, and you go, "Mother! That's not OK!" And she looks at you, all wounded and indignant, and says, "honey, I am not a homophobe."

Welcome to the bougie dynamic. Prejudices are thought of as nasty and tasteless and unrefined and bad, and of course all of us white middle-class people aspire to taste and refinement, and also to having a whole lot of smooth jazz CDs, and so we imagine that racism and sexism and homophobia and the like are only engaged in by dirty poor people, also known as White Trash. (See, also: white people being dismayed by black male sexism and homophobia.) This is another thing pointed out by lots of people, like Barbara Ehrenreich and such! At a certain point, the privilege and prejudice of the middle class got projected onto the working class, because it was an undesirable characteristic and we love attributing those to poor people. So, no, we middle-class folk are not prejudiced! We just, um, say prejudiced things a lot?

Now, join us, as we go on another journey: a journey out for drinks with some white, middle-class hipsters! They are also cultured; you can tell, because they don't have any smooth jazz CDs. They are also totally not like their parents, and they want you to realize and appreciate this very important fact. And yet, at some point, during the drinks, somebody says something really fucktacular about The Gays. It is puzzling to you, because he is not actually lowering his voice, as his parents and yours would do; he is raising his voice and smiling and is clearly very proud of this thing he has said. He seems to feel it is quite iconoclastic and bold, this thing about The Gays he is saying! And yet, if you call him out on it, he will look at you all wounded and indignant and say, "look, I am not a homophobe."

Forget it, Jake; it's Bougie-Town. VICE-esque racism and sexism, and the hipster "rebellion" from middle-class mores, consists only of raising one's voice rather than lowering it when behaving like a jackass. Because it's cool, right? We're all cool? Cool because we think of prejudice as problematic, not on moral grounds, but on grounds of taste - and have innoculated ourselves against charges of prejudice by making sure our tastes are appropriately classy. Cool because we think saying aloud what our parents would whisper qualifies as "rebellious," rather than "the same old shit cranked up to 11."

Oh, and also, if you really lay into your friend, he'll misuse the word "ironic" and tell you that you can't take a joke. Which is not so much a cool young person thing as a thing your grandpa does after he's had a couple and has started calling you a Commie, but whatever.

So, for the record, here is some irredeemably crass titillation, beloved only by those with a deplorable lack of education, refinement or taste:

Here is something that it is totally cool to jerk off to:

Here is a woman who only plays hollow, personality-free fantasy sex objects, and whom we must all deplore for that reason:

Here is a woman who only plays hollow, personality-free fantasy sex objects, and is your imaginary girlfriend:

Here is an ad that grosses you out with its overly obvious, porn-inflected sexuality and its choice to cast a living model as an inanimate object:

Here is an ad that is full of sexy fun times:

I trust you begin to see the problem. Bad news, though: to remedy this, we would actually have to adopt a system of aesthetics that values content over cultural positioning, and a system of rebellion that values resistance to power over nihilistic, self-indulgent acceptance of it. And that is just so out of style.

The Continuance of Sexism and Racism In Our Enlightened Post-Feminist, Post-Racial Era, Featuring More Grabbing

2009-08-04T10:42:00.001-07:00

So! I have this problem with hipsters sometimes. I try not to share it, because I can be kind of mean (SHOCKER), and I know some folks who have been tagged with the "hipster" label. And that is fine if you are not too invested in it. But here is this argument I keep having, and in the interests of fairness I will present both sides:

PLAYER 1: The thing is, there's nothing wrong with feeling superior to people because you have good taste!
PLAYER 2: Actually, maybe there is, because that means your sense of self is based on the stuff you buy.
PLAYER 1: Ah, but the entire culture is special in various ways, thus legitimating the sense of superiority!
PLAYER 2: How? Where does the "superiority" come from? Is it superiority of morals, of politics, of principle?
PLAYER 1: Sure! Why not?
PLAYER 2: Actually, Isaac Brock may have raped someone, "hipster racism" is so universally acknowledged as to be a catchphrase, and the class dynamics of "ironically" appropriating Poor White People or Poor Black People stuff whilst laughing about how awful it is are really troubling. And I've met a fuckload of misogynist hipsters. Also.
PLAYER 1: The thing is, there's nothing wrong with feeling superior to people because you have good taste!
PLAYER 2: Fair enough, I guess. I am not wearing a Nickelback shirt right now.
PLAYER 1: Ha ha, Nickelback. They suck!
PLAYER 2: They seriously do!

Anyway, I used to live right next to a Diesel store when that was happening! Here is a Diesel ad, via Racialicious.

Oh, here's another one. Why the heck not!

One of these things is not like the others, yall.

The Continuance Of Sexism In Our Enlightened Post-Feminist Era, Featuring Synonyms for Breasts

2009-08-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

It's weird, right? Because the second wave accomplished all its goals, and then feminism died in the '90s because Camille Paglia killed it, and now we can all stop bitching and enjoy our totally level playing field because sexism doesn't exist and if it does it is subtle and insignificant and not a real problem and we can gain power by manipulating men with our sex appeal so it all evens out. And yet, sometimes, I still get the feeling that something is up!

Anyway, I went to the liquor store last night.

Huh.

News Flash: Christina Hendricks Is An Articulate Person. And Has Jugs.

2009-08-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

I am on the record as someone who watches Mad Men compulsively. I am also on the record as someone who does not get the crazy fetishization of Joan and/or Christina Hendricks. In fact, I am annoyed by it, mostly because the public discussion around Joan tends to take one of three forms: (1) OMG BOOBIES, (2) wow, she is just super fat and I must be really open-minded for liking her OMG BOOBIES, or (3) see? Women could get ahead in the 1960s! By being sexy! In related news, BOOBIES, OMG.

Also, Peggy is better. Sorry! She just is.

Anyway, imagine my surprise at discovering that, when interviewers are not focusing specifically and entirely on the culturally significant breasts of Christina Hendricks, she has interesting things to say! Behold, from this recent piece in New York Magazine:

“What’s astounding is when people say things like, ‘Well, you know that episode where Joan sort of got raped?’ Or they say rape and use quotation marks with their fingers,” says Hendricks. “I’m like, ‘What is that you are doing? Joan got raped!’ It illustrates how similar people are today, because we’re still questioning whether it’s a rape. It’s almost like, ‘Why didn’t you just say bad date?’ ”

Whoa hey! A solid point! About how Joan's rape would not have been recognized as such in 1962 (because her rapist was the dude to whom she was engaged) and, honestly, many people still have trouble calling such incidents "rape" now!

The interview concludes with Christina Hendricks answering a question about her breasts.

How Not To Be Called A Racist: Several Easy Pointers From Sally Quinn

2009-08-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

You know what? God bless The Awl. I do not have the patience to read the entire Internet (I just have a Google alert set up for words like "sexism!" And the phrase "more women than men," because typically when that phrase shows up it is gonna be good) but they do, and they find things there, and typically those things are pretty special.

Like, for example, this! In which noted white person Sally Quinn promises "The Ugly, Honest Truth About Race In America." Hurrah! A white person is here to tell us what is up! And she makes it through several entire paragraphs before landing on this:

What nobody will say publicly, for fear of being called a racist

BAM.

Now: here is how this works. Let's say there is a brutal system of privilege - really, pick your brutal system! I'm going to say Race, today - that continually privileges the experiences, comforts, and lives of some people (let's say, White People!) over others. Let's say that these privileges are so very intrinsic to the way we live that most people have trouble even recognizing that they exist. Let's say, thirdly, that there has been continual pushback, over the course of centuries, on the behalf of folks who have noticed that the privilege exists, and have been working to identify and analyze the dynamics of it. And let's say, finally, that we live in the Year of Our Lord 2009, and this business has been going on for at least a couple hundred years and the progress we have made is: now, when someone is being a racist, you can say that. Even though you will probably be called "angry" and a "fringe-dweller" and be marginalized for your godless Communist views, at least you can say the word "racist" because people have some vague idea as to what it means.

What does this mean? It means, of course, that we have GONE TOO FAR! The forces of PC censorship are upon us, suppressing our rights! Or, at least, they are suppressing our rights if we are privileged people; if we are not, our rights are being suppressed in many other creative ways. For example, we could be Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who was arrested in his own home and then got angry and then was penalized and blamed for not "cooperating." But, whatever! Back to the White People! Who, like Sally Quinn, WILL NOT BE SILENCED about the Gates thing. The fact that you might get called a racist for being all racist-like is sheer tyranny, and she will not put up with it. And so she, like many before her, has cast herself as a fearless truth-teller, willing to point out that there are things people simply will not say for fear of being called racist. Such as racist things! Or:

[Gates] is notorious, especially among many of his colleagues (black and white) at Harvard, for being short-tempered and arrogant. I have had personal dealings with him in which his behavior was not honorable.

WOW. We have "short-tempered," we have "arrogant," we have various unspecified sources who don't like him, we have various unspecified incidents in which Sally Quinn, Noted White Person and Non-Racist, was not pleased with him... can we work the word "uppity" into this sentence, Sally? No? Okay, then. Good try.

Gosh, we've certainly learned a lot from Sally Quinn today about not being called racists! Let's run down the list:

1. DON'T POSIT "BEING CALLED OUT FOR YOUR RACISM" AS WORSE THAN ACTUALLY BEING THE TARGET OF RACISM. It makes you look like a total whiner! And also, a racist.
2. DON'T SAY THAT THE TEXTBOOK RACIST THING WE ARE TALKING ABOUT WAS PROBABLY THE BLACK DUDE'S FAULT. If possible, you should also try not to supply vague anecdotal data about how nobody likes him because of how "arrogant" he is! This is because it is racist, and people might say so.

My goodness! So much information! And in such a short space, too. Are there any other common blunders that may result in being called racist that you would like to share, Sally?

in response to the Gates & Crowley incident, many of my white friends and colleagues have been discussing reverse discrimination.

BAM.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: "The Ugly Truth" Is, Indeed, Ugly

2009-08-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a thing I was writing in e-mails to everybody late last week: I seriously never thought I would see a movie more offensive to all of my many delicate sensibilities than Observe & Report! But I did. I saw that movie. And then I wrote about it, for Comment is Free:

Anyone who goes to the movies looking for sexism has her work cut out for her. Most movies are directed by men. The vast majority of top studio executives are men. Male demographics are prized. And, maybe because of the above-mentioned facts about who is producing and creating movies, most movies tend to focus on male experiences and male heroes, while movies made "for women" tend to be tossed-off, patronising and terrible. It's more challenging, actually, to look for movies that aren't sexist.
Nevertheless, when every single review of a movie mentions its misogyny, I pay attention. Particularly when it comes from a screenplay written by three ladies, and when one of those very few female studio executives – Amy Pascal, of Sony Pictures Entertainment – was responsible for green-lighting it.
This was why I ended up going out to a theatre in Queens, New York, in the middle of the day, to see The Ugly Truth, the beautiful, terrible brainchild of screenwriters Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith. Readers: If there is any experience more humiliating for a girl than uttering the phrase "One for The Ugly Truth, please," I haven't had it yet. As I took the ticket, I realised that to any outside observer, this would appear to be the absolute worst-case scenario for my life.

Oh, it is long and it is angry. Read it, please, that my suffering may not be in vain.

Sexist Beatdown: Ejaculations of Surprise Edition!

2009-07-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

Why, hello there! I hope you have pleasant plans for the weekend. Me, I have to take my mother and brother out on the town. They will ask, "what precisely is it you do all day, Sady?" And I will say, "today, I posted a chat about whether or not you should let dudes ejaculate in your vagina. OR ELSEWHERE ON YOUR PERSON."

Yep! Science agrees, apparently, that pulling out is a "reliable" form of birth control. Tracy Quan believes this to be some BS - BS, perhaps, that will maybe result in you getting The Deadly Crotch Rot or an accidental fetus from when the dude in question "forgets" to utilize this cutting-edge birth control method! Meanwhile Jessica Grose thinks Tracy Quan needs to chill and give folks a little more credit.

Of course, this means that it is time for a Sexist Beatdown. Join us, as the incisive and funny Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper's The Sexist and I discuss the cutting-edge sperm-placement technologies of the modern age!

ILLUSTRATION: Oh, sure, he LOOKS cute and cuddly.

AMANDA: 9:23 a.m. is a great time to talk about the ups and downs of not ejaculating into vaginas.

SADY: yes. personally, when i heard that not ejaculating into vaginas was a "reliable" form of birth control, i had my suspicions! i was like: apparently all of the dudes i have argued with about birth control have become scientists! who knew?

AMANDA: published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal of medicine, Maxim.

SADY: right. it strikes me as some flawed science, is what i am saying! for, even if withdrawal is a semi-effective method of "birth control," it strikes me as a highly ineffective method of Not Getting Various Diseases Such As The Herp Control. which i think is what Tracy Quan is saying, which is good common sense.

AMANDA: of course, but at the same time, real scientists who are not your ex-boyfriends have worked very hard to come up with dozens of methods of birth control that also don't prevent STDs

SADY: fair enough! the scientists, they do these things! i suppose i am a person who likes a certain modicum of control over these situations. and withdrawal as birth control, TO ME, relies on your partner having (a) really good timing, and (b) a solid commitment to not getting distracted or losing track of whatever he is supposed to be doing, during a moment that (AS I UNDERSTAND IT) can be kind of distracting! (I AM REFERRING TO THE MALE ORGASM. In case my incredible tastefulness and subtlety are working against me.)

AMANDA: this is a point that Quan made as well, and I agree that for a lot of people withdraw would not be a good option for this reason. But all forms of birth control come with a degree of human error, or in some cases, shit ripping inside your vagina error. say you're a couple who doesn't want to use condoms. and the woman takes her birth control pills, but the man, like you, can't trust her---for whatever reason---to take them at the same time every day. maybe she forgets sometimes!

SADY: fair enough!

AMANDA: he might not want to rely on her, either. and so if you forget a birth control pill, or a condom breaks, or you ejaculate into a vagina, you know, you can take emergency contraception as well. one of the interesting things to me about this study---and i'm just going to assume the study is accurate for argument, because i don't know anything about methodology with these things. is that it placed withdrawl slightly below condoms, right? and still, most of the response has been, 'there's no way this could ever work, this is some frat dude conspiracy.' and so perhaps what this study reveals isn't that withdrawl is a very good option, but rather that we have a bit too much faith in condoms

SADY: a fascinating point! and i agree, some of this may have to do with the fact that, as long as i've been alive, anyway, Birth Control has been less important to the discussion than Safe Sex. and most of the sex ed i have ever received has been like, "USE CONDOMS, also there are other methods but seriously just USE CONDOMS." and i'm still a fan of the condom, because it is cheap and does not require a prescription and has a lower failure rate and higher disease protection rate than other things! the withdrawal method, to me, requires what is (in many or most circumstances) a perhaps unrealistically high level of trust for one's makeout partner. but maybe this just has to do with the fact that i have been culturally conditioned to trust other people less than i trust the Trojan corporation.

AMANDA: of course. and the method is really counter-intuitive, because pulling out is something that irresponsible 15 year old boys are supposed to do, when really it's something that would be more appropriate for, say, mutually monogamous STD-free old people.

SADY: right. it is odd for me that something which is the centerpiece of much heterosexual porn is now a meaningful expression of committed monogamous trust. NEXT UP: how having sex on a bus can keep you from getting cancer!

AMANDA: hhahaha. yeah. i heard if you put a donut on it and then seductively bite it off it lowers the risk of kidney failure, or something

SADY: WOW. a doughnut, you say! i guess i've been doing it all wrong with the bagels.

AMANDA: i'm with the critics of Quan with this one, though - something that PEOPLE DO turning out to be less sexually risky than we thought is probably a good thing. she says a bit of anxiety is good, but i actually have a lot of that! and so reducing that is probably a good thing for a lot of people. maybe not for Quan, but it's not like we're getting rid of condoms! The Trojan lobby (sponsored by Tiger Beatdown) would never allow that.

SADY: true enough. i guess i am just concerned with the fact that there is already pressure on girls to be the "cool" ones who don't "make" the dude use condoms. i do not know why i think that the sort of dudes who apply that pressure are all going to show up with scientific studies and go through a careful risk-benefit analysis! yet i do. in conclusion: withdrawal is totally fine, if you want to do that and are reasonable about it, and not fine if you do not. CONTROVERSY!

AMANDA: agreed. DON'T LET HIM NOT EJACULATE IN YOUR VAGINA IF YOU DON'T WANT HIM TO NOT DO THAT, KIDS.

SADY: there, problem solved. everybody does what they want to do. the real winner? the paper towel industry. hurrah!

SETH ROGEN IS OUTRAGED, Some More

2009-07-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true: Seth Rogen feels NOTHING BUT OUTRAGE! Because people just won't stop calling him a SEXIST! I mean, I imagine it hurts to be subject to such unfounded criticism; it's not like he's starred in and/or improvised much of the dialogue for a series of movies in which women are either Crazy Drunk Sluts or caretaking mechanisms for men, or like he starred in that one movie with the wacky rape scene, or like he wouldn't stop doing promotional interviews in which he praised the wacky rape scene, or like he wrote the screenplay for that one movie about how menstruating vaginas are terrible and you should get girls incapacitatingly drunk so as to fuck them and in which THE CHARACTER WHO FREAKED OUT ABOUT THE VAGINAS AND WAS MOST CREEPILY INTO THE GETTING-GIRLS-DRUNK PLAN WAS NAMED "SETH" AND WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED BY ROGEN HIMSELF, or... no, wait. Sources have confirmed that this is exactly what Seth Rogen has done. Because he is a sexist, probably.

Anyway, behold the terrible OUTRAGE of Rogen, via Vulture! Oh, and also, there is BONUS JUDD APATOW. Because Judd Apatow, when not defending himself from charges of sexism, likes to participate in the sexism of his friends. Because Judd Apatow is apparently that wormy little dude who is totally socially appropriate and non-sexist until he's in the company of bigger dudes who have his back and will help him get away with it. Because look at this shit:

Judd Apatow kept his criticism polite, explaining that she was "probably was doing six hours of interviews and kissing everyone's ass, and then just got tired and slipped a little bit." Luckily, however, Apatow brought his furry avatar, Seth Rogen, along to say what he was really thinking.
"I didn’t slip and I was doing fucking interviews all day too," said Rogen. "I didn't say shit!" Then he sarcastically praised Heigl's The Ugly Truth: "That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way." Apatow joined in a little: "I hear there's a scene where she's wearing underwear with a vibrator in it, so I'd have to see if that was uplifting for women."

Apatow continued, "I feel sad that she hasn't learned the lesson of her journey yet ... [You'd think] at some point I'll get a call saying 'Sorry, I was tired ... ' and then the call never comes."

Yes, Apatow feels sorry for her. Isn't it terrible that she hasn't learned not to say that things are sexist in public? I mean, it is not as if Judd Apatow would not accept an apology from her. Truly, if only she would see the error of her ways and crawl back to Judd Apatow and repent of being one of the many people to point out the overwhelming sexism of Judd Apatow movies, Judd Apatow would welcome her with open arms. Although he would not give her more work, because although he keeps insane codependent multiple-film relationships with pretty much every dude he has ever worked with, the women show up in one movie and then go away forever unless he is married to them. Which is not sexist! NOT SEXIST AT ALL.

Anyway, it's Rogen, as always, who brings his typical not-sexist and illuminating commentary to the table, and thereby raises the bar for all of us:

"I gotta say, it’s not like we’re the only people she said some batshit crazy things about. That’s kind of her bag now."

Hey, remember when Rogen responded to the creators of Entourage (again: what?) and their accusations of misogyny by saying that they were "morons" and "assholes"? Note how this differs when the accuser is a woman. If a guy says it, it's an insult, and must be responded to in an appropriately macho manner. If a girl says it, it's beneath contempt. It invites pity. It just means that she's insane. Because it's not like women, being targets of misogyny, would know what it looks like or anything. No, they're just hysterical, the poor little things.

Thank God for Seth Rogen, disproving his own misogyny once and for all.

(PS: To folks who are asking me about "The Ugly Truth": Yes, I saw it. Yes, it's terrible. Hopefully you will hear what I have to say about it next week.)

What Message Will You Send With Your Twilight Tattoo?

2009-07-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Bad news, everybody: you might be a girl. And, as a girl, you are required to love Twilight. Don't know why! It just works that way, I guess. So, as a girl, and therefore a Twilight fan, I am assuming that you are planning your very first Twilight tattoo.

But wait! Consider! A Twilight tattoo has many ramifications. I mean, besides the fact that everyone is going to look at it for the rest of your life and be like, "huh, so that's what you spent a couple hundred bucks on, huh?" Your Twilight tattoo should express the essence of who you are, and what you want out of life and/or sparkly vampires with outmoded attitudes toward gender.

Fortunately for you, Geekologie has provided a handy gallery of Twilight tattoos! (It has also provided many comments you should not read, and proof of the fact that when something geeky is associated with girls everyone in the world can feel free to make fun of it and talk about how terrible it is, whereas when something geeky is associated primarily with guys it is a renowned cultural institution and/or Star Wars.) Here, we examine the leading contenders, to see which one captures the precise nature of your Twilight love.

This is a tattoo that says, "ask me about my extensive collection of free-verse poems featuring the word 'darkness.'"

This is a tattoo that says, "I will be wearing a turtleneck for every single day of my summer internship."

This is a tattoo that says, "since I assume you will be watching me while I sleep, I've provided you with extensive reading material."

This is a tattoo that says, "why do people keep buying me copies of Codependent No More?"

And finally, this is a Twilight tattoo that says, "basically, I have given up."

So, what will your Twilight tattoo say about you? Only you can decide! Well, you and everyone else who sees the words "R-PATT 4EVER" tattooed on your neck, I guess.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Knowledge of Genesis is Limited, But I Am An Expert on LOVE

2009-07-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hey! Want to hear something crazy? I got to to a guest post on Shakesville, WOO. Do you want to hear something that is EQUALLY CRAZY? I am now a love advice counselor, who gives love advice, which is based on the timeless and always applicable lessons of Cinema! I assume this is going to go well, given that I know everything and whatnot. Behold, the opening paragraphs of my post!

You know, friends, being allowed to do a guest post at Shakesville is an honor. An honor of which I, specifically, plan to prove myself unworthy! How will I do this, you ask? Why, by revealing my new career to you! My new career is: DR. SADY, THE LOVE DOCTOR, WHO GIVES LOVE ADVICE, WITH HER Ph.D IN LOVE.

"But Sady," you are saying. "You do not actually have a doctorate in the Love Sciences! You are completely unqualified for this position!" This, sadly, is true. I only have a Master's! Oh, okay, that is not true either, actually. But I have watched a lot of movies.

Specifically, I have watched romantic comedies. These cinematic documents, or "texts," have unlocked to me many of the true secrets of Love. Also, they are made "for women," which I assume means they cannot be sexist! Truly, the major film studios of Hollywood always have the best interests of the ladies at heart, as we can learn from Sex and the City: The Motion Picture, and its forthcoming sequel, Sex and the City: Marriage Marriage Shopping Marriage Babies.

I know, I know. You are dying for love advice! Also, you want to know whether I can tell the difference between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins (SPOILER: I cannot). But to do that, you will have to click on this link! So that is what you should do. RIGHT NOW, before it is too late for Love!

Tiger Beatdown PRESENTS: The Caitlin Flanagan Experience! Featuring Sandra Tsing Loh, and Depression.

2009-07-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

You know, friends, I get tips sometimes! I do not write about all of these tips, for I am lazy. HOWEVER, when I receive a message entitled "Tiger Beatdown Emergency," and it mentions a live! Multi-media! Interview! With Caitlin Flanagan! Well, I pay attention.

Yes, it's true: you, the listener, for no money at all, can go to this very web page and listen to Sandra Tsing Loh (who wrote about leaving her marriage because she didn't like it any more) speaking with Caitlin Flanagan (who writes about how you should never leave your marriage, EVER) about, well: marriage, I guess. MARRIAGE: A Terrible, Soul-Draining Experience From Which You Must Escape, or a Terrible, Soul-Draining Experience From Which There Is No Escape? Such is the topic of discussion. I have this wild suspicion that maybe there are some people who like being married, but this is not newsworthy. Crazy fringe-dwelling marriage-likers!

Anyway, Sandra Tsing Loh seems like a nice lady. I liked her essay OK! (Personally, I like any lady who writes the line "my dearest childhood wish was not just that my parents would divorce, but also that my raging father would burst into flames.") Sadly, given that Sandra Tsing Loh seems fairly even-handed and level-headed throughout, she cannot be the draw here. No! The real draw is the crazy anti-feminist carnival ride that is listening to Caitlin Flanagan speak! Join me, as I work through the checklist of potential "YIKES" moments presented to the listener here.

1) CAITLIN FLANAGAN SUGGESTING THAT EQUALITY KILLS BONERS: Check! Actually, Tsing Loh takes the lead on this one, suggesting that men have been "feminized" by, um, not being giant babies and learning the skills necessary to feed themselves and not live in their own filth? It is a weird moment. But I liked the essay! Nevertheless, Caitlin Flanagan is the one who really runs with it, as she is nothing if not concerned about the fate of the poor, helpless boners. She attributes the vitality and well-being of the boners in her marriage to the fact that her husband "cannot boil water" and is not burdened with the hard, thankless labor of making dinner or cleaning the house or whatever. The person burdened with this hard, thankless labor is Caitlin Flanagan, and she loves it! Or maybe she doesn't, but it doesn't matter, because she wrote that essay about how you should put out for your husband whether or not you want to! Or MAYBE, just MAYBE, none of it matters at all, because Caitlin Flanagan and her husband can hire professional domestic help if they want to, and have done so in the past! In conclusion: vote Yes on Boners! Boners! Hooray!

2) CAITLIN FLANAGAN FOREGOING RATIONAL ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF TALKING ABOUT HOW HER DAD ALSO HAD SOME BONERS: This comes in pretty early on, actually. She is supposed to be talking about how marriage is awesome and you should stay in your marriage if it is not awesome and what she does instead of this is to tell this marvelous story about how her grandpa used to say the phrase "before you were a glimmer in your father's eye" (a phrase no-one else's grandpa has ever used! I'm sure) and how she eventually realized that this meant her dad used to get boners, with her mom, and oh God don't take me back to the Alec Baldwin sexy Dad place, Caitlin Flanagan, pleeeeeeeeeeeeassse.

3) CAITLIN FLANAGAN SUGGESTING THAT MARRIAGE IS "FOR THE CHILDREN," WHO WILL TOTALLY BENEFIT FROM LIVING WITH TWO PEOPLE WHO HATE EACH OTHER. Did you know that, if children are not raised by their biological parents, they will fail at life? Such are the prophecies of Caitlin Flanagan. This explains why Tiger Beatdown, a blog written by a lady whose mom has been divorced two times and married three times, is basically entirely composed of entries about how I am trading sex for heroin in bus stations with men whom I call "Daddy." Oh, no, wait, none of that is true! In fact, I know very few people who have spontaneously exploded due to the fact that their parents divorced! I do know people who think fondly about how great their lives would have been if their parents would have gotten divorced instead of fighting all the damn time and being crazy. But this is in direct contradiction to the high-brow ponderings of Caitlin Flanagan, who has found the Platonic model of marriage in "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" (WHAT) and writes things like "Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage was an enterprise dedicated not to making themselves happy but to taking care of the cavalcade of children they had produced... laboring at something more significant than their own pleasure." Ah, culture!

4) CAITLIN FLANAGAN NAME-CHECKING TERRIBLE POTENTIALLY LETHAL ILLNESS THAT NO-ONE CAN SAY ANYTHING ABOUT NO MATTER HOW GROSS HER MEANS FOR NAME-CHECKING IT MAY BE BECAUSE IT MEANS WE DON'T CARE ABOUT HER CANCER: Check! As you may know, Caitlin Flanagan likes to talk and write - a lot - about how she had cancer, and her husband took care of her when she had the cancer, because she was an appropriately submissive wife. The alternative, of course, is that you are not an appropriately submissive wife, and you still get cancer, and your husband wraps you up in a burlap sack and drops you down the well like a sack of kittens. True story! Or, it might not be a true story, but you cannot question this, unless you love cancer and don't care about Caitlin Flanagan. Shut your traps, cancer-lovers!

5) CAITLIN FLANAGAN DEFENDING MARRIAGE IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE LISTENER CONCLUDES HE OR SHE WOULD PREFER LIFELONG CHASTITY OR PERHAPS HAVING HER EYEBALLS GNAWED OUT OF HER SKULL BY RATS: Check, check, and check, my friends. Hey, remember this line? "There probably aren't many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies." Ha ha, YIKES! Yep, that's pretty much the Flanagan program, and it is on display here. Thank you, Caitlin Flanagan, for steering us away from traditional values by praising traditional values. Again.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Dark Plan Reaches Its Zenith; Also, Megan Fox

2009-07-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Friends, as we all know, my goals in life are to blog my faults with 40 links to other places. Also, to fit in some feminism around the edges! And I believe that one of the more important feminist issues today is Megan Fox.

I am serious about that, actually! The press coverage of Megan Fox really, really bothers me, because it is sexist! Which is why I wrote a piece about her for The Frisky. It begins:

Ladies, gentlemen: “Transformers” is not a movie about acting.

I know! It came as a surprise to me, too: I had always believed that “Transformers” aspired to be a sensitive exploration of the human psyche. As it turns out, however, it’s a movie about giant robots fighting each other.

So, no: “Transformers” is many things, but it is not a movie about acting. However, when its star Megan Fox said as much in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, it set off a firestorm of controversy, most of which can be summed up in the title of a post on the blog Zelda Lily (“Feminism in a Bra”): “Megan Fox Is An Ungrateful Bitch.”

Say, would you like to read the rest of what I have to say about Megan Fox? Good! Because you can read it now, on The Frisky.

PATRIARCHY! Oh, I know.

EDIT: About the one Megan Fox hate blog I mentioned: some folks I used to follow when I had a Tiger Beatdown Tumblr have been reblogged there. Which: I don't know what that means. Things can circulate anywhere and everywhere on Tumblr, because of how it's designed - things get reblogged every which way and eventually some feminist's statement winds up getting reblogged by a dude who wants Megan Fox to be gang raped or I end up reblogging Boner Party, or whatever. I tended to only follow people who were smart and incisive, which I would imagine precludes them from enjoying random anonymous celebrity-hate blogs about how someone is a "ho" or should "shut her trap" on the Internets, and I imagine a lot of folks would be appalled by the connection. So I don't know what the connection is; I imagine the person who writes this is just trolling Tumblr and other sources for material. HOWEVER. If you are secretly submitting tips to or (God forbid) editing a Megan Fox hate blog: um, I dunno? That's fucked up? But I did some research, like, joining Tumblr again so that I could see notes, and Tumblr searches and Google searches to see if anyone had written an entry on another blog that was like, "I also started a blog about hating Megan Fox because I am awful and full of hate and here is its URL," and nothing came up. If you are embarrassed by association with the hate-blog, I am sorry.

ADVICE! For Deleted Commenters! Sady the Starfucker Edition

2009-07-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

You know, reader, I have not done one of these in a while. The mean anonymous comments have mostly been boring! And I like to dish out my friendly advice to people who are, at the very least, entertaining or innovative in their comment hate. Today, however, ADVICE FOR DELETED COMMENTERS returns! For, of all deleted comments, my favorites are those in which the commenter tries to make it clear that he or she is only insulting me for my own good. I got one of those today! And, believe me: it is epic.

It begins:

One thing even a casual reader will notice is that, Sady is great at tooting her own horn! Yes! She constantly links to her OTHER writings at MORE IMPORTANT websites!

Reader: the post to which Anonymous Angry Commenter #419 (sorry, dudes: if you won't leave your names, I'll have to start numbering you) is responding is entitled "My Raging Narcissism Will Destroy Us All." A joke, of the self-deprecating variety! In that post I also made jokes about how unqualified I was to represent feminism, and about the fact that the interview in question hadn't gotten much traffic.

Let us be clear on this: in a post in which I did nothing but make fun of and/or get down on myself, someone left a comment about what a cocky, self-promoting bitch I am. Apparently, I'm not sufficiently convinced that I and my writing are shit; also, I do the decent thing, which is to try and drive traffic toward sites that are driving traffic toward me, and to let my readers know about the other stuff I am up to. I just don't hate myself enough, is the problem! Fortunately, AAC #419, in the tradition of AACs everywhere, is here to help.

And what do her readers get HERE .. fake interviews with some compatriots instead of original thoughts... reviews of 4 yearold movies! Wow!

Ha ha, yes. Tiger Beatdown, heartless commercial enterprise that it is, is devoted solely to producing marketable posts in order to obtain an optimal number of pageviews; content, style, and principle are irrelevant in my merciless quest for market domination. It is like The Huffington Post, but with fewer naked boobs! (NOTE TO SELF: INCLUDE MORE NAKED BOOBS.) Which is why, last week, I made the ruthlessly commercial decision to stop everything in order to write long, joke-free essays about some obscure movies and tell you about my feelings on a ten-year-old rape case.

You know, some day I'd like to have a "personal blog" where I can write whatever the hell I want, often in direct contradiction to the received wisdom about what makes a commercially viable blog post (short, witty, timely, and controversial are the goals; also, it helps if there are click-through links, polls, and - if possible - naked boobs). But, alas! My days are spent maintaining the corporate media giant that is Tiger Beatdown!

One MIGHT start thinking, well 'tiger beatdown', which sounds like a 60s fanmag to Fabian and Rydell...

Hmm, you're right. "Tiger Beatdown" does sound A LOT like the name of a fan magazine. What an unfortunate and unintended coincidence! Oh, if only I had the on-target pop culture sense of Anonymous Angry Commenter #419.

is just an 'experiment'.. an add on to see if Sady can make it in the world of fem-blogging... hence her slavering delight when Melissa McEwen featured her .

Here we come to my favorite part of the comment: the part where AAC #419 drops any pretense at criticism and just goes straight to the conspiracy theory. The miraculous thing about all this is that AAC #419 is exactly right! Yes, it's true: since being openly, vocally feminist, and taking a hard line on feminist issues, is one of the best - if not the best - methods by which to ensure mainstream acceptance and popularity in our culture, I devised a cunning ruse. I pretended to be feminist, and spent several hours of each and every day researching, thinking about, and writing about feminism, in order to obtain the UNLIMITED FAME AND FORTUNE that I believe to be my birthright.

In truth, of course, feminism could not be less important to me. I mean, women! Who cares? Am I right, fellas? "Sady Doyle," that interminable ranter-on about the ladybusiness, is nothing more than a construct, an elaborate fiction meant to ensure my success. In reality, I am dogged anti-choice advocate and Ohio state Representative John Boehner.

I do apologize, however, for getting excited when Melissa McEwan asked me to do a guest post. As we all know, the appropriate response to learning that someone whose work you have long respected apparently respects your work as well is to retire to one's bedroom and weep for several hours. Afterward, one must mortify one's flesh to atone for the deadly sin of Pride. I recommend hair shirts, or a nice long round of whipping.

but wait ... favoring better gigs for more exposure? Relying on more famous friends? That sounds like the very patriarchy we're all supposed to be fighting! YES! Sady doesnt put her A team material on 'tiger meltdown'.. she has bigger designs.. she wants to MAKE it as a writer .. oh theres patriarchy again ! HIERARCHY!

AIEEEEEEE! My dark secret has been revealed! Yes, if you rearrange the letters in "Tiger Beatdown," they spell VOLDEMOR... wait, WHAT?

That's your problem with me? The fact that I've published elsewhere? The fact that I have friendly relationships with other people who publish? That's it? What the unloving everholy fuck are you thinking?

Oh, wait. I know what you're thinking. I know, because I used to think it too. Because, you see, for as long as I have been writing, I have had people in my life encouraging me to start pitching publications and make a go of the writing. And I said, "no." I said, "I could never do that." I said, "I'm not good enough."

I said this for a variety of reasons, but one of the chief ones, I think, is that I'm a woman. (That is, when I am not Ohio state Representative John Boehner.) Women aren't supposed to like themselves: they're not supposed to like the way they look, they're not supposed to like what they need or how they feel, and they're definitely not supposed to be ambitious in any way or to believe in themselves to the extent that they can pursue the careers of their choice. Writing - which is, basically, the act of conveying what you think, in the belief that other people will want to hear it - is a particularly unladylike act.

But it's OK as long as I don't seem proud of it, right, AAC? It's OK as long as I don't betray the massively unwomanly confidence necessary to talk to people and basically be like, "I think my writing is good enough to appear in your publication." It's OK as long as I'm obscure, unpaid, not valued. That's what purity looks like: doing hours of work for no compensation and never betraying any indication that you're proud of what you do or believe it to be in any way exceptional.

Fuck that. The problem you have, AAC, is not that I'm "patriarchal" or "hierarchical." That's some self-serving bullshit you're ladling out to excuse tearing another woman down in a supremely patriarchal way. The problem, actually, is that you think I don't know my place. The problem, actually, is that I respect myself and other people respect me and I don't feel like pretending that I'm unworthy of respect, not any more.

The thing is, I still do participate in patriarchy, though not in the way you imagine. Since this blog has been getting more traffic, since I've been getting published in places I admire, I've been freaking out, having panic attacks, getting down on myself, telling myself I can't do it or won't do it or don't deserve to do it.

AAC #419, you changed all that. I realize that devaluing myself is a radically un-feminist step, given that my culture already devalues me. I'm a writer. I'm actually a pretty good writer. I'm going to work as hard as I can to write the best stuff that I can, and sometimes I might get compensated to write that work, and you are just going to have to sit there and fucking deal. And occasionally accuse me of PATRIARCHY! when you get really upset.

I do apologize for not putting any "A team" material on the blog, however. To make up for that, here is a picture of Mr. T:

dont post this.

WHOOPS.

I just think you are diluting what talents you have trying to be too many things. I have faults too. But I dont blog them with 40 links to other places.

That's apparently true, AAC. Of course, since you aren't brave enough to leave your name or a trackback, I can't verify that you don't blog your faults; however, you seem to be content with expressing those faults - which are, in order, a tenuous grasp on basic writing skills, deep stupidity, and a belief that women can best serve the feminist cause by hating themselves and/or living in refrigerator boxes underneath the train station - in anonymous comments on other people's blogs. A noble calling!

See! Love ya Sady! Really!

Ha ha, love you too, AAC! Tell you what: why don't you focus on learning to write above a third-grade level? Then maybe you can start publishing, and I can be your very own Famous Friend.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Raging Narcissism Will Destroy Us All

2009-07-24T10:55:00.001-07:00

So! Here is an interesting thing that happened this week: John "Frisky!" DeVore interviewed me about Feminism, a topic I am totally qualified to represent in its entirety, in Imaginationland. And now you can find that interview on noted web publication The Frisky!

Commenters, thus far, are disappointed that it did not turn into Thunderdome. Personally, I think it went pretty well! In that it was actually a conversation and not just two people yelling past each other, as interviews about Feminism tend to be. So, you can read it now.

Also, tune in for next week's installment, in which John "So Frisky!" DeVore and I participate in a groundbreaking live webcast in which we debate the finer points of gender theory... WHILST HAVING KNIFE FIGHTS. Granted, I have not yet actually pitched this idea to John "Have I Mentioned How Frisky This Dude Is?" DeVore, but I believe it to be solid pageview gold.

SEXIST BEATDOWN: Takes Guard Has Your Homophobic Rape Joke Video Games Edition

2009-07-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

You know, kids, it's a lovely day. Why don't you go and play outside, instead of rotting your minds with all of these "video games?"

Ha, no. I like video games OK. I even like Flash games! I have had a none-too-demanding desk job; I have been in college and have wished to avoid term papers; I am a key member of the Internet Flash video game demographic!

So, when I heard about this one particular Internet Flash video game, entitled "Watch Out Behind You Hunter," in which the goal, the only goal, is to make a little dude wander through the woods while naked men jump out of the bushes and attempt to rape him, at which point he shoots them to death - I was, um... revolted? Scared? BASICALLY JUST IN AWE AT THE DEPTH OF HUMAN TERRIBLENESS AND TOTALLY CLUELESS AS TO HOW OR WHY SOMETHING LIKE THIS GETS MADE?!?!?!? Yeah, that last one, I think.

It was, therefore, time for a Sexist Beatdown! Join us, as Amanda "Player 1" Hess of Washington City Paper's The Sexist and I, Sady "Player 2" Doyle of the Internet's Tiger Beatdown, discuss the perils of online media, sophisticated translation software, industries aimed at 14-year-old dudes who are kind of stupid, and the fact that, whether you play it or not, just knowing about Watch Out Behind You makes losers of us all.*

ILLUSTRATION: Remember Bejeweled? That was a nice game. Why can't you kids just play Bejeweled? Or PARCHEESI.

SADY: why hello my good woman! care to speak about the evils of video games?

AMANDA: corrupting our children

SADY: i know! the youth today! once i would have been not-serious about this but now i am not so sure.

AMANDA: i know, i think i'm getting older :(

SADY: well, also: it turns out that videogames, if you research them, are terrifying! like: RAPELAY, the world's leading rape-simulator for your home system. or this new game, in which the goal, i guess, is to run away from rape-minded gay men whilst shooting them in the face?

AMANDA: i played this game.

SADY: did you? did you really? how was your gaming experience?

AMANDA: well, the first thing to know about this game is that it debuted in french. and if you run the French title through some sophisticated language translators, you will find that the original name of the game was "Takes Guard Has Your Buttocks, Hunter!”

SADY: oh, MY.

AMANDA: the second, and most horrifying, relevant point about this game is that the gameplay is extremely boring. and so, we may conclude that the only possible draws of the game are a) shootin' queers or b) briefly catching sight of tiny cartoon penises.

SADY: I'M SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU I'M PLAYING TAKES GUARD HAS YOUR BUTTOCKS. but not really. i am just looking at it, some more.

AMANDA: hahahah

SADY: yes, i think that the creators were adamant about it being "humor?"

AMANDA: yeah---there's always this defense from Creators who are criticized over the content of their product. where they contest that the Game is something More than it Appears, when really it's a very simple and boring flash game with no point, except to depict murder and rape as easily and speedily as possible

SADY: right, exactly. but, i mean, these are the perils of online media. this game has peen in it, and raping, and it allows one to pretend to shoot dudes in the face for wanting to fuck you, and in this manner, it appeals to douchebags and gets traffic. it also has peen, and raping, and allows people to pretend to shoot dudes for wanting to sex them, and in this manner, it draws outrage from people such as myself and gets traffic. either way, TAKES GUARD WINS.

AMANDA: and then i played the game! which allowed me to say, This game is not fun and games!

SADY: (i appear to be playing this game wrong, by the way, as no naked men have jumped from the bushes to assault me yet.)

AMANDA: you gotta walk past them!

SADY: (perhaps i have clicked on the new, "non-offensive" version of Takes Guard Has Your Buttocks, in which you just shoot at rocks.)

AMANDA: Takes Guard Has Not Your Buttocks, Carry On Hunter

SADY: ah, well. well: i mean: i think this kind of stuff is actually endemic to a lot of entertainment, particularly entertainments such as this, which are aimed specifically at young straight dudes and are meant to get word-of-mouth. i mean, ladies play video games too! yet most of the videogames i have played are like being hit in the face with a jockstrap, that is how lowest-common-denominator-sexist they have been.

AMANDA: yeah, and i hate to take a Think of the Children approach to this, but i think that many of The Children persuasion also wish they weren't being so obviously pandered to. because anytime a filmmaker or gamemaker passes off gratuitous rape scenes or sexist jokes as "edgy" or "un-PC," what they're really saying is, "i'm lazy."

SADY: exactly. they are like, "LOOK, what we are saying is that men who want to have sex with dudes are predatory and rapey and you should kill them. maybe the reason that you are offended is that you have NEVER HEARD HILARIOUS JOKES ALONG THESE LINES BEFORE." like: no, dude, i have. i really really have. also, don't quite think you understand the definition of the word "jokes." and obviously, i follow a lot of ladies on the Twitter who talk about videogames and sexism and also love the crap out of videogames, so i don't think this is a problem with the base (except for the lazy portion of the base) so much as it is a problem with creators. although the Shoot Dudes Before They Have Your Buttocks Game is a flash game, so, you know. dealing with a whole other subsection of the genre here, primarily there to get you to click on some advertisements for adult friends or whatever.

AMANDA: right. but i think you've touched on something interesting, which is that women are consuming things, but there are often a lot of real barriers to getting women making the things, too.

SADY: OR, they can participate, but only insofar as they are making what is deemed "marketable" within that genre.

AMANDA: although i think the only qualifications you need to make an internationally famous flash game is being 14 years old and having access to Babelfish. right - you're lucky to be involved anyway, so don't try making any changes, because making us accountable for the terrible sexist and homophobic shit we put out would be SO like a girl. in conclusion, when is sarah palin getting into video games?

SADY: um, i believe AERIAL WOLF HUNTER is already a videogame. if it's not, it should be. the wolves fight back! with LASERS! but, you know. if you've solidly defined your audience as "14-year-old boys who are dumb," maybe making stuff that appeals to other people seems like a risky business move. i can understand that! personally, i am designing a game right now where you take away the computers of the Buttocks guys and hit them over the head with their own laptops repeatedly. i think it will be a hit!

AMANDA: will there be blood?

SADY: there will be panicked calls to their moms to come down into the basement and save them. i think that's its own reward.

*Oh, yeah. And there was a font explosion. Because I am still publishing on BloggARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH.

Let's Party Like It's 1999! By NOT REPORTING RAPE CHARGES!

2009-07-23T12:43:00.001-07:00

Ha, well, I was feeling pretty self-conscious about that Isaac Brock post! It was rough. Then, I clicked on the links in Smadin's comment! Specifically, a link to a post by Jaclyn Friedman on the Yes Means Yes! Blog.

So, apparently, Ben Roethlisberger, a football player, has been accused of rape. When the woman who accused him reported this to her boss, he apparently told her that "most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger." (See also, this statement about the Isaac Brock incident, by Pete Ritchey of Up Records: "It's not like he had to make somebody have sex with him. He could have sex with anybody he wanted. [The Stranger] were like sharks going after him." ) And then, there's this:

And now, as these details emerge, ESPN has instructed its entire team of reporters to not report any of this information. [Update: ESPN may be easing its ban, but it's still unclear how much and what will be reported.] Yes, the same network whose sideline reporter is currently being exploited all over the ‘net in a peeping tom video. You’d think that would make them more sympathetic to the sexual exploitation of women just trying to do their job, but they’re too focused on protecting access to the star athletes who are their cash cows to even do their basic job as journalists. That’s rape culture. When our media won’t talk about rape, people think it doesn’t happen, and the rapists face no consequences.

YEP! The Brock post stands.

*FOR THOSE WHO REQUIRE AN EXPLANATION: The Don't Give Isaac Brock Money game has to do, not solely with the fact that he was accused of rape, but with his complicity in creating rape culture in his statements after the fact, or lack thereof, especially his statements about how he USED to be an anti-rape activist, but now he knows that WOMEN LIE, and he has been HOUNDED and BETRAYED and THE POLICE KNEW SHE WAS MAKING IT UP and maybe it's unclear how exactly he's been ruined by this given that he is still a FAMOUS ROCK STAR, but whatever. The narrative we accept is that the accused is the victim and the accuser is the victimizer, and this is is how rape culture works, and Isaac Brock is participating. Give the dude your cash, if you feel like his vocals are awesome enough to serve as an excuse.

Perfect Disguise: Isaac Brock, Samantha Shapiro, and the Ethics of Journalism In Rape Culture

2009-07-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, SO, you will probably not be getting a Rosemary's Baby review today. This is because I am having trouble getting my hands on the film Rosemary's Baby! The reason for this is pretty simple: Roman Polanski, the director of Rosemary's Baby, raped somebody. And I have a little game that I like to play, called Don't Give Money To The Rapist.

While it is totally inadvisable to "revenge" rape with a gun, a la Ms. 45, and impossible to revenge rape with vagina teeth, a la Teeth, I have come to the conclusion that it is totally acceptable to shoot rapists in the face with the metaphorical gun of purchasing power!

Basically, most rapists have jobs. Sometimes they're really good at their jobs! But if, for example, a rapist is someone who makes movies which you want to see, you have to balance what you don't know with what you know. Here's a little breakdown, as far as this relates to noted rapist Roman Polanski, and the film Rosemary's Baby:

WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW: Whether or not you are going to enjoy Rosemary's Baby, a film made by noted rapist Roman Polanski. It could go either way!

WHAT YOU KNOW: Roman Polanski raped someone.

Now, ask yourself: is it worth contributing, in any way, to the well-being of a rapist? Probably not! But you might enjoy the movie! So I recommend seeing the movie and not paying for it. There are several means of doing this, some of which relate to downloading them, which is TOTALLY ILLEGAL, and the official position of Tiger Beatdown is that you should NOT DO ILLEGAL THINGS. Oh, hey, here is another illegal thing: rape! An activity engaged in by Roman Polanski!

If you, too, would like to participate in my totally fun game, I will share with you another version, which I am playing right now. It is called Don't Give Money To The ALLEGED! Rapist, and I am playing it with Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock.

So, now, a little storytime for you: in 1999, Isaac Brock, then a resident of Seattle, took a 19-year-old girl home from a bar. A few weeks later, she went to the police and reported that he had raped her. YIKES! That seems pretty newsworthy to me! This was a feeling evidently shared by Samantha Shapiro of Seattle's alternative weekly, The Stranger. Samantha Shapiro, a reporter, used her reporting skills to report on the alleged crime that had been reported to the police. Then, after she wrote that story (on March 18th, 1999), and a follow-up on the same subject in which she reported that Isaac Brock had still not been charged (on June 24th, 1999), her articles started to appear more infrequently, and she disappeared entirely between the months of August, 1999 and September, 2000; she wrote two articles in the year 2000, and after that she no longer worked for The Stranger! YIKES, again!

Oh, and also: although letters to the editor on the original Modest Mouse story (all, again by magical coincidence, negative toward Shapiro) are easily Googlable, I have been unable to find either of her articles on the subject on The Stranger's website, and they do not appear in the list of articles credited to Samantha Shapiro on that site.

There are other mentions of the Isaac Brock rape charges do appear on the website! Such as an interview where someone rips into a novelist for writing what would appear to be a fictional account of the event. [EDIT: I originally got an attribution hugely wrong in this paragraph, which is hugely embarrassing. I've taken it out of the post for that reason, but since this is a post about accountability, I want to let you know that I made a mistake and recognized it as such. I'm being more careful with this post than usual, because it's about truth and what deserves to be heard, and am looking over the article to make sure that it only contains things that I can verify for you with links, or else my personal opinion on the matter, and nothing in-between.]

So, did Isaac Brock rape someone? I don't know! The woman later retracted her claim. I have this crazy theory, that when you report a rape to the police, and your ALLEGED! rapist is so well-connected and powerful within his community that he can levy substantial social pressure against you - when even reporting on the fact that a rape claim has been made draws reactions such as "a rape case shouldn't be brought to public attention," or "I have no opinion on the guilt or innocence of either party, but the money I get for [my Stranger article] is going to any future legal defense fund for Isaac" or "funny how [the ALLEGED! victim's] identity is protected when Isaac is the victim of the crime here" or "[it was] poor judgment [to make] a case against Brock using only the woman's side of the story," and when the reporter who interviews you is apparently penalized for doing so - you might just be so pressured as to retract your report whether or not it was true. So, I don't know whether Isaac Brock raped someone!

What I know is that this is how it happens. This is how rape culture is created. The social penalties for reporting a rape are so severe, and the odds for successfully making a case are so small, that we effectively encourage women to let rapists get away with it, and discourage them from holding rapists accountable. Rapes happen, and then they disappear, and the Isaac Brock story seems to be a remarkably clear example of exactly why and how that happens, whether or not he did it: the mechanisms of silencing talk about rape charges are kind of unmissable. So, I'm in the mood for holding folks accountable today! Because, you know, you can get rid of Samantha Shapiro, you can erase the articles from the record, you can take that girl's story out of the public eye to such an extent that people - people like myself, for example - may listen to Modest Mouse and enjoy them and consider themselves fans without ever hearing about it and may feel disgusted and betrayed when the topic eventually comes up in an off-hand aside in a drunk conversation with someone who was aware of the event at the time, but what you can't do is fire me from Tiger Beatdown.

The Internet changes everything, right? Here Comes Everybody, and they heard about that time a girl accused you of rape! So, you know, while I don't have many Legitimate Journalist credentials, I do have tens of thousands of hits per month. Also, unlike Samantha Shapiro's articles on the Isaac Brock rape charges, I am easily Googlable. [EDIT: You can find the article here, copied into what looks to be a mailing list archive; if you click on the link, it doesn't lead to the original article.] So, I am encouraging [EDIT, AGAIN: Though not requiring! It is a personal decision!] you, the readers of this non-legitimate publication in which I literally cannot be censored or fired, to play a game with me: the game of Don't Give Money To The ALLEGED! Rapist, which we will play with Modest Mouse albums, concert tickets, and other merchandise which profits Modest Mouse and Isaac Brock.

Oh, look, here is a new Modest Mouse EP! It is called "No One's First, And You're Next," and it will be out on August 4. Hey, let's Don't Give Money to it! Wheee!

Ms. 45: Scum Manifesto

2009-07-22T13:00:00.001-07:00

So, apparently it is possible to make a decent rape-revenge movie. Or about half of one, anyway.

You guys! I did not intend for this to be such a rape-scene-heavy feature! My plan was to cull the vast field of potential candidates down to a few movies that represented different lady-based fears. It went as follows: Ginger Snaps, fear of periods; Teeth, fear of the vagina; Ms. 45, fear of rape; Rosemary's Baby, fear of pregnancy. Such was the plan. But then Teeth had all the raping in it, and then it was time to watch Ms. 45, and then I was like, "geez, I really don't want to watch or think about or write on the topic of rape any more; thank God Rosemary's Baby is coming up next."

Then I remembered that Rosemary's Baby also has a rape scene in it. Rosemary's Baby (Which She Is Going To Give Birth To Because She Has Been Raped By Satan) would be a more appropriate title for that picture!

Yes, if there is one thing I have learned, over the course of my studies in lady horror, it is that people who make horror movies focused on female experience just love to spice things up with a rape scene or two. Which is problematic, given that women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted than they are to have werewolf sisters or vagina teeth or apartments that they lease from Satan. The rest of it is fun and games, but rape is real. And it's scary.

What's strange is that that Ms. 45, the rape-revenge exploitation pick, and the one movie from this list that I fully expected not to like, turned out to have one of the best takes on sexual assault, and on the fear and trauma that results from rape, that I've seen yet. For a while, anyway.

It is, however, an exploitation movie, and concerned with amping things up as much as possible. You can tell because it begins with its lead character, Thana, experiencing two - count them, two - separate stranger rapes over the course of an afternoon. The first happens when a man pulls her off the street, into an alley. She doesn't fight back, and she gets out alive. Then, while she's still reeling, she stumbles into her apartment. There's a strange man there. His intentions are not good.

If rape scenes trigger you, you will be triggered by this movie. I was. It's not Irreversible - the scenes are relatively brief, and free of gory details - but it's still terrifying. (From a review on Evil Dread, which seems to encapsulate what your average rape-revenge fan wants, and gets, from films of this genre: "the actual rape scenes are not graphical at all, we don't get to see anything... take I Spit on Your Grave or Irreversible were [sic] the rape scenes are really drawn out... [it] adds more to the whole outcome. Unfortunately it's too 'nice and quick' here.").

I suppose if what you're looking for is extremely brutal, detailed rape simulations, Ms. 45 is not the movie for you. Yet these scenes are terrifying, because they happen like rape happens: out of nowhere, with no warning, changing everything forever. Also, Thana is mute; she can't scream.

This is when the movie twists and barrels into full horror. During the second rape, Thana manages to grab a weapon (first a paperweight, then an iron) and kill her attacker. Going to the police never seems to occur to her; she just hides the body in her bathtub. It's this, the way her life quickly spins completely out of control in a sequence that plays like an extended bad dream - first you're raped, then you've killed someone, then you've got a dead rapist in your tub, then you're cutting up the dead rapist, then you've got a refrigerator full of dead rapist, then you're trying to dispose of the dead rapist parts, then you're killing people more or less in self-defense because they might find out about the dead rapist parts that you're trying to dispose of - that I really admire. It feels, weirdly, like having been raped: having a big, ugly, gory, unbelievable secret that you have to hide at all costs. Thana's muteness is a big, clunky symbol, but it works - the girl literally can't talk about it.

A word, here, on how Ms. 45 played to male audiences at the time of its release:

Predictably, when Thana is being raped at the beginning of Ms. 45, an unsympathetic soul cackled: "How does it feel, baby?" ...But something fascinating happens. Once these men identify with the rapist, the filmmakers have Thana conk him on the head with an iron and kill him. Then she chops him up into little slabs and stores his parts in the refrigerator. Unexpectedly, the men who had whooped all through Amin and the obscenely gory previews of Dr. Butcher(1982), whimpered worrisomely "Oh, my God" and slumped in their seats and shut up.

Personally, I was with Thana throughout. This is pretty easy, given that the filmmakers actually spend some time on her trauma, and that Zoe Lund conveys it beautifully. She has panic attacks at work; she can't take her clothes off to shower because she flashes back to the attack (there's a shot in this scene that I believe was repeated almost verbatim in Teeth); she's falling apart, and every time a man comes on to her (they're all, it seems, coming on to her - including her creepy, patronizing boss) she's sick and terrified.

So, eventually she just starts killing them. More and more of them. Indiscriminately. And this is where the movie gets goofy.

Not all of the goofiness is bad! Some of it is funny! The scene in which Thana delivers sweet justice to one of those dudes who hits on you in the street and won't go away ("hey, I just want to talk to you!") is a delight, as is the scene where she finally figures out how to reconcile her rapist-disposal needs with the fact that her neighbor's dog is always hungry. Yet it's hard to reconcile the tone of these scenes with the unmitigated terror of the early parts of the movie. The violence transitions from being real and scary to over-the-top and campy. And the scene in which she tarts herself up to go on a killing spree in the Neighborhood of Racist Stereotypes - she nabs, in one night, a black pimp, some black gang members, and a wealthy "sheik" - is just, well... no. NO, is all I have to say to that scene.

Thana becomes a monster. She's a serial killer; she's unhinged. It's that transition that bothered me most - how the movie goes from portraying her fear to fearing her. Yet, to deal with that, you have to deal with how very '70s this movie is. Even though it was released in 1981! There are Plato's Retreat references; there is the depiction of Manhattan as a wasteland of random violence; there is the freaking title of the movie, for God's sake. "Ms." was a title with very specific connotations, when Ms. 45 was being made.

The movie, actually, seems to be about dealing with the implications of feminism. In one vastly offensive yet somehow moving scene, a man describes to Thana how his wife's case of the Feminine Mystique ("she was getting antsy, she wanted something to do - I said, 'No wife of mine's going to work'") led to job-having and, eventually, lesbianism. (Ain't that the way?) Thana seems to hesitate to kill him; he collaborates in the act.

It's a scene that seems to sum up most of the movie: we're asked to feel for Thana, and also encouraged to fear Thana, because men (and this movie was made by, and for, men) just didn't know what to do about the whole "feminism" thing. (They still don't know, actually, but back then they talked about it.) Like, here are all these women, right? And they're angry. Too angry. Scary angry. But, then again: haven't they been put through a lot of shit, these women? What if they have a reason to be angry at you? What if you deserve it?

Who, really, is the problem here?

What are you afraid of?

SETH ROGEN IS OUTRAGED

2009-07-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

Outraged, I tell you! And do you want to know why?

Because people (specifically, the people who write the show Entourage, which - what?) are calling him misogynist! And it is TERRIBLE. Also, they seem to have noticed that he is a lot more regular-looking than basically any of the ladies who play his girlfriends in the movies? Behold Seth Rogen's OUTRAGE, via Vulture:

"Yeah, those guys are assholes. I actually ran into Matt … Kevin Dillon in a Starbucks. And he's like 'You know, I've got to kind of apologize because apparently the guy who created our show doesn't like you so much.' And I said 'Well, I have reason to believe because I think [showrunner] Doug Ellin is a moron from all I can understand so it makes sense he doesn't like me.' And I've kind of said some disparaging things about the show. Although in our defense, [producer] Mark Wahlberg called us misogynistic in an interview, so I think they kind of started that … It's on. Luckily I never have and never plan on watching Entourage."

Um, OK. I kind of doubt Mark Wahlberg "started" the practice of calling Apatow movies misogynist, actually! But, whatever. The point is that Seth Rogen is outraged - OUTRAGED - at the allegation that his movies are kind of sexist and the ladies in them are prettier than the dudes.

For my next trick, I'll call John McCain old and Republican. CONTROVERSY!

Teeth: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

2009-07-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

Say, you know what you probably shouldn't put in your movie? COMIC RAPE SCENES!

"Oh, but Sady," you are saying, "I am a highly respected Artist of the Cinema! I like to Push the Envelope with my Cinematic Art! And the rape envelope is the one I wish to push more than any other! For example: rape scenes are always so serious. Why? Why not add some light comic touches to what would otherwise be a total downer of a rape?"

To you, I say: SETH ROGEN, STOP E-MAILING ME RIGHT THIS SECOND. Ha, no! What I actually say is that this is, quite literally, the stupidest idea that anyone has ever had. It is so stupid that it boggles the mind; so stupid that I cannot even begin to explain to you how and why it is stupid. It would take, basically, an entire seminar class on Why This Is Stupid, with several guest lecturers and many pages of required reading, for me to begin to unpack precisely why your urge to present rape as a fun, funny, non-serious thing is as stupid as it is. Even then, I might not be able to communicate it to you, because of how stupid you are. Right now, there is a kid somewhere in the Midwest trying to see if he can stick a fork into his toaster whilst jamming the other end of it up his nose, and this idea, stupid though it may be, is actually both more understandable and smarter than your idea, if your idea is to make a movie in which there is a comic rape scene.

So, it's really a shame that Teeth has several of those, because otherwise it would be a pretty decent film.

So, the plot, first. The movie opens with a scene of a very young toddler, Dawn, being bullied by her slightly older stepbrother. He asks to see her vagina, then he puts his finger into it. When he takes his finger out, it's bleeding. Cut to several years later: Dawn is now a high school student, and an abstinence counselor.

At this point, I was still fairly impressed. They drew a connection between a woman's choice not to have sex and a history of abuse that may make sex legitimately scary and problematic for her! Way to not make the easy joke, movie! Teeth is actually fairly good at showing us how Dawn feels, in a way that instinctively makes sense: why would she want to have sex, when boys are harassing her in school hallways about "popping her cherry," and her brother is always bringing over girls who end up crying about how they don't want to do it "that way?" ("That way," for the record, is anal.) Abstinence education, in real life, is awful - but for Dawn, as for a lot of girls, it feels safer than the alternative.

Then, of course, she goes on a date with a fellow abstinence counselor and he rapes her. And she accidentally severs his penis, mid-rape, with the fangs that are apparently hidden in her vagina. And the movie starts to go downhill really, really fast.

Because, after a fairly realistic interlude in which she goes into post-traumatic shock (which then veers off into an interlude that is, I guess, sort of realistic, but also terrible, in that she expels herself from the abstinence movement because she is no longer "pure" - geez, yeah, the fact that YOUR RAPIST died in AN ACCIDENT which fortuitously prohibited him from RAPING YOU SOME MORE is totally your fault) we learn that Dawn, unlike basically every rape survivor anywhere in the history of the world, doesn't have to spend a long time dealing with PTSD or trust issues or an entirely understandable aversion to sex or anything like that.

Nope, now that she's been raped, she's totally into sex! All she needs is a new boyfriend, who can show her that sex is awesome! By, um, giving her tranquilizers first?

Oh, but first she has to be sexually assaulted some more. By her gynecologist, so that she can take his hand off. In a scene that is played for laughs.

Oh, and did I mention that the stepbrother who molested her continues to make gross, scary, predatory sexual advances toward her for the rest of the movie? And that she eventually decides to sleep with and/or castrate him as a means of getting "revenge?" And that the "revenge" is ALSO played for laughs?

Yeah.

And yet, certain moments within the film are really good! There are some hilarious scenes, it has a wonderful lead actress (Jess Weixler - she's quite convincing, given the fact that almost none of her character's actions or decisions make any sense whatsoever), and at certain moments it even seems to be making some decent points. There are the makings of a solid horror comedy in Teeth. It's hard to tell where it went wrong. If I had to guess, though, I'd say it was all the raping.

Personally, I blame Camille Paglia! Of course, I blame Camille Paglia for everything, but this time I have some grounds: the movie was apparently inspired by her lectures on the vagina dentata. (A scene in which Dawn reads aloud from an unmistakably Paglian speech on the subject - "the man must battle the woman, the toothed creature, and break her power... sex becomes a hero's epic journey back to the dark cavern of the womb" - while steadily getting more and more freaked out is particularly good; I think we've all felt that way, when reading Paglia's overblown prose poems about genitalia.) But Teeth shares two of Paglia's fatal flaws: first, a radical misunderstanding of what does and does not constitute female "power," and second, an insistence on casting men - sometimes really awful, criminal men! - as victims.

First things first: basically, Dawn's amazing "power" doesn't work - CAN'T work - unless some rapist has actually succeeded in raping her. So, there have to be a lot of rape scenes in the movie, just to show how it works. We're told that her vagina represents the next stage in vagina evolution - the tables have turned, the prey has become the predator, something something Paglia something - but I can't help but notice that this adaptive development doesn't prevent Dawn from being sexually assaulted more than once in the space a few days. Being able to stop a rape is nice, but not being raped would be much nicer. As a self-defense tactic, a vagina dentata ranks below a can of mace.

Let's go back to that first rape scene, the one with the boy from her abstinence group. It's pretty nasty - not only in execution, but in spirit. At one point, Dawn's rapist snaps that he "hasn't even jerked off since Easter." We're meant to infer that the rape is a direct consequence of the chastity: if girls won't put out, boys will have to take it from them by force.

Men, this movie seems to imply, are naturally rapists - almost every single male character in the movie attempts or commits some form of sexual assault. (It's trickier when we come to the case of her boyfriend, because the movie clearly doesn't want us to see their sex as anything other than consensual - still, he has sex with her under false pretenses, while she's sedated, which is predatory at the very least.) It's an old, old message: male sexual desire has to be gratified, by any means necessary, and it's a girl's job to protect herself from it. This is untrue - you can, as it turns out, pop a boner without immediately sticking it into the closest available orifice - but it's widely taught, and it's why rape is so often excused, overlooked, or swept under the rug. What else was the guy supposed to do? Not get off?

And the movie follows through by portraying Dawn's attackers as victims. The predatory, incestuous brother at one point confesses that he abuses Dawn because he's "in love" with her. One review called Teeth "the most alarming cautionary tale for men since Fatal Attraction;" it was reprinted on the movie's poster, and was featured in its trailer. Which is odd, since Teeth is only a "cautionary tale" if you need to be "cautioned" against putting your penis into somebody's vagina without her permission.

By the end of the movie, Dawn has come fully into her "power." What this means, in practice, is that she is now going to have consensual sex with men who would otherwise rape her, so that she can rip their dicks off. There are about a million legitimate ways to actually claim power - she could take a self-defense class, she could work at a rape crisis hotline, she could EVEN, unbelievably, teach a class for young men on how to recognize predatory behavior in themselves and their friends, and how to oppose it - but this is the route she chooses, the route the movie wants us to believe is her best option. She'll fight sexual violence with sexual violence. Because this particular vision of sexual politics is a closed system: prey or predator, victim or victimizer. There's no third option. There's no way out.

Tiger Beatdown Sells Out (Again!): Technical Difficulties Edition

2009-07-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, hello there! It appears that it is time to address a few things about this site!

First, you may have noticed some unlovely glitches happening around the old Tiger Beatdown: fonts being formatted in a weird and distracting manner, comments being eaten, etc. This is happening for a reason. The reason is that Blogspot - how to put this delicately? - can suck it. Over the next few weeks, I will be looking to move Tiger Beatdown over to a different and better platform, possibly Wordpress or something. Furthermore, I will be trying to make the site in general less ugly than it has been. Because it has been pretty ugly! Which was OK, when nobody read it! But you, the reader, deserve a less hideous and eye-scarring internet experience.

I also aim to switch a new comment system, so that your comments don't get eaten, and also you don't have to wait forever for them to be moderated, because I love your comments, and want them to be free.

And here is the final change that I am looking to make: NOT BEING BROKE. I will be running ads, probably, on the site! I am looking into the best ad-related options, for that reason. Hopefully they will be ads so tasteful and compelling that you cannot help but click on them multiple times, each time exclaiming, "my! I certainly wish to align my personal brand with the companies that advertise here at Tiger Beatdown!"

Why am I telling all of you about this? Simple: I get the sense that a lot of you know how computers work! Far better than I do! So, if any of you have any tips as to how I can make the magic typing box do my will, please e-mail them to tigerbeatdown@gmail.com.

Oh, and thanks for being patient during the font-exploding, comment-eating, Blogspot-suck-imbued period. I appreciate it more than you can know.

Ginger Snaps: Women Who Run With The Wolves*

2009-07-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

"Something's wrong with you. I mean, more than you being just female."

So: when I was young, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, my favorite thing to do was to get my lady friends together for an overnight party and watch three or four horror movies in a row.

I could never watch horror movies alone - it was too boring - but I loved watching them with other girls. We'd scream at all the same moments; we'd talk about which scenes were the most fucked-up; we'd try to outdo each other with the movies that we chose. There was something about the act of watching and enjoying the movies that felt transgressive. Even though horror movies have always been aimed at teenagers, we felt that we were seeing something forbidden, something that offered us a knowledge of the world that we weren't supposed to have.

Then I grew up, and actually experienced some of the world. After that, I didn't watch horror movies any more.

I am telling you this for a reason, as it turns out! I am telling you this because it is, I have learned, impossible for me to be totally objective about Ginger Snaps. It is made, I think, specifically for women who used to be awkward teenage horror fans, and have ingested a substantial amount of feminist theory since then. When something caters so specifically to your experiences and your concerns, it is hard to tell whether it is any good. Then again, I realize, dudes must feel this way all the time!

So: a bit about the movie. It is about two sisters, Brigitte and Ginger. When we meet them, they are in that awful teenage sex-and-death place - a place it was probably particularly easy to access in the '90s, but which has been around as long as there have been teenagers ("Leader of the Pack") and will be around as long as there are teenagers in the world (um, BrokeNCYDE? For some reason). Ginger likes to play with knives and stage gory fake suicides for art projects; Brigitte, who is younger, goes along with it. Ginger plans to commit suicide (it's "the ultimate fuck you," she says) by the age of sixteen if she hasn't managed to escape the suburbs; Brigitte goes along with that, too. They wear mall-Goth clothes and enjoy thinking up elaborate, violent death scenes for popular girls. You know the drill.

Brigitte and Ginger, like lots of teens, are into death because they think that makes them special. It seems like a way of being above-it-all, naughty, sophisticated, knowing. People are scared of it, so they pretend not to be; people don't talk about it, so they do. It's a mode of behavior particularly favored by those who haven't fucked yet: all that fascination and fear of the body and its messy potentialities can be channeled into something that conveniently allows you to avoid thinking or even talking about sex.

Brigitte and Ginger are fifteen and sixteen, and neither one has ever had a period.

Ginger gets it first. ("You kill yourself to be different, and your own body betrays you.") She gets it, unfortunately, on the very same night that she is attacked by a werewolf. Brigitte manages to beat the thing off of her, so she lives; however, when she gets home, both she and Brigitte are forced to confront some unpleasant facts about Ginger's Changing Body.

One of the major strengths of the film - which a lot of people have commented on - is how it manages to portray incipient werewolf status as, more or less, identical to puberty. Ginger's razors are filled with an ungodly amount of hair; she's withdrawn and moody; she can lapse into unhinged, frightening rage at any time and for no reason, and she seems particularly testy about people who impinge on her bathroom time. Brigitte and Ginger seem just as freaked out about the fact that Ginger is bleeding out of her crotch as they do about the fact that she's slowly becoming a serial killer; a scene in which they discover that tufts of hair are growing out of the claw marks on Ginger's chest is interrupted when Brigitte notices that she's dripping onto the floor.

Yet it's easy, most of this - maybe too easy: a scene in which they visit the nurse to ask whether "hair that wasn't there before" is normal is particularly broad, and not very smart. These girls must have had to sit through a sex ed class, or at least a talk from their mother. And it quickly moves into very problematic territory, when we learn that becoming a werewolf also means wanting to have sex.

Yes, Ginger starts making out with boys: publicly, and enthusiastically, and ferociously. She also starts dressing in a way that makes boys want to make out with her (although she still looks unappetizingly mall-goth, if you ask me; the layered necklaces are a particularly icky touch). This is when we learn that Ginger is evil. This is when Brigitte becomes the movie's hero.

When I say that I don't like Brigitte as the focus of the movie, this doesn't mean that I don't like Brigitte. She's one of the better female leads I've ever seen - and also one the least conventional. Most "ugly," "awkward" girls in movies are neither ugly nor awkward: Brigitte has a wonky nose, and doesn't pluck her eyebrows, and her hair is always in her face, and she has trouble making eye contact, making her one of the more realistic girl geeks in memory, even though she hugely overplays the geekiness in the early scenes. You also get the sense that, although she is always - and willingly - overshadowed by Ginger, she'll make a better grown-up than Ginger could. She's smart, and practical, and she has a strength of will - a coping ability - that Ginger lacks.

Girls like Ginger flame out early: they want the world to change for them, and when it doesn't they're sometimes destroyed. They give up, whether "giving up" means doing too many drugs or joining a sorority. Girls like Brigitte change to fit the world, because they have to, because everyone has to, but they manage to keep themselves more or less intact. Watching Brigitte come out of her shell, and out of Ginger's shadow, is one of the most moving parts of the film.

Still, Brigitte, although wonderful in many ways, is more or less defined by her fear of being a woman: her fear of femininity, of sex, of just plain growing up. She keeps herself wrapped up in bulky clothes, pushes away a guy who is clearly interested in her, and always, always, always talks about sex or puberty or other, girlier girls with queasy, angry distaste. At a certain point, you realize that she lets her hair cover her face, not because she doesn't know better, but because it's a statement - a way of telling the world that she's not going to let it in. And while I'm totally thrilled that there's a movie out there which doesn't oversimplify this kind of girl or turn her into a punchline or give her a miraculous makeover that leads to true love, I feel that the movie elevates Brigitte at Ginger's expense. And Ginger deserves your affection.

Because Ginger is rage, pure rage, a kind of rage you rarely see in the movies: the rage of being female. Here is this thing that's happening to her body, this process she has no control over; here is this hunger of hers that nobody understands, and that makes people hate her, even though boys are lining up to feed it. There's a scene in a car, where she's making out with a boy, and he gets overwhelmed and tries to slow her down. "Who's the guy here?" he says. She cocks her head back, snarls the line back at him ("who's the fucking guy here?") and, basically, mauls him. The movie slips up in its characterization of Ginger, and eventually just makes her into a standard-issue Crazy Slut, but here's the thing: Crazy Sluts don't normally get scenes like this. It's a good scene. I wish there were more like them in this movie.

I'm talking mostly about characters, because it's mostly a movie about characters. For a horror movie, it's not very scary: it gets a little bloodier and faster in the final act, but even then it's not exactly visceral. It's also, unfortunately, not very good at handling characters who aren't Ginger and Brigitte. Her parents are cartoons; the other kids at school are high-school-movie cliches. (The Popular Girl is very mean! The Jock is very gross and sexist! The Rebel is unexpectedly sensitive; also, sexy!) This is exacerbated by the fact that, although Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle are pretty good actors (Isabelle, as Ginger, has some terrific comic timing), nobody else in the movie can act in the slightest, including the film's only recognizable actor, Mimi Rogers. (Yeah, I said it. And what, Mimi Rogers? I ask you: and what?) One boy werewolf, who shows up in the middle of the movie, is notable mostly because the actor made the, um, distinctive choice to portray him as a sort of coked-up, sleazy Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

And yet, and yet: even though Ginger Snaps is too willfully "indie" and quirked-up to be a real horror movie, and too trashy and steeped in horror conventions to be a real indie movie, it may be worth it, just for the relationship between the girls.

Relationships between teenage girls (and teenage girls' relationships with themselves) are hard to pin down or portray accurately and honestly, because they are - how to phrase this tastefully? - totally fucking insane. Those girls I watched horror movies with: I was closer to them than I ever have been, or probably ever will be, with any other friends. I was closer to them than I have been to most of my boyfriends. There's a weird, overwhelming, mind-meld effect that takes place sometimes between girls: you live in each other and through each other, always trying to figure out how you are the same and how you are different, and loving both the differences and the sameness. Then comes sex, and The Patriarchy, to fuck everything up. Suddenly, you're in competition with each other. If another girl is prettier than you, skinnier than you, more popular with boys, then she's worth more. Everyone says so. And how can you love someone when you have to hope she doesn't succeed - when her success makes you worth less?

But you love each other! But you hate each other! But you love each other! So you go ahead, doing both. The scenes of Brigitte and Ginger fighting - Ginger's a monster! No, Brigitte's just jealous! - are the best in the movie, primarily because we've seen how close they used to be, and we want them to be that close again. For that reason, it's disappointing when the movie succumbs to horror conventions and makes Brigitte into Ginger's nemesis. One of their final moments of bonding is also one of the goriest moments: the scene in which Ginger tests Brigitte by inviting her to drink a boy's blood. What she's asking for is solidarity - something all of the women in the movie, at one point or another, say they want - and a world where the girls can be together, and the same, and boys will only be relevant insofar as the girls need them for one reason or another.

Brigitte can't do it. No-one can blame her. Entering a werewolf separatist commune is not exactly a healthy lifestyle choice. But there's a showdown. And it's not scary so much as it is terribly sad.

I've been running the movie's final scene through my head for a few days now - trying to figure out if it's right, or fair, or if it matches up with what the movie seems to want to say. The more I think about it, the better I think it is. Ginger gets her wish: she gets to be different. She gets to tear the town apart and leave it behind. Brigitte, on the other hand, will have to grow up.

* I had to do it! I HAD TO. It was A COMPULSION.

Sexist Beatdown: Love Means Never Having To Say "I'm Sorry I Impregnated You While You Were Drugged And I Thought You Were A Prostitute" Edition

2009-07-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Well, friends, it is (for me, anyway) a fine summer afternoon. I assume many of you are eating sandwiches, thinking about your weekends, planning your strategies for getting out of work early, and what have you. That means it is time for a little light entertainment. Such as A CHAT ABOUT RAPE FANTASIES.

Yes, RAPE FANTASIES. As Amanda Hess of The Sexist pointed out in a really excellent post this week, they can be found in romance novels for ladies! A lot! This is a disturbing statement about patriarchal sexual mores.

...Or is it? Perhaps, my friends, it is just an indication of the fact that people's sexual fantasies are inevitably pretty disturbing! And people like them that way! Because we are all FREAKS! In this tastefully erotic edition of Sexist Beatdown, Amanda Hess and I venture into the wilds of human sexuality.

"The wilds of human sexuality," by the way, contains at least one person with a fetish related specifically to the back rooms of Chinese restaurants. Also, someone who likes to simulate phone sex with Chandler Bing.

ILLUSTRATION: Could I BE any more aroused?

SADY: hi there! i'm glad we're taking on something tasteful and uncontroversial this week. such as RAPE FANTASIES!

AMANDA: Yes, and furthermore, I believe that in order to fully haze Sotomayor this week, I think it's time we create the New Litmus Test. The New Litmus Test is: Rape fantasies? Eh?

SADY: Well, I have to tell you that I really loved your take on the whole matter.

And this is tied to a personal anecdote about the first romance novel I ever owned. May I tell you my personal anecdote?

AMANDA: please.

SADY: All right. So I had these two cousins, who were in their teens when I was about eleven. And they felt I needed to get a boyfriend, and gave me many romance novels in order to further my boyfriend-related education.

AMANDA: cool.

SADY: One of the romance novels they gave me had the following plot: a young woman is betrothed to a wealthy family friend, whom she has never met. She wanders around the city to process this, with a high fever, and stumbles into a BORDELLO, where she is given LAUDANUM. in this drugged state, a doctor comes, looking for a prostitute! he is sent into the drugged young lady's room, due to an entirely understandable error, and they end up fucking like two wildcats, or, more accurately, one wildcat and one seriously drugged and basically unconscious young woman. then in the morning she wakes up, remembers none of it, and goes home to meet her fiance. can you guess who he is?

AMANDA: the doctor?

SADY: YES! AND THEY GET MARRIED!

AMANDA: but ... she's been sullied!

SADY: and she is like, "i don't know who you are, Dr. Rapington, but for some reason I feel totally uncomfortable having sex with you." but eventually she learns to love him and his prostitute-raping ways and also she gets pregnant and has his baby.

AMANDA: i see. and so, did you finally land a boyfriend?

SADY: um, i was never able to land enough laudanum, as a middle-schooler, to really make the scenario work. i had to try other methods, such as consensual makeouts.

AMANDA: do you remember, did a lady write that book?

SADY: well, yes, the name on the cover was a lady name.

AMANDA: sounds progressive then. So: i have a rape fantasy lit story as well!

SADY: hurrah!

AMANDA: in college, i worked for this "women's fiction / erotica" literary agent. my job was to read the unsolicited manuscripts, which were not just any unsolicited manuscripts, but unsolicited manuscripts for erotic romance novels targeted at women.

SADY: oh, lord. you had the best job in the world, it appears!

AMANDA: i grew up fast that summer.

SADY: hahaha

AMANDA: anyway, a lot of the people who liked to target their erotic romance novels at women were dudes. i remember one dude's fantasy, err, novel, in particular: aman and a woman meet at a Chinese restaurant. they're acquainted in some way - maybe they work together. anyway, they eat some lo mein or whatever and one thing leads to another, and all of a sudden some old mystical Chinese woman is beckoning them into the back room, of course.

SADY: right, as you do

AMANDA: where they eat this magical Chinese herb, okay, and then the woman falls into some sexy trance.

SADY: this sounds totally realistic. i'm compelled to learn more!

AMANDA: so---paraphrasing here---he ends up with his penis inside her, and then his penis magically expands, until it's this really long magical penis that goes through her vagina, up past her entire body and then pokes out of her mouth. thus raping her in two orifices, at once! and i thought, i wonder if this guy thought i would actually pass this on to a literary agent to consider it for publication? or did he just want the intern to read his bizarre one-dude double penetration rape fantasy? and i realized: it was probably both.

SADY: Yowza. I mean: leaving aside this dude's one (RESTAURANT-SPECIFIC) rape fantasy, I get that people's fantasies, in general, are weird. I knew a girl who worked at a phone sex operation and one guy would call her up, constantly, to discuss his fantasies about the cast of "Friends." She would play Rachel, and sometimes maybe Phoebe; he would be Chandler.

AMANDA: wow. this guy fantasized about being chandler! chandler would make some hilarious ironic comment about this, were he here.

SADY: but, in your article about romance-novel rapings, you do touch on the fact that some women have rape fantasies. and they totally do! because people's fantasies are weird! but what worries me is when the raping just (a) isn't addressed as such, or (b) is in EVERY SINGLE ROMANCE NOVEL, which - it was a major part of the romance novels I read as a pre-teen, I'll tell you that.

AMANDA: yeah, i think the world of the romance novel is an interesting space for discussion of the rape fantasy, because it's a space that is a) largely written by and for women, and b) embracing (probably too much) of what is a very taboo fantasy for women to have. But at the same time, these novels are also c) EXTREMELY derivative and conformist, and one wonders what exactly they are conforming to.

SADY: right. like, at one point, i just did a study of romance novels, because they're one of the only "acceptable" outlets (or were, for a while) of porn for ladies. and they follow a very recognizable script. like, the heroine is never "classically beautiful," and she's often though not always working-class, and they always have to hate each other at first, and etc. and when the rape thing crops up so often (along with all of the stuff about "taking" and "possessing" and etc.) it just seems like part of the script is that women aren't sexual and men are and men have to "break them in," as it were, so that they can enjoy sex. which is remarkably similar to many rationales of actual real-live rapists! what with the "she wanted it" and "she said no but didn't mean it" business we all know and fear.

AMANDA: and yet ... people, like, read these books. and supposedly identify with them. women-people.

SADY: yeah... that's totally true. and i think we can talk about rape as a real-live thing that is unconscionably evil, and also own up to the fact that a rape FANTASY (which is pretty much within your control, seeing as it exists only in your head) is not the same thing.again: dude porn is almost always based on some kind of sense of transgression. so lady porn might be the same way, for similar reasons. maybe ladies enjoy this stuff because it's one of the most extreme taboos in existence, if you are a lady-person.

AMANDA: yeah. ive always thought that "rape fantasy" was a bit of a misnomer, though i guess calling it "actively desiring someone to have sex with you while pretending as if you don't actively desire it fantasy" takes some of the punch out of it

SADY: yeah, exactly. i mean, "rape fantasy" is such a contradiction in terms. but i think a lot of people's sex fantasies are about (a) feeling that what you're doing is "dirty" and (b) pushing past the feelings of "dirtiness." and having a fantasy that is about losing control is a really easy way of just not feeling "dirty" or "guilty" in a way that inhibits your enjoyment.

AMANDA: and if the guilt extends all the way from your vagina, through your organs, and out your mouth: bonus.

SADY: well, you know: i suspect that dude is not someone you'd want to be trapped in an elevator with. i do give him credit, however, for not including matthew perry.

SEXY TEEN NAKED HARRY POTTER CONTROVERSY: A Post That Will Probably Get Pageviews

2009-07-16T10:27:00.001-07:00

Uh-oh, you guys. The sexy teens are at it again!*

I know about this, you see, because I read the Internet. Specifically, I know about it because I read Tracy Clark-Flory's piece over at Broadsheet (which was written up by Miranda at Women's Glib in a post that was cross-posted at Feministe and also quoted at Feministing: look, the Internet is complicated) about a pamphlet published in the UK by National Health Services, entitled (yikes!) "Pleasure."

Yes, this pamphlet is about the fact that sex feels good. And it was handed out to the teens! Who were no doubt corrupted by their early exposure to this top-secret information! Here is a sample of the terrible and pornographic knowledge contained therein:

Beyond having the audacity to suggest that educators tell students that sex can feel pleasurable, the booklet says that teenagers have "a right" to sexual satisfaction, so long as it is in a safe and consensual situation. It also advises honesty about masturbation being perfectly healthy -- it winkingly says that "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away," which strikes me as a cheesy attempt to be cool -- and that sex isn't always about procreation.

Oh, dear! So, you can totally see why certain UK newspapers are up in a huff about it, saying (as Clark-Flory notes) that it is telling "schoolchildren" to have orgasms every day and so forth. Clearly, had this pamphlet not been published, no UK teenagers would ever masturbate, and the world would be a far safer and more wholesome place.

Say, you know what else comes from the UK and is of interest to the sexy teens? Harry Potter, and specifically the Harry Potter series of films starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and that one homely kid! ("Rupert Grint?") Salon published a piece about that, too, and specifically about the fact that Emma Watson, who is 19, is posing for sexy photos, has been the victim of an upskirt shot, and has a legion of devoted fans who would really, really like to see her naked. They furthermore note that plenty of people have already had the opportunity to see Harry Potter himself naked, as 19-year-old Daniel Radcliffe and his naked penis had a starring role in Equus not so very long ago.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that at least two of the Harry Potter kids grew up to be really, really hot. (The other one is Rupert Grint; also, that Malfoy kid, who now has THE FACE OF A MONSTER.) It's also a fact that we got to watch it happen - and, as anyone who has spent any time on the weirder and less comfortable portions of the Internet can tell you, a lot of people were very invested in that process.

On the topic of Naked Harry Potter, Joy Press notes that "Since it was for a serious role in a serious play (Peter Shaffer's "Equus"), Radcliffe was feted for artistic credibility and bravery (especially after he talked in interviews about the shriveling effects of a live audience on the male member).... I doubt many people actually wanted to glimpse Harry Potter's wand." Actually, a whole lot of people did, and they were all on the Internet; also, they were at the showing of at least one of the Harry Potter movies I attended (can't remember which one! It was about wizards, if that's helpful). In that movie, an underage Naked Harry Potter was shown slipping into a large tub - the scene really only showed his back, but one contingent of grown adult women started to cheer and hoot in a wild and excitable manner. I was rude, and turned around to stare at them, because I had simply never seen women do such a thing. I kind of thought hollering at naked teenagers was for guys!

But I do, in fact, smell what the Salon article is cooking. Its point - that young women, especially, are pressured to be sexual as soon as they reach "legal" age, and sometimes before, and that this can have a major impact on whether they're perceived as Artists or just spectacles - is a good one.

We eroticize teens all the time. The "Twilight" series is popular among teens and adults basically because it is entirely about one teenager wanting to fuck the living daylights out of one specific non-teenage dude (but not doing it, because it will DESTROY HER) and apparently conveys the feeling of wanting to fuck that dude very effectively. It manages to play to both sides by devoting thousands of pages to horny teens whilst telling a story about how sex will, literally, kill you.

It shouldn't be that revolutionary to note that teens eroticize each other, or to educate them about how to do that in a way that's not unsafe, cruel, or otherwise disastrous. Yet we're more comfortable with sexy teens as spectacles - spectacles for adults, no less - than we are with them as subjects. It's a predatory dynamic: we want girls (and also maybe Daniel Radcliffe) to be pure, asexual, not enthusiastic or assertive about sex in any way, but we also want the freedom to slaver over them at will, to sexualize them whether they want us to or not.

Of course it's never OK for grown-ups to pursue sex with non-grown-ups, even if those non-grown-ups are teenagers who have sexual feelings: it's a desire based on a profoundly unequal power dynamic, one that's about exploiting young people's "innocence" or trust or respect for adults, and it's often profoundly abusive. Yet the idea that acknowledging teenagers' sexuality is somehow invasive or un-OK or will lead to a vast wave of statutory rape (or just forbidden teen sex) is completely wrongheaded.

The fact that the dynamic is so very much about ideas of "innocence" or "purity" is precisely what makes educating teens about pleasure so subversive. If they're not "innocent," if they're not "pure," if they're just people with bodies like the rest of us, who are trying to figure out how those bodies work and how on Earth one integrates the fact of sexual desire with the demands of polite society, the entire dynamic crumbles. And then we might realize that they're kids, and that they have a lot to work out, and that they deserve our support in the matter.

"Support" is kind of incompatible with "sneakily taking pictures of someone's underpants," by the way.

* I am just now realizing that every single post this week will be about sex in one way or another. Didn't plan it that way! Oh well, enjoy your cheap titillation. Meanwhile, I will try to get my hands on a copy of Ginger Snaps.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I Actually Liked Something! And It Was "Humpday!"

2009-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true: I, a person who gets cranky on a more or less continual basis, often at movies, saw a movie that did not make me cranky at all. That movie was "Humpday," and probably you cannot see it because it is only playing in two theaters in the entire world right now. However! It will be opening in Berkeley and San Francisco shortly! So you can see it then!

Also, I wrote about it for "Comment is Free," and talked about its relationship both to Bruno, homophobia in general, and the fine cinematic tradition of the Bromance. Here is part of what I wrote:

Last week, two movies opened. Their intentions were, on one level, remarkably similar: both of them were intended to be about homophobia, or, more specifically, about the weird blend of fear and fascination and prejudice many straight people express when faced with the thought of two men having sex.
The first movie, Bruno, opened internationally, had a massive promotional campaign, and stars the straight comedian Sasha Baron Cohen playing a hugely exaggerated, hugely offensive gay stereotype: its method of exposing homophobia was to have this comedian wander around and act in an offensively stereotypical manner in the hopes of making people visibly uncomfortable. (The critical reaction so far seems to show that while Bruno did his intended job, and got some rises out of the yokels, what makes many people really uncomfortable is the idea of a straight man playing a hugely offensive gay stereotype.)
The second, Humpday, opened in just two cinemas in the United States. Its aims were smaller, and simpler, and smarter: it's a comedy about two straight men, who have known each other for many years, and how they try to close the rift in their friendship (one is married, and quickly growing up; the other couldn't grow up if he tried) by having sex with each other. They intend for the sex to be filmed; they intend for it to be exhibited at a local "art porn" festival; it's not entirely certain – to us, or to them – what else they intend for it to be. Whatever it is, they want it to happen; whatever it is, they're scared.

Now you can read the rest of it! Over at CiF! I will probably never be this positive about anything ever again (and, hey: maybe if "Humpday" ever makes it out into the rest of the world, we can discuss the un-positive aspects of it! Right now I am just hoping that people will actually see it) so I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.

Sexist Beatdown: Not Gonna Milk Passin' That Ball The Fish Slime Also Sarah Palin Resignation For Ya There Edition

2009-07-10T07:32:00.001-07:00

Friends: when is the right time to mourn the passing of something great? When, if that thing is specifically Sarah Palin's political career, vital as it is to the Extremely Lazy Comedy Industry? Do we discuss it the day of its death? The day after? When whatever insane dirt caused this passing (LATE-TERM MOOSE ABORTIONS) eventually surfaces? Or just when about a week has passed and we are tired of dirt-waiting?

It turned out to be that last one, actually. For Sexist Beatdown is upon us again! In this edition, we repudiate blogging as usual as the highly unusual Amanda Hess of The Sexist and the slightly more uncomfortably unusual Me of Tiger Beatdown discuss the major events of the day. And how they relate to Megan Fox! Also: prepare yourselves, for one of us will make a shocking announcement.

ILLUSTRATION: Hey, remember when you thought this was real? This was SO NOT WEIRD ENOUGH to be real! Also: not disastrous enough for women.

SADY: amanda, i have something sad to tell you. i am resigning from this chat.

AMANDA: aw. okay

SADY: NO! STOP TRYING TO WOO ME BACK! This resignation of mine: it is final. Anyway, now that I have resigned from the chat, we can move on to new, more invigorating forms of activity, such as chatting. As long as it is not "chatting as usual," I am all for it! I have vague theories as to how this will be good for Alaska.

AMANDA: i think the whole thing (minus her being a terrible governor) may have been good for alaska. who cares about the people who live near all that oil? not me, until now. suddenly, i'm very concerned with how corrupt their government seems.

SADY: right: the well-being of Alaska is now paramount in our minds, in a way it has not been since the heyday of "Northern Exposure." for example: we now know that investigations into the ethics violations of those who run alaska is very bad for alaska. it slows down the business of (unethically?) governing alaska.

AMANDA: yes, and the business of engineering unusual politics. i know everyone criticizes sarah palin for denouncing politics as usual, but to her credit, she is an extremely unusual politician

SADY: right. for example, she appears to have developed an entirely new theory of politics that revolves principally around point guards and how important it is for them to pass balls to things. for VICTORY.
yet: as unusual as she has been (and this is at once an unusually mild yet extremely apt characterization!) my question is: basically, she has no other job now to be unusual at. so what is she going to do now?

AMANDA: personally, i would be very interested in sarah palin also resigning from Last-Minute Imagined Monologue By Maureen Dowd i cannot take any more tongue-in-cheek grizzly references sullying the pages of the New York Times.

SADY: Oh, God! I had not seen this previously! It is entitled "SARAH'S SECRET DIARY!" How many unicorns do you suppose are on the cover? And are they in the business of making leprechauns pay for their own rape kits?

AMANDA: i was wondering about those rape kits the other day. you know how sarah palin pretended to be obsessed with wasteful government spending that didn't include additions to her wardrobe?

SADY: yes, indeed.

AMANDA: i thought that everyone in alaska actually received money from the government instead of paying the government. "i won't have my anti-taxes going toward finding justice for alaskan rapists"

SADY: well, that is only as long as the government does not spend money on basic government-y things. like prosecuting crime. basically, the money goes directly to you and then you... um... hire a policeman to find your rapist? or something? look, what is important is that we PASS THE BALL that symbolizes rape kits to the HOOP THAT IS JUSTICE.

AMANDA: because that's your economic choice. ooh, the sports references get a little icky when applied to the rape problem.

SADY: oh. goodness. yes, they do.

AMANDA: rape, see? it's like, a sport. so what do you think she's going to do?

SADY: i have no idea. at this point, i even feel bad making fun of her. because i think that fuels the Sarah Palin, Media Circus deal that is her. and i basically think she quit the job because she'd reached the point wherein she could take Sarah Palin, Media Circus on the road, independent of the job of governing that one big oily state next to Canada.

AMANDA: you know, when you announced your sudden and unexpected resignation from Sexist Beatdown, and said "NO! STOP TRYING TO WOO ME BACK!" it occured to me that that's not really a response we've heard from palin's resignation. we've heard supporters say 'she's doing the right thing!' but not really, 'oh no, alaska will miss you soooo much as governor.' although maybe i'm reading the wrong sarah palin blogs.

SADY: ha, yeah. i have read some alaskans cursing her for messing up their state's business, messing up their state's reputation, and then just unexpectedly leaving and forcing everyone to deal with a lieutenant governor they know nothing about who may or may not be able to clean it up. yet i have heard no one say, "if only sarah palin were around to continue governing our state in her previously accustomed manner of total competence and reliability!"

AMANDA: yeah, so i think we, as THE MEDIA, should take a moment and say that sarah palin is probably completely right. this is the best move she could have made, for the people of alaska.

SADY: right. her resignation is a mystery and i keep expecting to read a headline that says she is secretly running an abortion clinic, or has a meth lab in her basement, or something. yet this resignation may actually turn out to be exactly what it appears to be: a politician realizing that she has a vote of no confidence from the people she governs. and then just sort of taking her toys and going home.

AMANDA: moving on, can i tell you how much i appreciate your take on the new diablo cody trailer? (yes, people: we review trailers now)

SADY: TRAILER REVIEWINGS ARE IMPORTANT. how else will we know what trailers to accidentally see on the internet or in theaters?

AMANDA: I had no idea that Megan Fox was in this movie, and I think it's interesting that feminist bloggers are like "we're totally torn on whether this is feminist or not!" because I think Fox has really situated herself as a feminist antihero, or perhaps, an antifeminist hero. because she is THE WORST, and yet, she's doing this movie which i think will probably be at the very least interesting.

SADY: yes, i cannot tell where megan fox exists on the feminism/antifeminism spectrum. actually i think she is one of those girls who drives me insane because she doesn't give a damn and does what she wants and i think it is all kind of feminist and commendable, but then it turns out that she actually hates girls.

AMANDA: she should do a "millionaires" video!

SADY: girls talk shit. megan fox doesn't care. she'll take off her underwear! actually, perhaps "Jennifer's Body" is an extended Millionaires video, ala Thriller, and I have been duped.

AMANDA: i'm glad we've finally figured out the ideal next move for sarah palin, which is to star in a diablo cody horror film soundtracked by the millionaires.

SADY: um, actually, i think her wacky nonsensical statements accompanied by graphic turkey death already fit that description.

AMANDA: oh, thanks, my brain had trashed that one.

SADY: where is my video editing software? i am going to add SO MUCH VOCODER TO THAT VIDEO. thank you, sarah palin, for my new career.

BONUS VIDEO: Now, if only we could find some way to add blow-job miming dude strippers and GarageBand.

Tales of Performative Gender PRESENTS: Humpday

2009-07-09T16:36:00.001-07:00

So: I took this morning's post down! Whoops. In my defense, it was pretty dumb. Also, I consider it my responsibility, as a person who writes blog posts, to give the people what they want!

Strangely, no one ever e-mails me to request poorly thought-out and pretentious ramblings about a book I am not finished reading. No! What THE PEOPLE (meaning the two friends who e-mailed me this link) ask is for me to read the recent New York Times profile of director Lynn Shelton!

Because here is the headline of the recent New York Times profile of director Lynn Shelton:

She’s a Director Who’s Just Another Dude

Huh.

So: Lynn Shelton is the director of the film "Humpday," which I have been waiting to see for approximately forever, because I believe it will be either the best or worst thing that has ever happened. It has been described as an "Apatovian" "bromance" about some dudes who wind up having sex! Here are some factors that lead me to feel that this may be obnoxious: (1) they are straight dudes who (2) do it, basically, on a dare, and (3) the movie is apparently devoted to how uncomfortable (one might use the word "panicked!") they are. Also, one of them is Josh from The Blair Witch Project. (Joooshhh?!? JOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!!) But, given the fact that the entire "bromance" genre is about the precise limits to which straight dudes can take their affection for each other without getting all gay-panicky (hint: not that far), I do have hopes that the movie might actually have some kind of point.

Let's not spend too much time debating the merits of "Humpday," however! Especially given the fact that I have not actually seen it yet! Let us speak about the article - which, despite being a whole lot smarter than the headline, does eventually come around to the following point:

Speaking of the comfort level it took to “expose myself, no pun intended,”* Mr. Duplass credited Ms. Shelton’s facility with actors, enthusiasm for the working process and, tangentially, her greater affinity for men: “You know those girls who are closer with dudes, in general? She’s got a little bit of that going on, so that obviously plays into it.”

It’s a preference several men expressed on Ms. Shelton’s behalf.

So, you can see where the title comes in. Surely, as a person who makes the "bromances," Ms. Shelton must have some special, not-at-all-girly qualities that allow her to work with the non-girl actors! After all, she is not making the sort of movies that girls are supposed to make - movies about how you can get old and still date Jack Nicholson, or have a satisfying wedding despite your wacky Greek family, or be Julia Child, or whatever - so, really: isn't there something wrong with her? Wouldn't there have to be something wrong with her, in order for her to do these movies well? I mean: maybe the reason she's not making girly movies is that she's just not really a girl.

It's not an uncommon assumption. Kathryn Bigelow has been making action movies for decades - and, despite the fact that it probably takes no special manly insight to know that watching things blow up can be exciting, she's always been viewed as sort of a freak. "What's consistently set Bigelow apart is her ability to play tough in a traditionally masculine world," the AV Club noted in a review of her vampire movie Near Dark. (Play tough? Does making an action movie now require you to have real-live knife fights? Does she have to publicly execute an extra every morning to maintain control of the set?) This is shortly after they've invited viewers to click on a video of a scene in which a boy vampire feeds from a girl vampire, and have reluctantly suggested that it's "tempting to credit these more tender moments to Bigelow's feminine touch." Actually, the scene they have shown is not "tender" so much as it is "explicitly shot to look like cunnilingus" - there are SOME things to be said for the feminine touch, I guess - but you get the point. The point is that doing anything non-stereotypically-girly, as a filmmaker, somehow calls your gender into question. People may not necessarily condemn you, but they do need to process you, explain you, figure out precisely how female or male you are.

In the comments, by the way, some viewers suggest that some of Near Dark's particularly gory scenes weren't directed by Bigelow at all - their "shocking violence" and "effectiveness," they think, mean that they must have been shot by Bigelow's then-husband, James Cameron.

Yes, James Cameron. Director of the single most lucrative girl movie of all time.

But, weirdly, James Cameron's gender cred isn't at all affected by that one movie with the boat and all the tearful kissing. (A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets! And urges to dance with the simple people in Steerage!) At least, I don't recall reading any rumors that his girlfriend secretly directed the love scenes, or seeing Titanic-era profiles with headlines like "JAMES CAMERON: 'TERMINATOR' DIRECTOR NOW BASICALLY A LADY." For some reason, men can assert their authority over female genres pretty easily. The problem happens when women do good work in genres reserved for men.

So, anyway. Here's Lynn Shelton's response to the question about whether she liked men better than women and/or was a gender traitor:

She was briefly and uncharacteristically speechless — considering the sources, perhaps — then let loose one of her tumbling guffaws.

You can't blame her.

*This guy sounds like THE WORST.

Geeks Do Not Have Pedigrees, Or Perfect Punk Rock Resumes: In Which I Spring to the Defense of Diablo Cody

2009-07-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

You guys? I think I really like the "Jennifer's Body" trailer.

I mean it! I am excited for the upcoming feature film "Jennifer's Body!" Which is by DIABLO CODY!

Now: I am not a cool person. I know some people who are cool! And one of the things that the cool people enjoy, apparently, is talking about how much they do not like Diablo Cody.

I can see where they are coming from, sort of! Diablo Cody is weird, like an American Apparel advertisement or Hot Topic or the music of 2012th-wave feminist band Millionaires: "cute" and "cool" in a way that consists of pitching "cute" and "cool" all the way out into the bleachers, basically just hollering, "YOU GUYS. LOOK AT HOW COOL I AM. ALSO, CUTE. I AM PRETTY CUTE, RIGHT?" And nobody thinks that is cute or cool, actually. Not even me.

If we could keep the conversation on this level, that would be fun. Unfortunately, when people talk about Diablo Cody, they tend to slip pretty easily into what is known, in the feminism industry, as "stupid misogynist bullshit." For example: did you know that she was once a STRIPPER? I mean: strippers! Who write about stripping! And later become successful in other fields in which they do not strip! Jokes ahoy!

So, cool people: I would like to join you in not liking Diablo Cody. Unfortunately, I think you are huge sexists. Also, despite her grating attempts at cool cuteness, or cute coolness, or whatever, I keep getting this feeling that this Cody woman is actually far smarter - and, specifically, far more feminist - than she lets on.

You guys, have I mentioned that I really think I like the trailer for "Jennifer's Body?"

I know, right? It is so embarrassing. Because, "buff your situation?" No. "Phuking?" AIIIIIEEEEEEE, and also: no. Yet, consider!

1) THIS IS A MOVIE BY SOME LADIES. It came from a screenplay by a lady, and was directed by a lady. Also? It is a HORROR movie, by some ladies! Now: who here can name a genre of film which is typically gendered as uber-masculine, and yet is preoccupied with themes of sex, perversion, violence, victimization, freakish bodies, bodily invasion, female purity, and subjugation to transpersonal, malevolent and uncontrollable forces, and is therefore pretty much made for girls to play with? Was your answer "costume drama?" Because, if so, I doubt your reasoning. I am of the opinion that girls need to make more horror movies. If you can combine a subversive critique of patriarchal sexuality with some chainsaw murders, I am on your side.

2) THE SUBVERSIVE CRITIQUE OF PATRIARCHAL SEXUALITY starts, in this trailer, right around the point when Naked Megan Fox, Professional Hot Lady, extends her mouth to about five times its natural size and eats a dude with it. Because: female sexual desirability is simultaneously prized and demonized. Female appetites, sexual or otherwise, are unilaterally feared and shamed. Women's mouths, like most of our potentially dude-pleasuring orifices, are eroticized. Yet the "devouring" or "toothed" vagina is an ancient bogeyman. If you asked me to concretize all of that stuff in 1.5 seconds of trailer footage, I would have no idea how to go about it. I wouldn't know what it ought to look like. As it turns out, however, it looks almost exactly like Naked Megan Fox, Professional Hot Lady, eating a dude with her giant scary mouth.

3) HEY, IS THAT AMANDA SEYFRIED? It totally is! Hi, Amanda Seyfried! You are wonderful!

4) DID I MENTION THAT IT IS A MOVIE MADE BY SOME LADIES? Leaving aside the situation-buffing and Phuking (again: no, and no), there are actually two funny moments in this very trailer. In the first, Amanda Seyfried tells her friend, Currently Not Naked Megan Fox, that she's "killing people." Megan Fox rolls her eyes and says, "no, I'm killing BOYS." In the second, Amanda Seyfried, whilst getting it on, shrieks in terror. Her exceedingly dorky-looking boyfriend asks her if he is "too big." Now: men are lovely, and have written very lovely things in the past, and continue to write lovely things to this very day. However, here is one thing men cannot, if their track record is any indication, pull off: get the female (hetero)sexual experience to such a degree that they can write scenes like these.

5) LET'S TALK SOME MORE ABOUT AMANDA SEYFRIED, AGAIN. Because, yes, there is the sexy sleepover, and also "I Go Both Ways," and this causes me to go into a whole Katy-Perrian realm in which my thoughts are unhappy. (You guys! This is almost as bad as the "Phuking!") Yet, if Jennifer and/or Naked Megan Fox represent unbridled female appetite, which is demonized and (in this movie) literally demonic, then Amanda Seyfried is the Last Girl Standing: the pretty blonde horror-movie fixture who survives because she resists sexuality. In most of these movies, the Last Girl Standing is the one who successfully runs away from or tricks a male monster who stands for predatory male sexuality - death for her would also, symbolically, be rape, what with all the penetration-y stabbings and such that are typical in this sort of movie. If "Jennifer's Body" wanted to flip the script, it could have gone another, grosser way: a boy running scared of the toothy devouring lady-orifice, and eventually taming or destroying it. Yet that doesn't happen here. The monster and the victim, the pure and the impure, are both girls. There is even complicity between them. But girls are afraid of female sexuality too - afraid of its consequences, or of the loss of control or purity that it represents. We're afraid of it in each other, and we're afraid of it in ourselves. The relationship between Jennifer and Not-Jennifer is about female relationships, yeah: about the way we can be drawn to other women, and be in awe of them, and fear or hate them at the same time. But it's also about the psychological struggle that takes place within women (or, often, as in this case, adolescent girls) themselves. It's not about running away from the killer/rapist. It's about you: what you will permit yourself to want.

6) YOU GUYS, I REALLY THINK THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS STUPID AS IT LOOKS. Even with the "Phuking!" Damn that Diablo Cody.

AND NOW, A GUEST POST: Fuck Your Fascist Body Standards (And Also Face-Devouring Bread Mold, Because That's Just Scary)

2009-07-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

Friends, there is a new tradition arising at Tiger Beatdown: the tradition of me, Sady, haranguing one of my favorite commenters until she finally agrees to do a guest post. Today's guest post comes from Chelsea! She comments as ChelseaWantsOut, and also sometimes as Chex. All other information pertaining to her life is mysterious; this may have something to do with the fact that she is actually Batman. Well: such is my theory.

My best friend Hanna recently started dating another friend of mine, Abbey, who I’ve known since second grade (a quick shout-out to my elementary school tee-ball team: Sparkles REPRESENT!), and it’s a little weird.

The way they met was pretty cute. There’s this whole story involving Abbey’s brother and a pool party and a bunch of “oh, you’re THAT Hanna/Abbey?” Anyway, they’re a lovely couple, but just yesterday they emerged from the opening phase of the relationship life cycle, the warm insular eggy first month of staring lovingly into one another’s eyes and never disagreeing, and there was the usual amount of pecking that goes into breaking that barrier. The fight they had will seem trivial to some of us, since we are superfeminists who haven’t bought into the beauty standard since eons of the unenlightened masses’ Patriarchy-years ago, but here it is anyway:

Hanna was upset with Abbey because Abbey wouldn’t stop telling her she was beautiful.

Abbey refused to “admit” that Hanna is empirically hideous. As Hanna confided, “I don’t need her telling me lies to get me to love her. I would be happier if she would just tell me the truth so that I didn’t have to be so uncomfortable. It’s okay that I am not pretty. I can still be loved and loving without that.” And later, “What scares me is that I do trust her. And I feel sad that she is so infatuated with me that she thinks I am beautiful. I will let her down when she realizes I am not and I am terrified of losing her.”

The reason this incident is significant to me, apart from the fact that someone I love very much and think is gorgeous genuinely believes herself to be unattractive (and she’s fine with that, really! Except when she’s not!), is that (despite what I said in the first paragraph) I’m there a lot of times, too. Me! Makeupless, unshaven, debrassiered, loud feminist Chelsea still occasionally looks in the mirror and thinks, ugh, those cheek creases, what’s with my nose, I’m so damn flat-chested, look at all the myriad ways in which I don’t resemble perfect perfect beauty wonder! I still spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to wuss out of wearing shorts for fear someone will see my hairy legs and make fun of me. I still use a complex algorithm to determine the precise level of femininity appropriate for the outfit I wear to any given outing or social function.

And that pisses me the fuck off.

I don’t want to think those things and I don’t want to have to spend lots of time and energy trying to reprogram my brain so that I don’t. I want a world in which acquaintances would never dream of telling me how “disgusting” my body hair is, both because they respect me as a person and don’t feel it is their privilege to judge my appearance and because it simply does not disgust them. I want a world in which women are encouraged to love their bodies and use them in positive ways of their choosing, instead of hate them and subject them to the will of all mankind.

But until that world exists, I don’t think the answer is to say, “I am unpleasant to look at, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Even that guy who had most of his face devoured by some kind of face-devouring strain of bread mold has a wife who enjoys looking at him. She changed her ideas of what is aesthetically pleasing, and we can do the same for ourselves. We NEED to do the same for ourselves for our own fucking sanity. It’s going to be hard as hell, and it’s so fucking unfair that we have to do this, but it’s better than spending our lives thinking we’re hideous and dodging cameras like thrown punches.

So here is your homework which I am giving to you on Sady’s blog because I am THAT presumptuous: Do some cheesy-ass self-help shit. Pretend you are someone else and give yourself compliments in the mirror. Write yourself a letter detailing all the things you like about your appearance. Do the exercises from that one post on Shapely Prose, however fat or thin you are. Do some affirmations or something. Masturbate furiously. Because, seriously, you are pleasant to look at. The people who love you enjoy looking at you, and I’m sure there are people who don’t even know you who enjoy looking at you. Your corporeal form is really neat and I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times, but your body does really spectacular things, too.

And Hanna, Abbey doesn’t conform to the ridiculous beauty standard imposed by our society any better than you do. And you are both beautiful.

Shut Up, Cunt! The Cultural Logic Of 97th-Wave Feminist Band Millionaires

2009-07-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

Ladies: I have bad news for you. Feminism is over.

No! I am serious! Feminism - that is, the belief that women deserve full autonomy, full participation in the public sphere, and the right to make their own choices - is totally dead. No sane person can believe in it now. Why is that, you ask? Well, because SOME OF YOU - and I am not naming names, here - made the choice to participate in the public sphere by starting the band "Millionaires."

You know, Millionaires, I have some thoughts about this video. My thoughts are: WHAT.

Millionaires has been around for a year or more, apparently! Sometimes on a thing called "The Warped Tour"? I don't know what the kids are up to today.

Now: I have been engaged in Millionaires Studies since 9:00 this morning, when the gentleman with whom I happen to date woke me up, with a manic gleam in his eye, and was like, "ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE A BLOG POST ABOUT MILLIONAIRES? YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO IT. YOU SHOULD WRITE A BLOG POST ABOUT MILLIONAIRES. LOOK AT THIS MILLIONAIRES VIDEO I HAVE SEEN." Also he showed me videos by Brokencyde and Attack Attack? I don't get him.

Now: I will, indeed, write a blog post about Millionaires. ("CALL IT 'MILLIONAIRES: THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM!'" No.) Because one of the most interesting things about Millionaires is that many of their songs are about how much people hate the music of the band Millionaires! The people that they envision as "haters" of the band Millionaires are, specifically, girls.

They have an entire song about this! It is called, "Talk Shit," and it is available on their MySpace! Which is kind of what it would look like if one of those girls who self-tans a lot and wears the Playboy bunny shirts vomited out 19 apple martinis and also the contents of her subconscious onto your face! It has done a lot for me, in terms of illustrating how any dialogue with Millionaires might go.

"Seriously, Millionares: WHAT?" I would say. "Shut up, cunt! I'll cut your tongue," Millionaires would say. "Again, WHAT?" I would say. "I fucked your son," they'd say. "I don't even have a son! That makes no sense," I would reply! "You can get [your boyfriend] back; look like this and fuck like that," would be Millionaires' response.

That's where things would get serious. Because, seriously, Millionaires: what is up? Why all of the references to girls who think you are "annoying" because they are "jealous?" Do you really think that all of the women who have issues with you are upset because THEY are not the ones paying half-naked black men to play strippers who pour champagne directly from bottles into their mouths in what is more or less a direct rip from porn (THE BOTTLES SYMBOLIZE PENISES)? Is the problem just that we all wish we could be huge racists? Because I do not think that is the problem, actually, Millionaires.

I think the problem is that when you are including lyrics like "no talent, just lucky, they still want to fuck me" in your singles you are basically saying that there is nothing good about you outside of the fact that boys want to touch you with their boners, and selling your fuckability as literally the only valuable thing about your person - the badge of your worth, and the sum total of your accomplishment, in fact. Whereas a whole bunch of us are not so convinced. We know that you are actually probably having unsatisfying two-minute hump sessions with dudes who think that Brokencyde is the sound of their souls and also don't want to use condoms because they might extend the hump sessions past two minutes, which would be AWFUL. We are not "jealous" of this! You will never believe it, but "jealousy" is actually the very last thing we experience when faced with such a prospect!

But that makes us cunts, right? Whereas the guys who are doing you or determining you to be a candidate for doing based on the fact that you pour play money over your boobs are totally awesome. Those are the dudes who are going to be there for you when the chips are down. Those are the people whose good opinion and respect and friendship it is not only desirable, but totally possible, to obtain.

Bad news, ladies: you're cunts, too. We're all cunts, to those guys. We're either cunts they're going to fuck, or cunts they used to fuck (SHE WAS A PSYCHO, BRO. SHE GOT ALL MAD JUST BECAUSE I SLEPT WITH A BUNCH OF OTHER GIRLS AND DIDN'T TELL HER ABOUT IT) or cunts they don't want to fuck, which are the worst cunts of all, of course, because the cunts they don't want to fuck often scare the shit out of them, due to the fact that those cunts don't constantly send out signals indicating that it would just be the bestest thing ever if boys such as themselves would honor them with a boner. And this is a survival tactic, for many cunts of the latter category: we're actually, purposefully, trying to scare those guys off, so that we can determine which ones get freaked out by women who act like people, and maybe eventually end up dating ones who don't get freaked out, who not only sleep with us and maybe have feelings for us that are of the romantical nature but actually like us, the way you would like a person.

Millionaires? Are you listening to me, young ladies? This is the voice of wisdom! I am TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD, so I can speak to the younger generation!

Oh, Jesus. "Let's get fucked up?" This is not even a lyric. This is a vague mission plan for what a lyric might be, should you ever get around to writing lyrics. This is like if Nirvana (a band the old people once enjoyed!) wrote a song called "Let's Do A Lot Of Heroin And Be Depressed." It is like if there were a Ramones song called "This Is A Limited Number of Simple Chords, Played Really Really Fast." If Eddie Vedder ever wrote a song called "I Will Now Bellow Earnestly Into Your Ear," that is the equivalent of this lyric, I am telling you. Millionaires: WHAT?

You're twelve years old. You're twelve years old, aren't you? Only a twelve-year-old thinks of White Zinfandel as the height of alcoholic debauchery. Well: you are either twelve years old, or my mom.

Sexist Beatdown: The True Meaning Of Sex Edition

2009-07-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

Greetings, fellow adult humans! Do you know what "sex" is?

I have news for you: no, you totally don't! At least, not if you are an American. There have been studies, and they tell us that none of us actually knows what the word denotes! "Sex," therefore, should be legitimately impossible to use in a conversation, as it refers to no set concept. We will have to make up another word for that thing with the thing and the other thing touching the thing in it. I suggest "crotch fiesta."

Until "crotch fiesta" ("Crotchtoberfest?") catches on, however, we will have to use this "sex" term. Here, Amanda Hess of The Sexist and I try to figure it out: using LITERATURE, CINEMA, and "TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET" as our guides to its infinite complexity!

ILLUSTRATION: When two people and some bunny suits and the stairs leading to the elevated N train love each other very much...

AMANDA: hi

SADY: why hello!

AMANDA: do you want to talk now?

SADY: yes indeed! first off, i think we should acknowledge that approximately 125,000 celebrities will have died by the time we post this.* THE GRIM REAPER HAS COME FOR CELEBRITY

AMANDA: and they never learned the true meaning of sex!

SADY: ah, yes. apparently, americans "can't agree" on it! this is something i could in no way have learned from my own personal life of dating. i define sex as a peanut butter sandwich. is that so wrong?

AMANDA: when involved in a high-profile political scandal, i define sex as "one step past whatever i did with that woman"

SADY: i personally define sex as "anything you can't tell grandma about for fear she might lose her tenuous grip on this mortal coil." but the studies themselves are intriguing!

AMANDA: yeah definitely. i think, though, that they may be lacking in context. like, it's not as important to define what "sex" is as it is to define what we're comfortable with people doing with us or with other people. i feel like defining sex is just inviting loopholes. see: anal sex to keep virginity.

SADY: right, exactly.

AMANDA: and any cheater's excuse about anything

SADY: and many many men's magazine think-pieces about how it's not cheating if it is with a stripper or other sex worker

AMANDA: or in argentina. etc.

SADY: oddly, the men's definitions of sex tend to be more liberal than the ladies', though, as per this particular article! like: forty-four percent of men surveyed said that oral sex was doin' it. only thirty-seven percent of ladies said the same.

AMANDA: yeah, that was a surprise to me. i have a theory on this. it's good.

SADY: i eagerly await it!

AMANDA: ok, so women are socialized to downplay their sexual expertise in order to not appear as--- i believe the scientific word is "slutty". and so may tend for the stricter definition in self-reporting. whereas men may want to fudge it a little bit in order to be able to put another notch in the bedpost

SADY: there is actually a long passage in that keith gessen novel ("All The Sad Young Literary Men") that backs up your theory. observe how i move smoothly from actual science to literature! but: the dude is trying to figure out his Number and his List and whatever and is trying to figure out how liberal his definition needs to be. he concludes, if i remember aright, that blowjobs should indeed count in The Number!

AMANDA: sha-wing

SADY: whereas ladies might indeed self-identify as Virgins, a la Dionne in "Clueless" (CINEMA! INTERDISCIPLINARIAN THOUGHT!) had they only, say, given the BJs, or received the Lady BJs. actually, this study is weirdly non-specific about Giving and Receiving of sexual favors.

AMANDA: yeah, i noticed that also. allow me to extend an example from yet another genre, the Hip Hopera.

SADY: please do!

AMANDA: one thing that i've always found is important in these definitions is who is doing the sexing or non-sexing. so, a man could get Very Very mad at his girlfriend kissing another man, while he's out Real Penis Vagina sexing some other woman. and maybe it's not so much men excusing their own behavior while demonizing women, but that, as an individual, you can excuse your own guilt because you know the emotional context, the strength of the temptation, etc. etc. See: R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, where everyone is fucking everyone else and they all get PISSED when they find out their significant other has been doing the same thing.

SADY: yes, and yet i feel that (since this article is all about contextualizing "sex" in light of certain political figures putting the Thing in the Places Where You Ought Not To) that there has probably never been a case of someone being cheaterly without KNOWING that they were being a cheaterly cheater. i think you can basically define "cheating" as "that thing you're going to feel really guilty about not telling your wife and/or husband and/or unmarried life partner because you know, for some reason, even if there was no Sexual contact involved by any definition, that you did something they would not like."

AMANDA: totally. i think the rush to define it, in the case of the high-profile cheating, is that the public is just honestly curious about the sexy details. not that we like, want to know what sex is.

SADY: right? especially if they took place in argentina! and involve THE FORBIDDEN PASSIONS that you told everyone you were on the Appalachian Trail to cover up! all of the futzing around, semantically, can be useful only when trying to figure out how the other person involved sees your sexual exchange... but no-one's denying that the exchange was sexual, in that case. the actual interest is kind of in knowing what other people have been up to.

AMANDA: and, in the case of say, gay sex, trying to define them out of the mainstream or out of existence. like, sure, you can put your penis in his butt, but it's not sex, whatever it is you're doing. which i refuse to equate with my penis in vagina business.

SADY: ha, yeah, or sex between women, in which case basically everything outside of a strap-on is relegated to "foreplay." never "duringplay."

AMANDA: UGGGGHHHH i feel myself sliding into the inevitable rant about the supremacy of the male orgasm in the sexual blah de blah and how that's what this is all REALLY about and i can't force myself to do it.

SADY: you sure? i have lots of thoughts about how the penis-in-vagina-as-real-sex thing is totally not good even for couples that have, respectively, penises and vaginas! LOTS OF THOUGHTS I TELL YOU.

AMANDA: save it for another sexist beatdown.

* This is not true. The only thing that has died is Sarah Palin's political career! HEY-OOOOOO.

Bathing Suit Areas and Sex-Positivity: A Post In Which I Talk To Your Children, Sort Of

2009-06-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

*** WARNING: IF YOU KNOW ME IN REAL LIFE, YOU SHOULDN'T READ THIS POST ***

*** WARNING: I AM SERIOUS, IF YOU KNOW ME AND WE GO OUT TO DINNER AND YOU HAVE TO MAKE POLITE CONVERSATION DURING WHICH IT IS NECESSARY TO LOOK ME IN THE EYE, YOU MIGHT REGRET HAVING READ THIS POST ***

***WARNING: ACTUALLY, MOST OF THE POSTS I HAVE PLANNED FOR THIS WEEK ARE OFF-LIMITS ***

*** WARNING: THEY'RE ALL ABOUT GETTING IT ON ***

Why, hello there, strangers! It's a pleasure to speak with you today! About the Human Sexual Urges!

I am, as you may know, a former educator about the Human Sexual Urges, and how best to gratify them. (MEANING: I sold sex toys, but I had to talk to people about what they wanted and how best to make that happen, for my shop was of the Sex-Positive and Educational variety!) I earned slightly more than minimum wage for my expertise, so you can imagine that I am quite the whiz.

Actually, the most important part of having educational conversations about the HSUs is realizing that no-one, ever, really, is comfortable having them; there is always a delicate balance, when talking about one's sexual habits, between being overly graphic and coming across as a lascivious weirdo who is just having this conversation so that you can masturbate about it later, or being "polite" according to normal social conventions and basically not saying anything at all. My one great gift in this arena is that I find sex to be totally fascinating in an abstract way, and also was born with a defective Shame Gland, and so could have relatively specific and instructional two-way conversations on the topic of, say, how best to put things up your butt for sex reasons, in a chipper and detached manner, as if I were telling the customers which vacuum cleaner attachments were best for cleaning their upholstery. Once you can convince a middle-aged heterosexual man who is shopping with his wife that you really don't CARE that he puts things up his butt for sex reasons, and that your chief concern is that he does so in a way that is both medically safe and personally fulfilling, the conversation gets a lot easier.

Do you know what I have never done, however? I have never taught a child about sex! Which is why this comment fascinated me so:

I hereby submit a request for a post about how to talk to our pre-pubescent daughters about this thing they hear about called "sex" (as in, where-do-babies-come-from kind of sex). When I tentatively told my almost-nine-year-old daughter about the sperm and the egg gettig together, I was vague about the mechanics because I refused to tell her "he sticks his penis in you", like it's something that happens to her, like her role is one of passivity. I didn't want that to be the first thing she ever heard about the mechanics of the act. But, I didn't want to say, "you put your vagina on him"...I mean, when she's trying to grasp the basic facts of HOW this occurs...the question of agency, of who does what to whom and HOW, was so freaking tricky that I really didn't tell her any details at all... as a feminist, and as her mother, I'd really like to give her the non-misogynist, non-passive view of her part in the act before she hears about it otherwise. You're the first person I've run across on the web with a blog that might actually be open to hosting a discussion about the language involved in introducing, from a feminist perspective, the basics of how "traditional" conception is accomplished. You up for it?

I sure am! Because, also, there was this comment:

You know what? I think your comment has totally changed my approach to how to talk to my daughter about this. ""Sex" is an umbrella term which I've used to denote a wide variety of consensual activities intended to help the parties involved get off. Masturbation is sex; mutual masturbation or digital stimulation of one party by another is sex; oral sex is sex; anal sex is sex; pivving is sex." I kinda want to explain "s-e-x" to her like this, even exactly in those words, but how do you define "get off" to a pre-adolesent?

It is a fascinating question! One which I have never before attempted to answer! However, here is why it is important to me: had we been having these conversations all along, there might be a significantly smaller part of the population stumbling into Educational Sex-Positive Spaces feeling deep embarrassment that they (gasp!) enjoy the sex that is not all about Making Babies, or staying away from those spaces and just sort of fumbling through unsafe or unsexy sex in which their instructions come from either equally clueless former partners or (at best) tremendously unrealistic porn. (Seriously, people: I've said it before and I'll say it again: using mainstream porn to teach yourself how to have sex is like the government using Die Hard as an anti-terrorism manual.) Indeed, if we were raising all our kids with a comfortable, positive attitude towards the Sex, including the Sex that is not undertaken for purposes of Making Babies, we might have a far more progressive national conversation re: sex and people who aren't necessarily setting out to Make Babies with it (GLBT folks, ladies on birth control, etc.) in general!

So, for the record, here is how I would set out to have this conversation with a child. I am going to say, a child of about five or six. Not being a parent myself, I am hoping that parents will chime in with corrections and additional thoughts!

"You know, [Timmy and/or Suzy], I think it is time for you to know some stuff about how our bodies work. This is stuff you will not need to know many details about until you are grown up, because it is a very grown-up topic, but I think you are probably old enough to know some basics about it right now.

"We've already talked about how your privates are private, right? They belong to you, and you should never feel like you have to let another person touch them or look at them, and you should never try to force another person to show you theirs or let you touch them. If someone tries to do this to you, you know that you need to come to me and tell me that, because that is a very serious, very bad thing to do to someone, and people who do it need to be punished."

I like to start the conversation off by emphasizing that violating someone's boundaries or doing anything non-consensual is a bad thing! I also think we need to teach the children that everyone else has boundaries, just like they do, and that they should respect the boundaries of others. I don't assume that the children are out doing terrible things to each other, of course, but the fact is that we live in a culture that doesn't stress full and informed consent as a prerequisite, so stressing that at home is a good solid idea.

"Now: when you grow up, your privates are going to change [I KNOW, THIS IS DORKY. ROLL WITH IT - Ed.] and touching them or having them touched will feel good. This isn't going to happen to you for a long time. People need to be grown up before they touch each other in those ways. There are a lot of ways that grown-ups touch each other to make each other feel good, and as long as they both want to do this and they like each other, that's a good thing. It can be a way for people who are in love to express that, for example. Sometimes girls do this with girls, sometimes boys do this with boys, and sometimes boys and girls do it with each other. Every grown-up has their own favorite ways to touch someone or to be touched, and, again: as long as the people who are involved are grown-ups, and they like each other, and they both want to do it, that's a good thing."

THIS IS TOTALLY VAGUE. I know! You can see why I want parents to actually weigh in on this business! But I think it is important to stress that this stuff is done for the purpose of feeling good, and that there are lots of ways that it happens other than the old Procreative Heterosexual Intercourse, and that all of those ways are cool and good and potentially loving but at the very least friendly. So, you know, we're not doing that whole thing where everyone's genitals are referred to as Baby-Making Devices and other ways of doing it are invisible or shameful and sexualities other than Cisgendered Heterosexual Missionary-Position Enthusiasm are erased.

"Now: one of the ways that grown-up people like to touch each other can lead to having a baby. Some people enjoy having their partner's penis inside their vagina; some people enjoy having their penis inside their partner's vagina."

See? Let's not talk about sticking-it-in versus enveloping-it. It's a thing that people like! On both ends! So, you know. Let's just talk about the fact that the thing has another thing in there. I really dislike terms that imply one person doing sex to another person, especially since the doer is typically a dude with a dick and the done-to is typically a lady with a vagina, which sort of erases the fact that ladies with vaginas are active participants in consensual sex, or should be, and ends up reinforcing both rape culture and the denial of women's sexual agency.

"When this happens, cells called sperm can come from the penis through the vagina, into a space just behind the vagina, which is called the uterus. Those sperm cells combine with egg cells inside the uterus to make a fetus, which is the start of a baby. The fetus grows inside the uterus, and when it's fully grown, it comes through the vagina and is a baby. Having a baby is a serious decision, and not all people who want to do this with each other want to have babies afterward, so they take certain medicines or use other ways to make sure this doesn't happen. It's very important to realize, also, that touching another person in that private way, or being touched by another person, can make you sick. If you touch a person who's sick in that way, you can catch what they have. So when you're grown up, and you start to do this, you will need to know all the ways to be safe. These, we will talk about when you are more grown up."

BIRTH CONTROL! SAFE SEX! NOT REFERRING TO FETUSES AS "BABIES!" Man, I feel progressive right now. I also feel like there is possibly no way I could actually have this conversation without running from the room in a mad panic, and that I am missing a whole lot. So, again: do you have anything better for me, here?

"So, do you have any questions?"

AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Sexist Beatdown: "Year One" As Explanation For, Basically, Everything Edition

2009-06-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

You know people: nostalgia has kind of been dominating the news today! But what of our nostalgia... for times long past? For CAVEMAN TIMES, in fact!

This is basically the entire point of the "science" known as evolutionary psychology! In case you are wondering. In this "science," we take common stereotypes and facets of "human" "behavior" and imagine that cavemen did them, and thereby passed these "genes" onto us! It is a very common explanation for basically everything. Such as, for example, sexism. Or, uh... rape. Yeah, there's a "rape gene" theory involved.

Here is some surprising news for you: all of this is bullshit.

Here, Amanda Hess of The Sexist and I discuss!

SADY: hello!

AMANDA: hi!

SADY: i am very excited to discuss caveman times with you today. scientifically, of course! with caveman science! evolutionary psychology has always been my favorite bullshit science because it just sounds like some creepy guy going, "i'm just WIRED this way" over and over and over.

AMANDA: allow me to suppress my rape gene in order to converse with you for several minutes about all of our rape genes. ahem, yes, evolutionary psychology. it's interesting how in these debates there seems to be a tendency for people to figure out what IS and then justify why what already IS is inevitable (and/or good). people rape? must be because people were so rapey in the past, and now there's just nothing we can do about it. evo psych makes everything so easy!

SADY: right: although, what IS, is predicated very much on stereotypes. like, one part of the article i found fascinating is the idea that rape is actually disastrous in a small community: the "rape" gene is actually a "get beat up and not given food by your fellow tribespeople and also someone might kill your rape baby which defeats the whole procreative rape-gene-spreading thing" gene. or, the idea that male jealousy is somehow intrinsically different from female jealousy and that is why dudes kill "unfaithful" mates. basically, boiling everything down to reproduction entirely misses the point of everything else people have to do to survive. not being known as a dangerous killer or other threat, in a community as small as these very primitive ones we're talking about, is a good survival tactic. well, "primitive" is a bad word for it, since they're using data from contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures to test these points.

AMANDA: sure, and one thing the article doesn't talk about is in nowaday-land, how many women are actually stopping reproductive function entirely by sticking devices in their vaginas and medicine in their bodies. that's just one example where science can help defeat science when our evolutionary history doesn't really fit our needs right now.

SADY: right? exactly! but the whole appeal of the field is that it calls back to One True Natural Human Experience, before the dag-blasted condoms came to take it all away. and it seems - by sheer magical coincidence! - to be a version of True Humanity in which women ought to be sexy, men ought to be powerful, and violence against women makes you happier and more successful. it's kind of ricockulous to project all that back onto Caveman Times, when the fact is that those attitudes are clearly part of our culture NOW, but if you want to run with Fred Flintstone as archetype of undiluted manliness, go on ahead.

AMANDA: and that's why men rape, because at one point, not every man raped, and those men died out because they were PUSSIES.

SADY: CORRECT. Also, men of ye olden days KILLED their stepchildren. do you hear me, timmy? there was none of this "time-out" crap back when men were men!

AMANDA: it's difficult for me to see "rapist" as a characteristic born unto man in any real sense

is "rapist" the magical quality that helps you understand that "no" means "yes"?

or is "rapist" the magical quality that helps you not care, specifically, whether another person wants to have sex with you or not?

SADY: "rapist" is all of that, and more! but, more importantly, "rapist," in this theory, is the MAGICAL GENETIC GETAWAY CAR that allows you to say YOU didn't do it. it was your pesky genes! clamoring for evolutionary dominance! whereas, as the article notes, being a rapist in a small community where that's not tolerated actually has more repercussions than being a rapist in a LARGE community where it's hard to bring rapists to justice. i mean. i think whether you're a rapist might have a lot to do with how rape is received within your culture.

AMANDA: what is this "culture"? that's an interesting point, especially when we're talking about "date rape" or the dreaded (aiee) "grey rape" scenarios---people tend to dislike these terms because they make some forms of rape seem less "serious" than others. but they also, i think, are an attempt to push ACTUAL RAPISTS into thinking of their behavior as rape. when, in the past, many people haven't considered pass-out scenarios as rape at all. so if you can't even think of something as rape, you don't have to think of yourself as a rapist, and that's really convenient!

SADY: right. because "no" was the criteria, not the absence of "yes."

AMANDA: yes but Sady, we were BORN with the "no means no" gene. that's the only way we are able to define rape, as a result.

SADY: oh, right! i mean: how many other "genes" are we born with? is there a bukkake "gene?" is there a blow-job "gene?" is the fact that i find the naked picture of sascha baron cohen on the cover of GQ at once attractive and offensive attributable to a "gene?"

because i'd really like an explanation of that which in no way reflects upon my psyche.

AMANDA: it's natural. can we go back to the beginning for one second? what do you make of the headline of this piece: "Why Do We Rape, Kill and Sleep Around?" a little bit of a one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other trick going on there, Newsweek!

SADY: I like the equation of the last item on the list to the first two! Raping. Murdering. CASUAL SEX. All evil! I also like the fact that these "genetic" explanations for sex do nothing to explain people having sex for fun and profit. it's all procreation, all the time!

AMANDA: how did these fornicators not get weeded out?

SADY: yeah, but. you will notice. the slant of these theories is that male sexuality is a positive, ALWAYS, and female sexuality, if it even exists, is a negative. and there's some beeswax about how ladies have to be "picky" to ensure that they only mate with "the best genetic material," because apparently our vaginas are all hitler, but dudes just have to stick it into ladies as often as possible. no concerns about genetic fitness affect them! so, the headline should really read, Why Do Dudes Rape, Murder, And Sleep Around, Because Ladies Are All Waiting For Their Genetic Prince Charming And Therefore Don't Do Any Of The Above, Except Sometimes They Do?

AMANDA: right. and the answer is, as this story suggests, a lot of these scientists are themselves just kind of fucking weirdos.

SADY: right. i liked the part where the scientists responded to critiques of their work with accusations of MARXISM. "i believe your data to be faulty." "COMMUNIST!" that is what science is all about, right there.

AMANDA: also, that some of these quotes were taken from a scientist bbq.

SADY: oh, lord. why didn't they film the scientist bbq? THAT, i would pay to see.

Michael Jackson, Celebrity, Empathy, and the Culture of Silence

2009-06-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

The thing is: celebrities, they belong to you.

This isn't completely true, of course. They're people. They don't, or shouldn't, belong to anyone but themselves. But to be a writer, an artist, a musician, or any sort of entertainer, is to give people little shreds of yourself - over, and over, and over again. This is true no matter how commercial, or calculated, or patently artificial the stuff you produce might be: even if you're putting on an act, even if you're putting on an act that has a lot of creators, it's still a document of you, what you said or did or how you moved or how you sounded at a certain time; it doesn't exist without you.

If it works - this process of giving yourself to people - it works only because those pieces of you speak to people: they allow people to project their own meanings, or feelings, or needs, or actual or desired identities, onto you. Every single person who takes up that little shred of your life will end up putting more of themselves than of you into it (because they don't know you, obviously) but what they end up with, in the end, is a version of you: a mental construct, maybe (generously) 5% actual You-the-Person and 95% You-as-Composed-of-Associations-and-Projections, some chimerical weird imaginary friend who somehow carries all of the feelings of solace or joy or excitement that they got from your work, and toward whom they feel all the kinship or gratitude or friendliness anyone would naturally feel toward someone who gave them all this, who gave it over and over, saying, implicitly: for you, for you, this is all for you, I love you. Of course, of course, they care about you. You, the Celebrity; You, the Imaginary Friend. Even if you might not actually be able to stand them. Even if they might not actually be able to stand you. Even if you are nothing like what they imagine.

And then you die.

Like: David Foster Wallace. As you can maybe imagine, due to the fact that I talk about him all the goddamn time, David Foster Wallace was someone with whom I had a firm and long-standing imaginary friendship. He died; he died unexpectedly, and young, and awfully; I read the post on Gawker. I texted the news to someone, then I sat there and said, aloud, "we'll never get another book."

We won't. I won't. Me, me, me. It was a completely narcissistic reaction, which I didn't realize until much later, when I read the obituary on the AV Club and some knob was going off in the comments about how David Foster Wallace was just like him, you know, they were from the same state, and they thought alike, and if he were smarter and funnier he'd be David Foster Wallace, and I was sitting there hating the guy and then I realized: David Foster Wallace probably wouldn't have liked me. Maybe I wouldn't have liked him either. He went off on rants about political correctness; he had theories about language and usage that would irritate the pants off me if they came from any other source; he wrote that one piece about porn that had me swinging between admiration for his writing and empathy and rage at his elitist, Othering stance; I fucking hate math, sports, and abstract systems of thought that I can't tie to lived experience or practice, and these things, if I understand correctly, were great and abiding passions for one David Foster Wallace, Writer. I had no greater claim to my DFW than this dude had to his, so how could I judge him? And why was I so willing to do so?

The thing is, Michael Jackson just died. I'm seeing loving tributes all over the place - some professionally written pieces, some personal testimonies. While I recognize that many of these people are paying tribute to their Michael Jacksons, their childhoods, all of that stuff that's cathected in the first few notes of the bass on Beat It or the Thriller video, I can't help feel that we have a responsibility to look past our own Michael Jacksons, and to the fact that it is absolutely, undoubtedly, certainly more likely than not that he committed sexual assault more than once in his lifetime - and that to do anything else is to contribute to a culture of silence surrounding sexual assault and abuse.

Because I'm seeing people arguing that there's no plausible evidence that he ever did those things.

That's a step too far.

Here's the thing, here's another guy with whom many people had intensely personal relationships based on his work, and who died, unexpectedly and young and awfully: John Lennon. John Lennon hit women, and was a misogynist for a very large portion of the time during which he produced this work. Before I read certain posts over at The Curvature, I did not know this. It was not part of the commonly told story of John Lennon. Now: this takes absolutely nothing away from his work, although "Run For Your Life" (I'd rather see you dead, girl, than see you with another man) will probably never, for me, be comfortable listening. I can also cite John Lennon as a man who became a feminist, who challenged and worked to unlearn his own misogyny, who wrote "Mother" (you didn't want me... Mommy, don't go) and maybe got all of his shit about Women out in the open and worked through it: a man who was, I would argue, actually substantially healed by feminism. This maybe makes it easier for me to look at and accept the fact that he did have those issues about Women, and that they (along with the fact that our culture accepts and encourages misogyny, and along with his enormous fame) resulted in him actually hurting actual women.

Now: Michael Jackson had issues about Childhood. You don't have to know much to know that, right? It's hard not to see his childhood as reflected in those old performances - this undeniably gifted, much-beloved little dude who was already performing in this eerily precise and adult way, as if he'd been trained to it, which he was, because it was the only value he had in the eyes of own father - without realizing that, for Michael Jackson, Childhood must have been a very weird mix of bliss and self-worth and self-loathing and terror. It's hard not to feel empathy for him.

Here's the thing, though: he publicly endangered his own children. He was clearly unstable and/or addicted in ways that meant he should in no way have been allowed to have custody of his children. He acted in clearly suspicious and predatory ways toward many, many children. He was in a position of authority and trust that allowed him to have access to many, many children. He was alleged to have sexually abused more than one child, and given both the fact that it is exceedingly difficult to successfully prosecute sexual assault and the fact that he had the money and resources necessary to settle the cases or bring on defense attorneys willing and able and gifted enough to utilize every single dirty trick that we all deplore in court, it would have likely been impossible to convict him even if, say, the assaults had been caught on tape.

And, given the fact that sexual abuse is common and underreported, and that false allegations are rare, and that children rarely if ever give coherent accounts of it because they are children, and have been raped, I consider the evidence against him to be so very overwhelming as to make any less-than-serious treatment of it - like, say, failing to address it, or minimizing it, or rationalizing it by pointing out that he had entirely understandable issues around Childhood - to be highly irresponsible, and to reinforce the rape culture in which we live, in which rape and sexual assault are regarded as private, umimportant, excusable transgressions, and in which confronting an abuser or talking about his history of abuse openly or insisting it must play an important, even central role in our evaluation of the abuser's life and legacy, is somehow an attack on him.

I don't want Michael Jackson to become another John Lennon. I don't want him to be someone whose abusive behaviors are erased from the record. Something some feminist has to dredge up later. I used to think it was unlikely. Now, I just hope it is.

Some of this may have to do with the fact that I might be a little too young to have ever developed a personal Michael Jackson. "Beat It" was the first song I ever liked - the first song, in fact, that registered for me as a song, rather than as sound - and I remember trying to moonwalk, and I have vague memories about Captain EO just like everyone else. But my first real memories of him are of the first abuse allegations. Now, when I see the videos - people keep talking about how he danced - I see that he moved maybe, sort of, like David Foster Wallace wrote: there was the same elasticity, the same joy (I always thought of David Foster Wallace's writing as, somehow, the most purely joyful that I had ever read; it was how he played with the language, not even necessarily what he said; I didn't know him), the same simultaneous sense of "how the hell is he doing that? People can't do that" and "oh, holy Christ, that looks good." I can see why people are drawn to it; why they love it; why they might love, even, in a way, the man himself. For giving that to them.

But he was an abuser, both publicly and in ways that we can't ever fully know. We have to make that part of the picture. Because the rest of it - the joy, or the solace, or the kinship - that was never only him. That was never even him.

That was you.

That was always you.

Dear John - John DeVore, That Is!

2009-06-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hi, John DeVore. How are you? I hope you're well. As you know, you and I have exchanged approximately 3 to 5 e-mails with each other, which makes us officially the Best Friends in the History of Forever. I even wrote about it! And told everybody how nice you were! And how I regretted assuming that you were a jerk!

Which is why it pains me to write this to you today. Because I was on the Tumblr this morning (Livejournal: For Sexy People!) and saw a bunch of folks discussing this "Why Men Cheat" article they'd found on the CNN. I, naturally, clicked over to it, so that I might consider it in full.

The version I clicked onto included the byline! So, I have a question.

My question is: um, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS, JOHN DEVORE?!?!

Here's another reason men run around behind the backs of their doting, self-sacrificing, noble girlfriends and wives -- you don't adore us enough.
When Spartan warriors returned home from victorious campaigns, do you think their women greeted them with eye-rolls and shrugs? They were venerated supremely, celebrated for days upon days! Love was made to them, olives were pitted and fed to them, their wives could not get enough of their dangerous tales of adventure and carnage! Tales told over and over and over again.
And, at the end of each of these nights, as the mighty victors, now satiated and spent, drifted off to sleep, their ladyfolk would purr into their ears, "OMG, you are totally awesome."

Ummmmm....

All right. Here's the deal. I wrote a post not long ago about how dudes can be very nice people, and have the best intentions, and still do sexist stuff, because it is MORE NORMAL to do sexist stuff than not, in Our Society Today, and how I can (and do!) call the gentlemen of my acquaintance out on the sexism, without disliking them at all. This is what I'm going to do, right now. Because I have proof that you're a really nice - and funny! - dude. But this is just ridonkulous.

Now: the purpose of your article is to provide a hyperbolic rationalization for men cheating on ladies, based on the fact that you apparently believe dudes to be stereotyped as The More Cheaterly Gender, before coming to your conclusion that women and men both cheat and it's because monogamy is hard for lots of folks. So far, so good! The issue here, I think, is the tactics. Because I think you are using the wrong tactics!

I think you are using the tactics that, in fact, confirm stereotypes of men as The More Cheaterly Gender, and rationalizations that pretty much rest on the idea that women are crap! Like, um, the one above - where you cite the argument that men cheat on ladies because ladies JUST DON'T PUT THE DUDES FIRST.

Now: I think that all of this is pretty clearly a joke, in your article. I got sold on the "joke" bit when you mentioned that "actual relationship experts on television confirm that some, if not most, men are hooked on sleeping with as many women as they can." It was the "on television" thing that clued me in. Also, when you mentioned that "it's not [dudes'] fault we drool for hours over porn while you sleep. It's a diagnosable affliction." Yeah, I am of the opinion that jokes about PORNOGRAPHY ADDICTION are always funny. I think it has been sensationalized and overblown to the extent that whenever I hear the phrase I can only think of all of the books out there that use people's stories to demonstrate THE TERRIBLE WAGES OF PORNOGRAPHY ADDICTION solely based on the fact that they jerk off to porn, which is like using my life as an example of THE TERRIBLE WAGES OF COFFEE ADDICTION because I drink it when I wake up. So, this is a joke - and, if seen in the right light, it is in fact funny.

The issue here? The real, problematic issue? Is that ladies - and dudes! - read so many actual, serious articles, citing these exact same arguments, in language not that different from yours, that it's actually difficult to pick up on the fact that it is a joke. Like, if I go to Clown University, and I'm surrounded by fully-clown-dressed clowns every day, the fact that I show up in clown makeup isn't going to be funny. It just makes me indistinguishable from all the other clowns in the room.

And, if somebody really hates clowns (and who doesn't hate clowns, really?) because they read "IT" at a young age and it totally scarred them, or because they used to date a clown and the clown was really mean to them, or maybe just because they are SO SICK OF CLOWNS, FOR REAL, and they decide they want to go to the Clown U campus and punch a clown in the face, they're just as likely to punch me, the "ironic" clown, as they are to punch any of the other equally clown-looking clowns around me.

Basically, what I am saying is that clowns are sexist.

No, wait! What I am saying is: your article might not have come from a place of sexist intent, but it ended up reinforcing sexism, because of the cultural context surrounding it.

Now, in the more serious, less jokeful part of your article, you come back to the fact that men and women can both be big cheatery cheating cheats. Totally with you there! But here's the thing you used to illustrate that:

Women can be faithless, and for centuries, they've done their fair share of tasting forbidden fruit. Literature is full of the sorrow women have caused: Menelaus laid siege to Troy because Helen ran away with another man.

Actually, many versions of the story say that Paris raped and kidnapped Helen. Her complicity in this is a tricky issue, because Greeks (like many cultures) didn't really establish the firmest of distinctions between "raping a lady" and "having consensual sex with a lady." So this may be a pointless nitpick, considering that the story's been told both ways.

Othello smothered his beloved because he believed her to have cheated on him.

If we're talking about "suffering," or "the suffering caused by women," we might want to establish that the person who suffered most in that exchange was probably the lady who was killed by her husband (after she ran away and cut all family ties to be with him) for no reason whatsoever. This is a slightly less pointless nitpick: Desdemona is not the person you want to bring into your "ladies cheat too" argument. Trust me.

Even frat boy romantic comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was all based around that Kristen Bell, from "Veronica Mars," cheating on that funny fat dude.

DON'T YOU BRING "FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL" INTO THIS JOHN DEVORE.

DON'T YOU DO IT.

DO YOU WANT TO UNLEASH THE FURY?!

DO YOU???????

Okay. Phew. After attending one of my court-mandated anger-management sessions (I'm in a special group for people who've been traumatized by Jason Segel's screenwriting abilities: there are more of us than you'd think) I'm back to tell you: all of these people are made-up. There are probably real-life examples you could have used. Especially considering that you include an appeal to history in your article, like so:

There isn't a word for a women whose husband cheats on her. But the English language gives us a word for a man whose wife runs around on him. That word is "cuckold," and there are few names as limp and pitiful sounding as "cuckold."

Yes. And I submit to you that the reason why there are names for men who've been cheated on by women, but not for women who've been cheated on by men, is the fact that, in the culture from whence this term originated, cheating on your husband was punishable by beating or perhaps death, whereas cheating on your wife was an accepted fact of life. So, men who were cheated on by women were NOT the norm, whereas women who were cheated on by men kind of were. There's also still the idea that a man ought to own and lay claim to a woman, as a means of asserting his masculinity, and that her decision to have sex with other people challenges his ownership of her (rather than her commitment to him or to their relationship) and is hence damaging to his manhood, whereas women are encouraged to accept and take the blame for men's desire to cheat, since it's In A Man's Nature and whatnot. And all of this ties into the idea that (straight) men have active, undeniable, force-of-nature-type sex drives, whereas (all) women either lack sex drives and perform sex just to make dudes happy, or else are vile perverts and whores. We might pretend to have gotten past that, but we haven't, really. Which is why men are still regarded as the gender most likely to cheat.

I mean. Maybe you know all this.

I just didn't read it in your article.

You see what I'm saying?

This Week, in Decisions I May Have Cause To Regret:

2009-06-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

After receiving many an e-mail and comment on the subject (and: thanks, e-mailers!) the Dworkin Thread of Doom has now been re-opened. I will be moderating comments so that it can stay productive, as it was for the majority of its run last week. Ad hominem/ad feminam/your-sexing-is-invalid/I'm-bored-let's-have-a-yelling-party-on-the-Internet arguments will be deleted, regardless of whether or not I agree with them, as usual. Everything else is fair game.

Play fair, folks! Don't make me use Disapproving Joan Graphics on you!

EXAMPLE:

Joan has some thoughts about your stance on BDSM.

Adventures In Advertising Presents: Fear of a Red Planet

2009-06-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

Oh, advertising firms. How much do you just not like women? Hold up! Don't answer: I know this. The answer is, "a lot! Advertising firms dislike women, a lot." They dislike them so much, in fact, that they have inspired this spec script for my new hit TV drama, Mad Men: The Next Generation:

Jean-Luc Picadvertising: Hey - you know who everybody doesn't like? Women!
Pete Campbell's Grandson, Dave: Ha! Yeah! I don't like women myself!
Jean-Luc Picadvertising: Well, think about it: maybe we can get people to buy this product of ours by establishing that it hates women! Just like they do!
Geordi LaFadvertising: Bad news, you guys. This product is supposed to be purchased primarily, if not exclusively, by women.
Pete Campbell's Grandson, Dave: Ha ha, women. They suck so much!
Jean-Luc Picadvertising: They totally do! High fives all around! By the way, where is Don Draper's grandson, Steve?
Geordi LaFadvertising: We don't know.
Pete Campbell's Grandson, Dave: He is very mysterious.

Okay. Maybe it needs some work. Regardless, I am confident that its dialogue is 100% factually accurate! I base this completely reasonable conclusion on (a) the magically-manly-making Ketel One ads, (b) those disastrous Bacardi ads (hey, lady-customers! Aren't girls who don't look like models hideous and therefore worthless? Um, we assume everyone who buys our product is a professional model, right?) and (c) the most baffling advertising campaign ever conceived by man, zack16.com, sent in by reader Kelly D. (Hi, Kelly! I believe this is what the kids call a "shout-out!")

Zack, you see, is a sixteen-year-old boy. A sixteen-year-old boy, with a blog! UNTIL...

So something weird happened to me last night and I'm just trying to deal. Went to the bathroom this morning to find that I suddenly possessed the aiming ability of a defective garden sprinkler. Soon thereafter I discovered that a super important body part of mine had gone missing.

Ruh-roh! I wonder what this "super important" body part could be? And why it has anything to do with his "aiming ability" in the pisser? UNLESS... oh, no! Penis emergency! Zack's penis is missing! Best file an Amber Alert for that business, Zack! But wait: if Zack doesn't have a penis any more, does that mean he has no genitalia whatsoever? Is he smooth like a Ken doll down there? I mean, that's certainly what I imagine, when I think of the absence of a penis...

Still in possession of girl parts "down under."

Oh, OK. He has a vagina. Because, for the record, "vagina" = "absence of a penis." Not "totally different body part that is in no way definable merely in relation to penises." For the female, you see, is a defective male, and the mother is castrated and blah blibbity blah blippity bloop bleep millenia of male denigration of/theorizing about the existence of ladybusiness. Zack is a Freudian young motherfucker, if you ask me.

Now, considering that actual vaginoplasties are both expensive and difficult to obtain, I'm pretty sure that a few trans ladies wouldn't mind receiving Zack's magic vagina. It's also nice that he gets to use the bathroom of his choice, without having to read or deal with some "feminist" (not enough quotation marks in the world, people) shit fit about it (including the obligatory, probably-not-meant-to-be-hilarious moment wherein the """"feminist"""" refers to some woman's penis like it is the shark from Jaws: "The dick is still there in many cases, waiting, just waiting for a reason to penetrate something or somebody." Dunnnh-DUH. Dunnnh-DUH. Dunnh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-TAKIN' A PEEEEEEEEEE.) Actually, this whole campaign is fucking weird in that it kind of doesn't acknowledge the existence of trans people in any way whatsoever - like, there are actually lots of trans men with vaginas out there, but Zack is just like, "what an unprecedented thing this is!" And by "fucking weird," of course, I mean "totally predictable."

But anyway. Zack is not a trans person. Zack is a cisgender dude with a magic vagina. A vagina with mysterious powers! For example: the vagina makes Zack bake things. Ha ha, because you can't prepare food if you have a penis! The vagina also makes Zack enjoy terrible costume dramas: "on the Estrogen Channel" - ha ha, estrogen, because that is what ladies have, in their vaginas - "I got caught up in this English costume drama about a fancy young woman from the British upper class who falls in love with a simple bricklayer." But you won't believe what else the vagina makes Zack do. It is awful. It is terrible. It is:

Was getting dressed this morning and my pants wouldn't fit right. It's like a gained a bunch of weight... Watching a cooking show this morning, I cried a little when the chef cracked the eggs.

Oh NO! Zack! You have no idea what is coming next, do you, buddy? Why, it's only the most horrible fearful thing in the world:

But now that I've got my period, I'm faced with perhaps my biggest challenge yet: the hideous, pristine all-white tuxedo that Chelsea picked out for me to wear to prom. I just hope the rose on my lapel is the only red we see that evening.

AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE! NO! NOT THAT! ANYTHING BUT THAT!

I am referring, actually, to the white tuxedo here. Apparently the vagina didn't take care of that whole "fashion sense" thing like it's supposed to. Zack's vagina and Chelsea's vagina were asleep at the wheel when it came to that particular decision.

Oh, but also: Zack gets his period. For, as I promised you, this is THE MOST BAFFLING AD CAMPAIGN EVER CONCEIVED BY MAN. It is an ad campaign FOR TAMPONS. Tampax-brand tampons, to be precise! Because, apparently, Tampax is the tampon so awesome that even dudes will use it. Not like all those inferior lady-tampons out there. Because, you know, coming up with a viral ad campaign for tampons starring a girl dealing with her vagina is just weak. Also: best to reel out the stereotypes about basically everyone with vaginas, in your vagina-product ad campaign! Because, you know, self-loathing sells.

But, whatever. Zack gets his period. Zack, like everyone in this entire society, hates and fears the period. I'm not interested in rescuing Zack's self-esteem right now. No: I'm interested in his sex life! With Chelsea!

Took Chelsea Carr to prom last weekend. She looked great. Too bad I'm completely unequipped to be her boyfriend.

Um, Zack? I'm pretty sure that people with vaginas - boys and girls - date and have sex with women all the damn time. YOU'VE LOST THE LESBIAN AND TRANS MAN TAMPON VOTE, Zack. Best use all those sensitive vagina-feelings you have now to make amends.

UPDATE: BONUS EDUCATIONAL FILM

Would you like to see Zack's transformational, baking, nice-making, lady-genitalia loathing journey? ON FILM? Sure you would.

Oh, and also: there is a part where he shows his little sister his "secret."

YEAH.

AAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE.

AND NOW, A GUEST POST: Second Chances... To Reinforce Some Really Obnoxious Stereotypes, That Is!

2009-06-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I, Sady, have been begging C.L. Minou - who runs the excellent, must-add-to-RSS-feed blog The Second Awakening - to write a guest post for Tiger Beatdown since approximately forever. Today is the day my dreams - and yours, reader - come true!

Trans people can get pretty jaded about our representation in the media--whether it's Transgeneration (excellent!), Sex Change Hospital (um...) or Transamerica (the pain, make it stop) , after a while you notice the invariable repitition of certain themes, especially in that most infamous of genres, the transgender documentary. (In fact, there are even drinking games where you can find out how many shots you're supposed to down if somebody says "a woman trapped in a man's body" or tries on bras on camera.)

Recently the New York Times put a short documentary on their website as part of a new feature called Second Chances--and you guessed it, the first film is about a transsexual named Terry Cummings. It's actually a touching little piece that is very sweet and definitely well-intentioned. But it struck me immediately how even something well-intentioned could manage to pack inside of it so many typical trans-doco-cliches.

And then I realized, that not only are those cliches subtly disparaging to trans people, they're also (no!) not-so-subtly misogynist--allow me to demonstrate:

:30 We kick things off with that most venerable of tropes, the trans woman putting on makeup; I think there must be some FCC requirement for it or something. Such scenes are annoying not just because they are repetitive, but because they make the woman's identity seem artificial, cosmetic, just a deceptive coating around the real person.

Not much different, of course, from the standard lady-hating vibe about how women need to wear makeup, since their attractiveness to men is held up as their most important single characteristic; but trans women especially are held in a double-bind--either wear makeup to look more feminine and be accused of only being interested in the trappings of womanhood, or don't wear makeup and either be told you "look like a guy" or worse, mystify people as to why you'd want to be a woman, since you don't want to look like one.

1:20-1:47 A quick sequence of scenes of Terry on the phone, talking about clothes, cuddling a cat, and telling someone on the phone "Welcome to a woman's world."

The clothes conversation feeds into one of the more damning things thrown at trans women--that we're just in it for the outfits--as if people decide to upend their whole life, spend most of their life's savings, and in general make things a whole lot more difficult for them just so they could wear a skirt. And again, it's a double-bind: don't express interest in clothes, and people wonder why you want to transition; but do worry about what you wear (something that happens especially often to trans people just starting to present as their desired gender) and you're hit with charges of superficiality.

Nevertheless it sure sends out messages about being a woman, like women talk about clothes, or cuddle animals, unlike men who don't have time for appearances or nurturing.

Maybe it's because I take things too seriously, but the way the "welcome to a woman's world" scene unfolds bothers me. I mean, it seems divorced of context--was she saying it in a rueful or sarcastic way, as I often have? (I usually refer to the paperwork I had to fill out to start hormones: "I signed the release.") As a way to sympathize with another woman? Both of those seem more likely; but the way it's shot seems to show her issuing the statement authoritatively, which opens up all kinds of nasty questions about the assumption of privilege that frequently (and especially) dog trans women.

It's not really what she said; given how little control a film subject has over the final result, I hold Terry absolutely blameless here. But the way it's presented seems to send out subtle messages, none of them particularly good, about being a trans person.

1:50 Shopping (drink!). If it's not makeup, it's got to be shopping. Once again, trans women are only in it for the clothes, the superficial trappings of femininity. And shoes! (Why did it have to be shoes?)

I suppose I should be happy that trans women get damned with these accusations; after all, it makes us just like the rest of women, who are told (and believed) to be obsessed with appearances and fashion--though trans women get the added burden of generally being shown as not only obsessed with these things, but not being very good at them. (Fortunately not an issue in Terry's case, but I sometimes think that the makers of these documentaries purposely seek out women who struggle with their female presentations, to reinforce precisely this point.)

We also see Terry's daughter, who seems like a very nice person, talking about her struggles with what to call her. This isn't a laughing matter; it's very tough for family members to deal with. But in the hit and run way it's dealt with in this documentary, it only continues to reinforce the idea that Terry is really still her male parent. Biology is still destiny.

2:25 Terry at her basement workbench. "This was what my life was like..." she says--that is, interested in traditionally male hobbies.

Which manages to be both misogynist and transphobic: that is, she couldn't be interested in them now, because she's a woman, and ladies don't do woodwork or other manly stuff! And also it's a subtle reminder of where she's come from, a continued destabilization and devaluation of her as a woman.

Let me state once again that this isn't a criticism of Terry: people's interests do change often during transtion (I started blogging, for example, and mostly stopped knitting.) It's not Terry's life I'm criticizing, it's how her life is being forced into the Standard Transsexual Narrative template, in a way that (surprise!) is subtly transphobic and misogynistic, despite it's good intentions.

2:40 The goddamn photograph of Terry before she transitioned. (Drink triple-shots: it's in black and white, and from her wedding.) I for one am heartily sick of being shown pictures of trans people pre-transition. Or publishing their former names. Or making a big effing deal about being trans, period. Because there's really no way of doing it that doesn't leave people feeling that the old name and gender are the real gender. And that just reinforces all the old ideas about gender essentialisms, the very thing feminists have struggled against since...oh, since the Agricultural Revolution.

And speaking of gender essentialism, we come to...

3:00--4:25 The surgery. I mean, The Surgery. I mean, The Surgery. It wouldn't, couldn't, be a trans documentary without the surgery. And certainly the largest single portion of the film has to be about the surgery. I think that's actually a law. Of nature.

Shocking but true: the surgery isn't always central to a trans person's life. For one thing, the surgery for trans men is expensive, difficult, and frequently less than satisfactory, so beyond a masectomy many of them never have any genital surgery. Secondly, there is a whole segment of trans women who never have GRS (genital/gender reassignment/reconstructive surgery; the phrasing depends on who you ask), and are perfectly happy and living perfectly ordinary women's lives.

And finally, for a lot of people, GRS isn't that big a deal. Major surgery, yes, but not something that will magically change everything in your life.

That isn't to demean trans women for whom GRS is a big deal--just to point out that for most trans women, it's less about making them into something than it is relieving them of their dysphoria.

And in any case, whether you are trans or a feminist (or maybe even both!), you simply can't accept that you equal your genitals. That biology is destiny. If anything, trans narratives should destroy that idea, rather than being used to reinforce it.

Now, the best part of all this? All the stuff that was left out and only visible on the comments page. Like, did you know that Terry is a lawyer? That might have been interesting to find out. Or that she considers the surgery to be a "rite of passage," but "it would not change her life." That might have been a sort of fresh direction for a film like this to take.

But should we be surprised, that a woman, of any history, has her work erased? That a woman's feelings of her own life are forced into a culturally-determined narrative? That a woman's appearance is stereotyped, or her body pathologized?

That the best thing you can say about most trans documentaries is that they treat their subjects like women, that is, misogynistically?

And in the end, if trans women get singled out for expressing their gender, it's still with the same refrains of oppression as other women.

SEXIST BEATDOWN: Muffin-Bluffing Is A Feminist Issue Edition

2009-06-19T13:51:00.001-07:00

Ah, music. It makes the people! Come together! Music: [it] mix[es] the bourgeois! And the rebel! It also, recently, led to this really neat article about "post-post-feminism," which seems to mean the same thing as "post-feminism," which seems also (so Steve Haruch notes!) to mean the same thing as "pre-feminism," which means, basically "a-feminism." It has not much to do with feminism at all, actually; I don't know why that word keeps coming up.

Except that the kids today - especially the girl kids - are all a'sexin'! And a-singin' about the sexin'! Lady Gaga wishes to poke her face, yet bluffs with her muffin; Katy Perry wishes to kiss girls, and like it, on the condition that her boyfriend don't mind it; The Veronicas wish to be sexy twins who basically kiss EVERYBODY, boys and girls included; and, at this point, "postpostfeminism" is just something that happens after some annoying girl drinks too many Cosmos. But with a super catchy beat!

So, what does it all meaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn? Read on, my friends, as Amanda Hess of The Sexist and I discuss!

MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT: Lady Gaga: postfeminist, postpostfeminist, postpostpostnotdressinglikeasexyMartianinvader, sings the sensitive face-poking hits of our time.

SADY: lady! are you ready to have a discussion about postpostpostpostpostfeminism?

AMANDA: hi! Sorry! first of all, since you seem to have been doing a bit of "research" into modes of feminism lately can you tell me what post-feminism is? and what post-post-feminism might be?

SADY: post-feminism is the one where progress has been accomplished so we can all be SEXY again and also camille paglia can blame us for our date rapes! post-post-feminism is... um... feminism again? or the one where we have to fight each other in Thunderdome. no wait, that's post-APOCALYPTIC-post-feminism. no, wait, that's my blog comment section.

AMANDA: ba dump ching!

SADY: TIP YOUR WAITRESSES. i do know you can find the postpostpostpostwhatever in the popular music the kids listen to today, though! such as the katy perrys, and the lady gagas!

AMANDA: first of all, let me just say to pop music, that i am a huge, huge fan

SADY: haha, i had to have someone sing me the veronicas song so i knew what it was about. according to this person it goes "take me on the floor, blah blah blah sexy twins." i feel no need to look up the lyrics! i'm confident this research is correct!

AMANDA: i will listen to nearly any pop music song, whether feminist, pre-feminist, post-feminist, post-post-feminist, told-from-the-perspective-of-the-unborn-fetus etc. so that sexy twin song, i may be adding it to my ipod!

SADY: yeah, why not?

AMANDA: however, i think it would be Educational if we discussed some modern pop singers (love 'em) and where their songs fall on the feminist ---> told-from-the-perspective-of-the-unborn-fetus spectrum

SADY: yeah, i kind of think that what they're talking about is the whole overt sexuality thing in these ladies' music. which is NEW! and UNPRECEDENTED! what with the poking of 'er face and whatnot! and the kissing of girls, and the taking on the floor.

AMANDA: let's start with that kissing of girls thing. i personally wouldn't take such an issue with that song if the rest of katy perry's album didn't blatantly ridicule gay people.

SADY: I JUST LISTENED TO THE VERONICAS SONG. the bridge is "i want to kiss a girl, i want to kiss a girl, i want to kiss a boy." maybe THIS is postpostfeminism? yeah, not just gay people but women which is bizarre: "you are so gay, you are like a woman, you terrible gay-woman-man." like, this grossness wherein gay or a lady is the worst thing to be...

AMANDA: the veronicas song sounds like some sort of bizarre undead compromise between you and andrea dworkin. oh, THIS song? i just listened to it for the first time. shit, i actually don't like this pop song, it sucks.

SADY: yep. this is our peace treaty. andrea dworkin's thing, sexually, was (i am learning) more complex than i maybe can understand, at the moment. i'm pretty sure she would have some harsh words for the whole sexy-twins, kissing-girls-for-your-boyfriend, bluffing-with-one's-muffin thing. her whole problem was that she thought we were bluffing with our muffins too much! NO MORE MUFFIN BLUFFING, is what she'd say.

AMANDA: i'm okay with never hearing another word about muffin bluffing.

SADY: MUFFIN BLUFFING IS THE PATRIARCHY'S SUPPORT SYSTEM. this is some weird performance of sexuality that seems so specifically catered to be precisely in line with current expectations of what dudes find sexy.

AMANDA: are there any current pop songs that qualify as post-post feminist, which i now understand (?) is feminism again after taking a little break from feminism?

SADY: haha, i like "if i were a boy," by beyonce, maybe a little more than i should. there are certain moments where i can convince myself that it MEANS SOMETHING.

AMANDA: i, too, have spent many moons attempting to squeeze that song into my worldview

SADY: if beyonce were a boy, she'd roll out of bed and put on whatever she wanted and drink some beer. if this first verse is any indication, i myself may be a boy, or beyonce. but also, if beyonce were a boy, she'd be cheating on YOU! and you COULDN'T STOP HER!

AMANDA: do you have a cop outfit?

SADY: mmmmmm... sadly, no. this may be the only difference between beyonce and myself. barring, of course, the fact that i did not appear in "obsessed."

AMANDA: i really like this song, and (i've convinced myself) that it's an honest critique of the double standards in sexual relationships between men and women ... for those of us who can't just throw all that shit out of the window and have sex with other women. but it's also kind of like, you don't have to be a boy, you're BEYONCE, you can do whatever the fuck you want!

SADY: right? beyonce could basically buy a small country at this point. yet, in her song with jay-z, she points out that she can 'still play her part and let [jay-z] take the lead role." i'm beginning to think her commitment to just doing all that dude stuff (namely, being kind of a dick) is not that profound.

AMANDA: yes HOWEVER---and this is a good point for those post-feminist to listen to---beyonce actually looks super hot acting like a fucking dick. and then looks less compelling when she goes back into the girl role at the (spoiler alert) surprise twist at the end

SADY: OH NO! SPOILER! At the end of "Thriller," Michael Jackson's EYES ARE THOSE OF A MONSTER, AMANDA. HOW WILL YOU HANDLE THIS SPOILER I SPOILED FOR YOU?
anyway. i'm beginning to think that postpostfeminism, what with the girls singing about how they've kissed girls, and also boys, and have done things with their muffins that maybe we would be uncomfortable hearing about, is not actually "post" anything. haven't people been singing about screwing (boys and girls) for A LONG TIME?

AMANDA: yes. i think that's what ALL pop music is about, right?

SADY: right? yet, when we hear songs about sex, we think they're kind of naughty, until someone sings an EVEN NAUGHTIER song about sex, and that's all these kids are doing: semi-raising, or trying to raise, the bar for naughtiness. with, GASP, girl makeouts! basically, i think that sooner or later "i want to pee on you" will be an actual single.

AMANDA: of course, until pop music enters its post-naughty phase. sponsored by kelly clarkson.

SADY: "if i were a boy, we'd be engaging in non-demeaning and mutually respectful activities, such as going to a church group, and holding hands. " "woooo, girl, i want to play zelda and not make out or consider sexual activities at all with youuuu."

AMANDA: You know, somebody kind of made this point in the Bitch comment section, and I think it's pretty apt: as far as POP music is concerned, maybe it's enough for us to have expectations that it not be misogynistic. and that other forms of music that are not played on the radio will tackle the more explicitly radical subjects. that being said, i would really love to write for Britney Spears.

SADY: haha. i'm seriously trying to think of a mainstream pop hit that handled anything vaguely feminist in its subject matter. the best i can come up with is "human nature," by madonna. and that's a tenuous pick. i would love for you to write for britney spears, too! actually!

AMANDA: i understand that she often takes up best-friends-for-a-few-hours fairly often. i think i could be a good influence on her.

SADY: i think my work with the postpostfeminist stars of stage and screen would be brutal, ugly, and short

AMANDA: i thought the misogyny consulting thing would really work out for you

SADY: i think my hit katy perry song, "i kissed the person that it was most pleasing for me to kiss at the time without thinking about or trying to present my sexuality as a performance for the benefit of the male gaze" would not, probably, sell like hotcakes. the b-side, "i like tacos," might be a little more well-received. who doesn't like tacos?! why is our pop landscape so post-tacos?

AMANDA: eww, post-taco

SADY: hahahahaha. ok. it's NOT AN ELOQUENT TERM for my movement. rest assured, you'll soon be hearing the sound of post-taco across the nation.

AMANDA: hahah

Calling The Ketel WHACK, or: The Worst Title Of Any Post Ever (It Is About Vodka)

2009-06-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

You know, my fellow lady-people, it has been a bit stressful around the old Tiger Beatdown lately. The post window: it glowers at me. It is like, WHO WILL YOU PISS OFF NEXT, LADY???? And I am like, "well, no-one, unless they learn about my vicious dog-on-baby-fighting ring." Oh, no! Wait! I meant, "my extensive collection of pornography!" Oh, CRAP! What I meant was, "my extensive collection of videotapes featuring dogs fighting babies!"

Ugh. Anyway, have you seen these Ketel One ads? They're pretty annoying!

Ha ha, yes. A TIME WHEN MEN WERE MEN. And not ladies! When they did not drink their vodka out of "delicately painted [like a lady would paint them] pink [like a lady would enjoy] * perfume [like a lady would wear] bottles." Ha ha, yes, the epidemic of vodka served in "painted perfume bottles" is quite disastrous for femininity. And drinking! The atomizer: it doesn't dispense much booze per squirt!

Here is also a fun thing to notice: the THERE WAS A TIME thing. Remember when men were men? Real live masculine manly men of manhood and manliness? Boy, doesn't it suck that men aren't men any more, and they have to be less manly and manful in their day-to-day interactions? It's almost as if many men fetishize a foregone time when male privilege was entirely unhampered and ran rampant (LIKE GODZILLA) through the streets and no-one ever questioned it and the performance of traditional highly privileged masculinity was never challenged! I wonder what could have brought this glorious time to an end?

Oh, shit, yeah. Right. Anyway, this beautiful time of untrammeled, pre-feminist, pre-ladyfied manhood existed once. And it can exist AGAIN! If - and only if - you purchase and consume Ketel One vodka! Which is a colorless and mostly tasteless liquid that can be mixed with any drink, up to and including the uber-ladyfying Cosmo. Or APPLE MARTINI.

Ha ha, yeah, it's really silly to think that a drink can be gendered, right? Or that it can gender you. In fact, I'm going to drink some Ketel One vodka right now, just to prove you a point: that it does not in fact affect my gender presentation whatsoever. Here I am, prior to drinking Ketel One:

Hmmm... vodka-y, drunk-inducing, no feelings of altered gender. Let's take an "after" pic:

OH HOLY CRAP. How did this even happen?!? I take it back, you guys: Ketel One is definitely the manliest vodka that ever manned a man up to manliness. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to book a ticket to Hawai'i.

* UPDATE: The ad totally doesn't actually say "pink," by the way! I've re-watched it several times to verify this. The thing is, I've seen it many a time, and I always, always, always hear the word "pink" in there. There's a weird pause between "painted [like a lady]" and "perfume [which is a lady thing]." So I just HEARD THE WORD AND/OR COLOR "PINK" USED AS A NEGATIVE in that space. This ad is so manly it can actually project sexist concepts right into your brain! Beware!

And Now: Tiger Beatdown Musical Hour!

2009-06-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

You guys, have you heard this song?

I think I've posted this song before.

My point is, I think we all need to hear this song.

METAPOST: Oh, CRAP!

2009-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

I just deleted a bunch of really nice comments! If your comment just doesn't show up: I accidentally deleted it! I am sorry! I love you! Snobographer, Fllewellyn, the person who compared me to T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics (AT LAST MY LIFE'S GOAL HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED), a whole bunch of people who had really smart stuff to say about what was going down with Shakesville: I'm super sorry. I did not mean to SILENCE YOU.

This has been another installment of: Things You Would Not Care About Unless You Were Directly Involved. Thank you!

Dear Andrea Dworkin,

2009-06-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

It's me, Sady. Yes! That's right! ME! One of the many women who has no doubt caused you to wish that you could rise, as a vengeful spirit, to haunt and torment your critics!

Well, good news for you, Andrea: that is kind of exactly what happened to me this past weekend, when I tried to start a "conversation" (ha ha, yeah, um) about my feelings of alienation from radical feminism as such and also from the rhetorical and activist tactics of many radical feminists. With some radical feminists! Who - in a surprise twist that I could never possibly have predicted - kind of took exception to what I said! As they say, "you're nobody until you've engaged in some kind of drawn-out fight about schisms within the feminist movement dating back at least to the early '80s and which continue to be incredibly painful and divisive." Oh, no, wait: what they say is, "don't do that shit, ever."

Alas! I did it anyway! It was terrible! And here, in the aftermath, what I realize is this: I really, REALLY need to answer all of these e-mails. Oh, but wait! What I also realize is this: I've been taking it up with the wrong people. I should have been taking it up with you.

This is hard to do, because people have been so shitty to you! (Also: YOU'RE DEAD? Yes, I know, but this is a rhetorical conceit: roll with it.) I'm not just talking about the anti-feminists and misogynists who slam you and paint you as Big Bad Feminazi #1; I'm not just talking about the many folks who abused you in various ways; I'm talking about us, self-described feminists, writers, folks who should know better. Like, when a woman publishes an account of being raped while drugged, and that account is hazy, messy, confused and seems to betray an extremely unhealthy mental state on the part of the writer (like, say, the account of a woman who'd been recently raped might), is it ever even remotely okay to be like, "well, perhaps she is just making it up for political or career reasons? Or BROUGHT IT UPON HERSELF, due to being such a bitch all the time?" I would argue that it is not! Yet that's what we did to you, when you published that article in the New Statesman.

Anyway, Andrea: I am not one of those people. That whole spectacle made me sick. I can even tell you that you were the very first feminist whose work I ever read! It blew me away, and made me the tireless yammerer-on about gender and sex that I am today. I can respect much of what you were about: analyzing literary and pop-culture narratives from a feminist perspective, examining how sex (or, rather, heterosexual sex, in your work) is warped by misogyny and a culture of male domination, and refusing to back down from the fact that the rape and abuse of women, by men, happens, and happens often, and says something about the status of women in society, and needs to stop. All of that stuff matters to me. But, I have to tell you: you are just about the worst role model for a young feminist that I can imagine.

Let's talk about that! Let's, specifically, talk about sex! Or, in your preferred parlance, "fucking!" (Andrea, one of the many reasons I sneakily love you sometimes is that you dropped more f-bombs per page than any other Serious Theorist I know.) The "all heterosexual sex is rape" thing is a myth; you never said that. What you did seem to be arguing, and what many of your followers and colleagues have seemed to argue, is that in patriarchy, women are defined as existing for the use of men in sex, and that no woman can really, freely choose to have sex with a man, due to the number of societal pressures and power structures that make "having sex with men" the default and the other options untenable, stigmatized, and dangerous. The problem is that, as a young feminist, the "all sex is rape" thing and the other, less t-shirt-worthy theory seemed to be recommending the very same course of action, which was: don't have sex with dudes.

That's not going to work for me, Andrea! I have some vague idea as to how you worked it out in your own life: I know you identified as a lesbian, and your life partner was a man who identified as gay, and then later it came out that you were actually married to him, but your official position was that in your own life you did not have "intercourse." I don't hold it against any woman if she decides never to have sex again. That's not my business. What I know is that I can't be willfully celibate, and that I consider reclaiming and enjoying my sexuality both a vital way to heal from my rape (wherein my sexuality was used to degrade and subjugate me) and from the Madonna/whore split that keeps women from being whole people. I also know that I enjoy having sex with men, and that therefore what I need to work out is a way to do that while resisting old gender roles and subjugation to a male partner. You didn't help me there, Andrea. You never gave me a way to resist. You told me all the bad stuff that might happen to me, but not how to create anything good.

Then, there was the whole porn thing. Yep: porn is pretty sexist, all right. At least, most of the mainstream heterosexual porn that I've seen is sexist. I, like you, oppose that sexism, as well as human trafficking and the abuse, rape, and coercion of women who perform in porn. But, curious fact: did you know that most films and narratives produced within a sexist society are sexist? And have an adverse affect on society by normalizing sexism, just like porn does? Also, that abuse, rape, and coercion of women happen even outside of the context of porn? Actually, I'm almost 100% certain that you do know about that last thing!

Yet, with you, it was nothing but porn, porn, porn, all the damn time. You were like Captain Ahab of the USS Jesus Christ, I Guess Captain Ahab Really Hates Porn. Porn caused violence, porn caused rape, seeing porn in and of itself was a form of abuse (like, if you were "forced" to see it by walking into a bodega where it was on sale or something) and you went after it with these laws that (a) gave governments increased power to persecute and marginalize the queer community, because obviously they were affected first and disproportionately by any obscenity laws or laws policing sexual expression, and (b) gave women the right to sue for damages "caused by porn," thus making it seem as if porn itself had abused or assaulted them, instead of working to place the blame - and increased, more severe convictions - on their actual rapists. You took the blame off abusers, and put the blame on porn. And aided in the institutional oppression of queer folks in the process. Um, whoops?

Oh, and also? In your speeches about porn, such as "Pornography: The New Terrorism" (Jesus CHRIST) you described images from BDSM pornography as if they were representative of all pornography, when you had reason to know (because people were yelling at you about it) that this was not what all pornography was like, and was also a specific fetish which needed to be understood within its own context. Which was intellectually dishonest, and gave people a really easy way to discredit your arguments. Whoops, again!

Oh, and THEN, also! The BDSM folks got mad at you about it, and the ladies who were already kind of frustrated by the "don't fuck dudes" stuff got mad at you about it, and feminism basically CAUGHT FIRE AND EXPLODED and you did NO work to understand what those people were saying, and in fact attacked some of them really, really harshly! WHOOPS!

Oh, and also? Remember all those women of color and working-class women who protested both sides, and were like, "making porn the central issue of the feminist movement takes emphasis away from the very real issues that affect our lives?" Ha ha, yeah, they had a solid point there! On my own behalf, if not yours, I would like to say: whoops.

But seriously, Andrea: let's talk about sex, some more. Let's talk, specifically, about how you minimized and glossed over women's sexual agency and pleasure, and gave fuel to cultural conservatives by developing a rhetoric wherein women were giant babies who couldn't make their own sexual choices and were, in fact, threatened by sex itself: an image of women as passive, helpless victims terrorized by men's bestial desires that dates right on back to the Cult of True Womanhood, and gave preachers and right-wing pundits the opportunity to paint basically any sexual expression, regardless of content or intent, as "demeaning to women." Even if women were actively and enthusiastically taking part in the "demeaning." You painted us all as victims, focused almost solely on the most extreme forms of misogynist abuse (which, as basically anyone who knows me is aware, I abhor), used extreme, hyperbolic rhetoric irresponsibly, and didn't really address more subtle forms of sexism in society or - as previously referenced - give us workable, practical ways to resist. Don't believe me? Check this business out:

Bill Clinton's fixation on oral sex -- non-reciprocal oral sex -- consistently puts women in states of submission to him. It's the most fetishistic, heartless, cold sexual exchange that one could imagine.

Um, really? A blow job? The MOST HEARTLESS COLD FETISHISTIC AWFUL TERRIBLE NO-GOOD VERY BAD ACT YOU CAN IMAGINE? Seriously, lady: I can imagine worse. And I probably haven't seen as much porn as you have.

Of course, this is the essay that leads up to "I think Hillary should shoot Bill and then President Gore should pardon her," so this is an odd line with which to take offense. For the record, I do think Clinton was, pretty much, a misogynist! Yet it's precisely this construction that makes me so mad sometimes: refusing to acknowledge that maybe, sometimes, you give a dude head because you like him, or because you like doing that, and instead portraying a consensual BJ as an act of unspeakable violation.

And, of course, in that very essay, you get around to calling Hillary "pathetic" and not a real feminist any more because she hasn't denounced or left her husband, AS IF THAT WERE ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS, and as if that didn't give more fuel to the by-then-already-popular pastime of openly misogynist or concern-trollish Hillary-bashing. Andrea Dworkin: I THINK YOU ARE KIND OF A CONCERN TROLL, is what I think. In your version of feminism, what concerns us is passing judgment on the choices of other women, while we assume that we know what is going through their heads at all times, which is, of course, "I am oh so very victimized by men" or "oh, how I love to assist men in victimizing women."

And it's that, really, that led me away from radical feminism, and specifically away from your work. It's the lavish, intricately detailed, lovingly rendered descriptions of hate-sex, rape, and bodily harm to women. It's the endless parade of martyrs in your work. It's the "Andrea Dworkin suffers for your sins" shit you pulled so often. It's saying stuff like, "I'm a radical feminist, not the fun kind." (Ha ha, yeah, fun sucks! Joy couldn't possibly be a way to resist patriarchal oppression!) It's naming books stuff like Woman Hating and Heartbreak and Our Blood, the fetishization of suffering as feminist purity, and the refusal to really address the fact that sexism can be subtle, subliminal, non-violent, and just as if not more damaging and difficult to analyze and resist due to that fact. Here is another quote of yours I came across:

"He is the conjurer who takes the smoking ash of real death and turns it into stories, poems, pictures, which celebrate degradation as life's central truth. He is the illusionist who paints mutilated bodies in chains on the interior canvas of the imagination so that, asleep or awake, we can only hallucinate indignity and outrage. He is the manipulator of psychological reality."

The thing is, Andrea, you were talking about The Oppressor. I read this, and the only person I think of is Y-O-U. Asleep or awake, we can only hallucinate indignity and outrage, if we buy into your theory of gender relations. We accept, if we accept your work, degradation as life's central truth.

*** IMPORTANT UPDATE RE: COMMENTS ***
Oh! My goodness! It appears that this - in what is a completely surprising occurence with no precedent in either the history of feminism or in my own personal life - has become a heated conversation! To the extent that I've made it so, I take responsibility for that. Here are a few statements in regard to this that I'd like folks to hear, up front, before entering the war zone:

1. Everyone who reads this blog is entitled to call me out for statements or theoretical points that are based on privilege. Everyone who reads this blog is entitled to disagree with me. I take critiques of my privilege or theory seriously. I am furthermore aware that this is a contentious and painful debate, and that there are probably several areas in the post that deserve serious critique. I would appreciate it, and do appreciate those who have written careful critiques thus far.

2. For reasons of accountability and objectivity, I am not editing the post itself (except to add this) and publishing every comment in this thread except for random threatening Internet-stalker stuff, and doing my best to respond to them. [EDIT: Ha ha, not any more! Because the thread got too long to keep up with and respond to, and also literally almost as soon as this note went up folks started doing more and more of the following:]

3. Insofar as possible, please refrain from the following: slut-shaming (and this can take the form of framing "sex with men" as a choice that necessarily precludes "ending violence against women"), name-calling, condescending to or passing judgment on the personal choices of other women, and revoking other women's Feminist Membership Cards or claiming access to the One True Feminism. This, in case you are curious, can take the form - and often does! - of acting as if a fellow feminist's agreement, disagreement, or decision to criticize or support of the theory of one Andrea Dworkin invalidates both her commitment to the movement and everything else she has ever done. [EDIT: Jesus.]

4. Thanks for engaging.

SEXIST BEATDOWN: She's Every Woman, It's All In Her (And Definitely Not You) Edition

2009-06-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

Friends, today is the day I have spent talking. Talking, about how to personify feminism in one's personal life! Can you do it? Can you do it PERFECTLY? I cannot!

Well, here is a relief for me: Angelina Jolie has been scientifically discovered to embody literally every facet of feminism, PERFECTLY, within herself. This was discovered by Naomi Wolf! An author I like quite a lot! Naomi Wolf: I like you. And I like Angelina Jolie even more, now that she has taken this burden off my shoulders.

Behold, as Amanda "Not the Face of Feminism" Hess of The Sexist and I "Even More Definitely Not the Face of Feminism" of Tiger Beatdown discuss!

ILLUSTRATION: FEMINISM!!!

SADY: so, yes: angelina jolie represents us all! or, the best in all of us! she is the eternal spirit of woman! or something.

AMANDA: she also represents how sexy feminism can be. the worst thing about this whole thing is how it seems to be pretty much accidental how angie rose to become this Idea of Woman: you, too, can be the ideal woman: effortlessly!

SADY: yet, i mean: somehow, in spite of the article's many points about how angelina exemplifies the ideal woman (did you know that even STRAIGHT women, if pressed, would sleep with her? this is in no way a generic "well, i guess people like her" answer) i doubt everyone idealizes her in the way the article suggests. SHE WON A SURVEY. people were like, "who's a celebrity you like THE MOST," and the answer was "angelina." she really only occupies this exalted place within this specific essay.

AMANDA: i know. the stars of sexiness and Brad Pitt and bisexual fantasies and feminism aligned at this particular moment. (because they had to, for this essay). and so, anything Angelina does is empowering. i don't particularly see what's feminist or anti-feminist about, say, sleeping with a man who is married. but maybe if we squint ...

SADY: right. or blood necklaces, or kissing your brother. feminism: now with more billy bob thornton action! is not a headline i expect to see on the cover of ms. any time soon. well, not unless i write that essay. and then cut and paste that headline on to the cover of ms. in a delusional frenzy.

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: but, really: the article just seems to be stretching. look, she's sexy! and, a mom! and, she has a cute boyfriend! like, how is this not true of so many other celebrity women?

AMANDA: i do think that crowning anyone as the archetype of "bringing together almost every aspect of female empowerment and liberation" is necessarily dumb.

SADY: right? like, the article actually says at some point, "she is like princess diana, but better than princess diana, because she is not dead, which really put a damper on our desire to identify with princess diana." PARAPHRASING.

AMANDA: personally, i like the idea that somewhere deep down, Mother Teresa was personally dismayed that people could see her as good, but not sexy. "why am i so GOOD?" "i will never be desired!"

SADY: "ARRRRRRRRGH, boys don't like me. maybe if i didn't spend all this time with lepers!"

AMANDA: it's also telling that the story is a write-around, as all stories about celebrities are, because we really have no fucking idea what her life is actually like or whether we would really want it. or want to sleep with it. whatever it is that we want from her life.

SADY: right? and i am sure that, in some places, her life is pretty mundane. the whole glamour and myth-making process of celebrity is one thing, but: you know, she's just a lady. i have it on good authority that angelina jolie both eats food for nutritional reasons and excretes waste products known as "poop!" i heard that angelina jolie frequently douses herself with water and soap for that special "clean" feeling!

AMANDA: finally, a woman who poops that women want to be like! we've been waiting for this

SADY: yet, despite our common habits of pooping and showering (i hear she also "sleeps" to refresh herself!) i really doubt that many of us will EVER have lives that resemble hers. like. if you have to win an oscar and sleep with brad pitt and adopt and/or birth all the underprivileged children in the world to bring together all facets of women's liberation, i really should just give up now.

AMANDA: yeah, and i think by the end we get to this crazy perversion of her original point. which is that, you know, women should be able to have sex lives AND be respected, and other such double-standard-breakers. but angie just keeps piling on the ANDs to the point of absurdity. like, now we should be able to have sex lives AND be respected AND be amateur pilots before, we were just slutty pilots.

SADY: AND star in sky captain and the world of tomorrow! don't forget! in the world of tomorrow, everyone will respect you for your slutty piloting skills! it's kind of nuts. i, at this point, have been devoted to The Feminism for so long, and i continually think about (a) whether my life is feminist enough or (b) whether my life is STEREOTYPICALLY feminist. like, ideally i should be gorgeous and universally loved but especially be loved by boys but also resist each and every form of oppression that i encounter in my day-to-day life, SUCCESSFULLY.

AMANDA: see, but angelina can effortlessly be feminist AND not too feminist, all at the same time, without being forced to choose between feminism and not-too-feminism
5:15 PM those lips, etc. i dont' know. i want to read profiles like this about EVERY celebrity

SADY: because (SPOILER) angelina, as she exists in this essay, is your imaginary friend. she is made up. i like the part where we go into Imaginary Angelina's brain and learn what she is thinking: "She insists on claiming every role on an operatic scale, making the symbolism as transgressive as possible — and saying, implicitly, "See? It can be done.""
whereas maybe she was just thinking, "WOO, what a cute baby, i'm gonna adopt it. also, get another tattoo. unicorns are the best." my Imaginary Angelina/Perfect Woman Archetype thinks a lot about unicorns. it's weird.

AMANDA: whatever, our Perfect Women can DO that now. finally.

SADY: exactly. but, you know. if another woman were as popular as angelina jolie - and maybe another woman will be, soon - we'd be writing the same essay about her, i think. like, in five years it might be lady gaga and we'd be writing about how real female self-determination means you can dress like natalie portman in the Star Wars movies, but if that character really liked to get naked. the Perfect Woman thing is so arbitrary and weird that you could basically write your own essay about "[x] is the perfect woman" and get the same results.

AMANDA: i like this new outlet for feminist writers though. get hired by mainstream publication. argue why arbitrary [whatever] is feminist. i could get used to that

SADY: oh, that sounds perfect to me. who wants to hire me to write about the feminism of various artisanal bourbons? "this bourbon, which i drank A LOT OF, filled me with the feelings of liberation and pukiness that are essential to feminism." "this is a bourbon that can do it all." "and so can YOU, female reader."

AMANDA: You let me know when the Tiger Beatdown Feminist Bourbon Tour starts and I'll be the first in line.

ADVICE! For Deleted Commenters! AGAIN!

2009-06-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

Friends, I received a comment today! A comment that was six hundred and fifty-one words long! Now, normally I would just be like, "whoops, looks like someone doesn't know how 'blogs' work." (Did you know, Commenter, that there are whole websites that you can create specifically for the purpose of posting your various thoughts on things?) However, this commenter is important enough that I feel compelled to help him and/or her out, by dedicating an entire blog post to his or her important - nay, revolutionary! - ideas. This commenter, you see, is a dedicated feminist, devoted to destroying the single largest obstacle to women's equality that currently exists.

The single largest obstacle to women's equality that currently exists is Tiger Beatdown.

To be more specific, it is Tiger Beatdown's review of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." I know, right? That was not even the meanest review in the series! "Superbad" was the meanest; then, on the "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" thing I basically just lost my mind and was like, FUCK YOU COLLEGE BOYFRIEND AND/OR JASON SEGEL I AM CONVINCED THAT YOU ARE PRETTY MUCH THE SAME GUY ALSO YOUR MOVIE BLOWS. Nevertheless, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is the one I destroyed feminism and/or women with!

Now: before I present this comment, I must regretfully tell you that the staunch feminist ally who wrote it is Anonymous. Yes, an Anonymous Commenter, or "AC" for short. So, let's just fix "AC" in your mind, so that you have a clear mental image of this person. "AC." "AC." "AC." AC:

Got that picture firmly in mind? Good. Let's read on!

Good to see that you've dispelled the offensive, unfounded stereotype that feminists lack a sense of humor. What incisive commentary!

Why, thank you! I have dispelled that stereotype, haven't I? And all by myself, too. Heyyyyy, wait a minute...

I thought 40 Y/O Virgin was a fairly standard comedy that derived its humor from hyperbolizing the way men think and talk about sex. I thought the ultimate "lesson" of the movie, if it had one, was that mutual respect is the foundation of a sexually-fulfilling relationship. Little did I realize that the film was, to misquote Bunuel, "a passionate call to rape and abuse." I mean, we've all seen the troubling statistics on the sharp rise in home invasion sexual assualts that took place in the aftermath of this film, but I never understood why until now. The pieces finally fit! Praise the Lord and pass the labrys!

You guys, I think this person might be making fun of me! It is hard to tell, because it is so subtle! Is there any way you can spend over 500 words on making your point clearer, Anonymous Commenter?

I was also really excited by the novel presentation of this piece. Rather than succumbing to the use of transparent, unfunny sarcasm and half-baked reactionary ideas [which perpetuate the unfortunate idea that women generally are passive aggressive and that feminists in particular are pseudo-intellectual idiots], you offered an unbiased commentary without any indicia of a censorship agenda.

Yeah, AC's definitely making fun of me. How could AC have missed my clear censorship agenda? Has AC forgotten that I personally burned all copies of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," and made laughing at Steve Carell punishable by death in my recently-created totalitarian regime? Well, thank God AC would never stoop so low as to use "transparent, unfunny" sarcasm to make a point! That is for passive-aggressive idiots! And TERRORISTS.

[Blah blah blah] syncophantic commentators [blah blah blah] right-wing religious types, or gun nuts, or racists, or fanatical adherents to any "ism" of any other strip, feminists [blah blah blah]. If we watch things like this despicable, hateful film to make an independent judgment, there'll be anarchy in the streets [blah].

Whew. Thank God I didn't watch this film to make an independent judgment or anything. Who knows what damage I may have caused! For example, I might have single-handedly destroyed feminism!

[Blah blah blibbity blabbity bloop bleep blorp]... know what? Upon further consideration, I'm afraid that you and your readers are fucking stupid enough to take the foregoing seriously, so I'll just make it plain: you are an idiot, and an asshole to boot.

WHAT? Oh no! You fooled me before! With the sarcasm!

It's self-described "feminists" like you that make the rest of us look stupid and crazy. You are the Hulga/Joy Hopewell of feminism: a smug, self-involved, miserable bitch with no practical knowledge of how the world works.

Yes, but such a fine short story could be made of my life, don't you think? Also, a PJ Harvey song, which I quite enjoy! Is This Desire is sort of an overlooked album, for me. I rarely listen to it, but when I do, I always...

... oh, OK. AC has now dropped both a Flannery O'Connor reference and a Bunuel reference into his or her anonymous "you're a bitch and I hate you" Internet comment. This signifies, for the record, that AC wants to be taken seriously, on an intellectual level; also, that he or she has literally no sense of irony or absurdity whatsoever. So, I will now engage with his or her argument, seriously and with full intellectual pomposity. Although, for the record? You didn't need to try this hard, buddy. The "lol you r dumb" commenters are typically just as convincing, and much more concise.

Do you really think that the quasi-academic deconstruction of a harmless comedy is going to change anything? Do you think being hypersensitive and whiny and humorless is going to make the rest of the world take real feminist issues more seriously?

Ummmmm... yes! Wait.... no! Wait.... it's a pointless rhetorical question based on misreading and stereotyping my argument, as well as pulling every cliched anti-feminist silencing trope you can find out of your butt, and is so broad as to be entirely unconvincing because it relates to the actual words I have written only vaguely and seems primarily to be fueled by some feelings of animosity toward me personally or toward feminists and/or women in general!

Of course not!

DAMN IT!

Simpering about how some movie hurt your feelings because you didn't like it just feeds all those stereotypes about women [emotional, irrational] and feminism [unnecessary, irrelevant to real issues, a forum to bitch rather than take action] that real feminists have been fighting against for decades. As you were amusing yourself by dropping f-bombs and making bold pronouncements about your mature sexuality

Ha ha, "fuck." Ha ha ha. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Hahahahahaha.

women were earning less at work, being abused, being denied medical care, and being treated like second class citizens all around the world: Hundreds and thousands and millions of them.

No. REALLY? Wait. Nooooooo. I had no idea this was going on! Why didn't I write about it? WHY?

Is some man in an office somewhere reading this more likely to ignore a female subordinate's feminist argument in favor of more job responsibility if he thinks feminists are hysterical crybabies? You're damn right he is.

Okay. Here, we come (finally) to the main point of the argument: Tiger Beatdown, meaning me, is the sole representative of feminism in the world, and as such, responsible for determining the goals and priorities of the movement. Sorry, other feminists! You didn't make the cut! It's all about me now, and I say feminism is about buying me a pony!

As the sole representative of feminism (other than AC, who of course is completely devoted to the movement and knows exactly how it should go; this is demonstrated by AC's commitment to calling other feminists hysterical humorless crybaby bitches on the Internet) I am responsible for convincing everyone in the world to adhere to my and/or AC's feminist principles. Every blog post I write must encapsulate everything that feminism is about; I may never be allowed to write something silly or pop-culture focused, as an unidentified and extremely gullible businessman (OK, Emily Gould: YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT BOB, I am sorry) could choose any one of my blog posts to form his ideas about the female gender. It is my responsibility to incarnate all womanly virtue, and to behave in a manner that ensures I will never be stereotyped - since, as we all know, when a member of an oppressed group is stereotyped, he or she is in complete control of this, and in fact makes it happen, and the stereotyping party is a blank slate with no pre-determined agendas (or, "prejudices") - and, should I ever falter in this mission, women will magically become oppressed through my actions.

There are no other feminists. There is no such thing as pre-existing prejudice or privilege. People are incapable of surveying the huge and diverse feminist movement and determining that there are differences of opinion within it, and that debate is encouraged, and that they cannot and should not form their ideas about feminism from my work alone. My job is to behave properly at all times, or I and all other women will be subject to oppression, which is our fault for not being good girls and laughing at boys' jokes.

Nope, I can't see anything sexist about this argument whatsoever. Let's tune in to AC's concluding words:

Grow up, get out of your ivory tower, get off your ass, and fucking do something!

Yes. DO SOMETHING! Do something important! Like, LEAVING ANONYMOUS MEAN COMMENTS ON BLOG POSTS! That will save the world!

M@ Did Not Rape You. He Just Drew a Diagram About It!

2009-06-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

My goodness, free speech is hard. Just this morning, I was reading a REALLY REALLY EXCELLENT PIECE by the really really excellent blogger Amanda Hess, which drove home to me precisely how hard it can be! It concerns a young blogger named M@ (no, really: he is named M@), who, on the blog Why I Hate D.C., wrote the following:

*** TRIGGER WARNING, TRIGGER WARNING, A THOUSAND TIMES TRIGGER WARNING ***

As I continue along the bridge, a young woman, too, comes straight at me and I think of Ralph Ellison and his Invisible Man and wonder why they cannot see my white skin gleaming under the towering lights. She comes straight at me in a game of chicken I cannot now lose... she’s just my type: thin, pretty, white with brown hair. A feeling arises in me hitherto fore unknown. I want to rape her.

In my animal mind, I force her against the railing and push into her, afterward tossing her over the side, burying her in the cold and the wet and the deep—satiating, for now, my love for the city, my hatred.

Okay. Raping a lady? Check. Killing a lady after you've raped her? Check. Rape framed as compliment (she is just his type!), and also as totally impersonal way for dude to work out his aggression? Check! Young white man citing his "gleaming white skin" as evidence of his kinship with RALPH ELLISON?!? Check-mate, my friends. Yes, we have determined, on a highly scientific basis, that this blog post is Very Offensive. The scale goes, 0 (Not Offensive), 5 (Kind of a Tool), 10 (What the Hell is Wrong With You?), 20,073 (M@). Oh, and did I mention that he included A DIAGRAM? He did! He included A DIAGRAM!

This is the diagram! See if you can spot the lady he wanted to rape! I know, I know: it's subtle and complicated, like all the art that flows from M@'s fertile brain.

Say, you know what is just as offensive as the rape fantasy described above? All of the graphic rape and death threats M@ has received since then! I'm not printing them here, because they're gross and even more super triggering (there is stuff about entrails and things going into other things that they're pretty much anatomically designed not to have things go into). Amanda Hess has covered many of them, if you are curious. M@ has responded with rape jokes and comments about "feminazis," of course! ("I’ve read my feminist literature and I know my shit better than most women on that subject," also, is a thing he wrote, because HA HAHAHAHAHA ohhhhhhhhh, shit, I can't even finish that sentence, HAHAHAHA, ohhhhhhhhh, we have fun.) Because he is such a grown-up!

What I will say, after much careful reflection, is this: sending a man who writes publicly about his rape fantasies YOUR rape and/or murder fantasies, starring Rape Fantasy Writer Dude, is wrong. It is wrong even though there is some poetic justice to it: these comments may actually prove to him, better than anything else could, that words (especially words about raping!) matter and can be scary and upsetting. HOWEVER. Framing rape as an appropriate punishment, for anyone, is very bad. So are death threats.

Fortunately, I am a professional Insulter of People on the Internet! I have, like, a Ph.D. in that! (DISCLOSURE: I do not actually have a Ph.D. It is a metaphor!) Therefore, I will share with you several more appropriate - yet still insulting! - things that you can write to M@.

As I read "Why I Hate DC," I come across M@'s graphic rape fantasy. It's just my type: poorly written and pretentious. It contains a reference to Ralph Ellison right next to an allusion to his "gleaming white skin." I want to make him take a literature course in which he actually reads The Invisible Man. The required term paper will be very long. He will not like it. Afterwards, I will give him an F, because he is a bad writer.
While I peruse various blog posts, written by people with various screen names and pseudonyms, I come across "M@." It's just my type: stupid beyond the point of comprehension. I imagine pushing him up to his laptop and forcing him to edit his profile so that there are actual letters in his name. As he weeps gently for the loss of what he no doubt believes to be a clever pun, I will personally delete that fucking "@" symbol. "Your name is Matt. We get it," I will say, showing no remorse whatsoever. He will be surprised that I have figured it out.
As I skim my blog reader, noting and enjoying blogs by many intelligent and funny feminists, I come across Amanda Hess's article about, and interview with, M@. He's just my type: an entitled, self-absorbed, narcissistic dickweed with no self-awareness, who will continue defending himself, no matter how wrong he is. A hitherto well-known desire overcomes me: I want to take him to a rape crisis center. I also want to take him to a women's shelter. The women will come forth to tell him their stories, one by one, speaking softly and simply: about the attacks, about their injuries, about what went through their minds, what their attackers said, how hard they have to work each day not to be overcome by the shame and guilt and terror this world seems happy to thrust upon them. They will speak of the failures of the criminal justice system to prosecute and convict their attackers, the failure of communities and families and friends to support them or to understand that they did not "bring this upon themselves" somehow, the failure of us all, as citizens, to notice and care about and refuse to trivialize the huge numbers of women who are made subject to violence, this violence, this intimate violence, this betrayal which befalls our gender so disproportionately. As they speak, M@ will slowly, but surely, come to know what many of us know already: that there is much suffering in this world, that his concerns and troubles are petty and insignificant compared to theirs, and that his tiny, trivial, privileged existence is not the most important one on the planet. He will not be able to handle this, as it invalidates his entire worldview, so his head will explode. Whoops.
As I read the Internet, I come across M@. He's just my type: the sort of dude who writes graphic fantasies about raping and killing women, then is surprised and petulant when people are angry about that. I want to lure him to my matriarchal bee colony. I imagine arranging a ridiculous series of coincidences through my chicanery, which will inevitably end with him in a bear suit, screaming about "BITCHES!" I will then sacrifice him to my pagan nature gods. "Killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey," he will exclaim! No matter. The drone must die. The drone must die. The drone must die, satiating my love for bees, my hatred (for M@).

Okay, so that last one was pretty violent. Sorry, M@! Nevertheless, I am sure that we could find many more appropriate punishments for M@. For example, what if we arranged some sort of panel discussion, featuring M@, Aaron P. Taylor, and Seth Rogen? It would be called "Stupid Dicks: How They Live Today," and would feature questions such as, "no, seriously, what is wrong with you?" Or, "Jesus Christ, how dumb can you get?" Afterward, we could send them all out to a nice farm, where they could chase rabbits. Wouldn't that be non-violent?