MY FUCKING FEMINISM, MY FUCKING VAGINA, AND MY FUCKING FEELINGS: Why I Support Hillary Clinton

Some people like to pretend that politics isn’t just base emotions writ large. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t have this Donald Trump situation on our hands. Facts are nice, but we all vote based on some sort of gut-level response to a candidate—in the primaries, anyway. Now, for the majority of my lived memory, I’ve heard nothing but shit about Hillary Clinton; from my (conservative) parents and other adults around me, from the media, and later, from fellow “progressives.” But I have come, since 2008, to really respect, admire, and yes, LIKE Hillary Clinton. I like her because she is a smart, accomplished woman. I like her because she’s a badass survivor. I like her because, yes, I can see myself in her. I like her because she puts women first. And in some ways, I like her because certain other people don’t. Oh, holier-than-thou liberal dudes think she’s too conservative? PLEASE SIGN ME UP. Actual conservatives become apoplectic at the mention of her name? YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU I’LL HAVE SECONDS. Society says an ambitious and ew, disgusting older woman is frightening and unpleasant and unattractive? SHUT UP HOLD THE PHONE LET’S GET BEST FRIEND NECKLACES. (See Sady Doyle for a smarter way to say all this.)

I imagine this is all many people will take away from this anyway, so might as well bring it back.

My radicalism might not look like your radicalism, but to me, admitting that I like Hillary Clinton is kind of radical. Admitting it in public so that dudes I know (and thought I was friends with) can tell me my politics are “terrible” and claim I only care that she has a vagina is also radical. In real life, I hate conflict! I am uncomfortable with debate and disagreement! But also, a woman running for and winning a major party’s nomination, if not the presidency itself would be TOTALLY RADICAL. And yeah, becoming a Hillary fan falls right in step with my love affair with not-quite-ironic internet-based misandry. I really could go the entire rest of my life without a man explaining something to me or being in charge of me in any way. I know that’s probably not possible, but yeah, a lady in charge of our country would be refreshing if nothing else. Ugh, at least women wear COLOR.

Each time I post something pro-Hillary, a subset of my Facebook friends, almost exclusively women, like it and comment supportively, sometimes admitting that they've been reluctant to say they're pro-Hillary, too. This is who I’m writing this for. All of us who believe we need somebody’s permission to like who we like and support who we support. Now, there’s no scientific way to prove a negative, but I feel strongly that if Hillary Clinton weren’t a woman, she might get some of the same (legitimate) criticism from fellow liberals about corporate ties, insiderism, unfortunate past votes, not-so-progressive policies she currently supports, etc. You know, substantive critiques. However, the vociferousness with which people IN HER OWN PARTY try to tear her apart is given its teeth by a certain amount of misogyny. Maybe you personally don’t think you hate women, but if you say, do, or even think sexist shit in response to Clinton’s candidacy, you kinda do. If you don't have that reaction but you see this tendency among your peers and say nothing, you’re part of the problem.

This is all to say that I’ve felt the need to defend my choice of candidate. I don’t come on your feed and yell at you that you only care about Bernie’s dick, so why you gotta get up in my face? Hillary’s qualifications are bonafide. Crazy smart. Experienced like a motherfucker. And a feminist who’s not afraid of the word. (Again, Sady Doyle’s got the scoop on articulating why women like me feel like “progressive” often doesn't include our issues.) Additionally, the symbolic value of a female president can’t be overstated. I won’t pretend that’s not a big reason I support Clinton. But I also support her because she’s used her status AS A WOMAN in politics to enact policy worldwide to improve women’s lives. Not every policy she’s supported is good. Some of them do hurt women and children and/or people of color and other vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, this is the society and the politics and government we live with. Por ejemplo: Is there any major party candidate who WOULD end targeted drone strokes? I think not. That doesn’t mean it’s not awful or that we shouldn’t pressure the people in charge to stop it, it just means that here we are.

"Women's rights are human rights [motherfuckers]."

However, I don’t think anyone can impeach the efforts Clinton HAS made: as First Lady, as a Senator, and as Secretary of State, to improve the lives of women and girls. And that brings us to what everybody brings up. What I joke about because that’s what I do: I joke. The more my emotions get pricked, the more I joke. Because that’s what I do. But so what if I have a VAGINA? So fucking what? You can have no idea what it’s like for the entire world to be obsessed with, hate, desire, want to control, and concurrently be disgusted by a part of your body if you’ve never lived with one. It’s exhausting. So sure: vaginavaginavaginavaginavagina. I’m not saying you have to have the “right” parts to be a good ally to women—and if you look at almost any female Republican politician, having them doesn’t always help, either—but I know Hillary Clinton has got my back (especially the lower part where I get horrible menstrual cramps) on women’s issues. It’s a pressing issue for her because she’s lived it. She’s spent her entire public career fighting for us. And by the way, if you think the “establishment” is happy with that, you haven’t been fucking paying attention.

In a world that routinely reduces my value as a person to my sexuality and reproductive capacity, how can you get mad when I decide that, yes, THAT: me, my body, the issues that affect my body and bodies and hearts like mine, that people in power who care about those issues and understand them and fight to defend our autonomy and value us as humans, that these are the most important things to me? Other things matter, but nothing brings me more fucking joy and pain in this entire world than being woman. Progressive men are fine. If they value reproductive rights and feel that yes, it does deserve to be mentioned during a campaign in 2016, the year after howevermanydozens of state legislatures attempted to reduce access to reproductive healthcare and we still only earn 77 cents on the dollar and paid parental leave is a fucking fantasy wrapped in a pipe dream and rape and stalking and discrimination are not only still an epidemic, but are LITERALLY a joke to so many people, great. But there’s no one I trust more with an egalitarian future than a feminist. Men can be and are feminists and feminist allies! Bernie Sanders is surely one of these men sympathetic to the cause. But it’s not a top priority to him. (He seems to think economic reform will end discrimination? Okay. It can’t hurt!) I’ll vote for him if he gets the nomination, but his deal is not my deal.

Because guess what? Feminism is my #1 issue. Hillary Clinton is a fucking feminist. Not only would her election be massively symbolic, it would be hugely inspiring to girls and women and everybody who dreams of a feminist future. And she would actively work to improve our lives. Us. Those of us fighting discrimination in our communities (including the comedy community, speaking of more stuff that is depressing me lately). Those of us who live with the reality of our humanity constantly being degrading by society, by politicians, by everything we watch on TV, by abusers and rapists, by gross dudes catcalling on the street, and by people we know and love who make carelessly sexist comments and underestimate us on the regular. To be real, I’m having trouble writing about this in a coffee shop without tearing up a bit, and it’s probably only 43% because I’ve gone off my anti-depressants again. But I won’t be ashamed that this is how I feel. I won’t be guilted or shamed into supporting somebody else because it’s the appropriately “progressive” thing to do. I can’t “correct” my feelings any more than you can.

I will admit: I am not an idealist. I don’t know that I ever have been one. Perhaps this is a flaw on my part and I’m sure we could draw a pretty straight line from being born into what basically amounts to a millenialist cult and my feelings now. If you think the world is going to end in the next decade or two, why bother trying to change shit? I’m also clinically depressed and have been disillusioned too many times and I’m pretty comfortable keeping it all at a distance with my snarky cynicism and also booze. But I can’t change my past any more than I can change the fact that Hillary EXCITES ME. She gives me hope, and hope is not a thing I take lightly. Her steely determination is something I admire and envy. How, after decades of not just the everyday discrimination thrown at women in a patriarchal society, but somebody specifically targeted by the media and society and her enemies and everyday people, can she still want to serve us?

It pisses me off just thinking about it, and I’ve been relatively sheltered from a lot of blatant harassment and discrimination in my life. I’m white and I’m middle-class and I’m attractive (TBH) and I can turn my anger into jokes. At least in the moment. When I get really angry, I cry, and I hate crying. The bane of my childhood was my brother deliberately provoking me for no goddamn reason except that he wanted to see me get angry, to make me cry. I was told to ignore him. I learned to not respond and then later to defuse the situation with a joke. Even later, I learned the art of an insult disguised as a joke. This is now my tactic of choice since being mean to men without at least the plausible deniability of comedy can be literally dangerous. But later, after I get home, after I reread that thread or relive the conversation, sometimes I get fucking mad. And sometimes I cry. And I hate myself and the world we live in that I can’t just be angry and emotional and let it all hang out. That this shit happens at all and I have to feel this way. Other times I think I handled it brilliantly; the joke put the gross harassing bar dude in his place or it was directed at somebody I know and maybe even like and people laughing at it made him realize he was saying or doing something shitty and now he's sorry and won't do it again. Sometimes it works and relieves the pressure for the moment. But there are so many horrible things that face us as women, jokes are not enough. So at the end of the day, the rage remains.

Hillary Clinton knows my rage. Hillary Clinton has felt a lot of rage, I bet. She’s earned it. I’m not just talking about the personal attacks, either. There gets to be a moment in which you’re just fucking sick of the sexism. It’s exhausting it’s outrageous it’s offensive it’s blatant it’s immoral and you just can’t deal with it anymore. I’m grateful that Hillary Clinton is stronger than I am. Sure, it takes a massive ego to run for president, to think you can do that job. But she has taken that rage, that hopelessness that all of us as women feel at some point (or at all the points) and channeled it into a laser beam of ambition. Fucking good for her. FUCKING GOOD FOR HER. And for us.

To be honest, I’ve got several thousand more meandering words written about why I support Hillary Clinton that are less about my feelings and are more about pragmatism and politics. But fuck that. Those are all great reasons and part of why I support Hillary, but they’re not the real reason, the one at the base of it all. Truth is, I’m an angry woman. I want another woman in office; one who gets me and my anger and can do something about it. Sorry/not sorry if don’t think that’s a good enough reason. Vote for who you want; this isn't a campaign ad. But if you really can’t understand why this is important to me and many, many, many other women and people of various gender identifications, then I don’t care. You don’t get it. You can’t get it. Go ahead and tell me my politics are “terrible.” Reality is terrible. Go fuck yourself.

There's Nothing Sexier Than Having to Talk Somebody into Sex, I Guess

Guys, at some place called "Reason" there is a nightmare of a blog written by some lady named Shikha Dalmia: "California's Sexual Consent Law Will Ruin Good Sex for Women. (And it won't stop rape)." Go look at it. (Or don't.) Stab something non-living. Then come back and spend some time with me. Here are some of my initial responses:

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT?

LIKE SERIOUSLY, IS THIS A JOKE?

IS THIS WHAT PEOPLE CALL "TROLLING"? IS SHE DOING A TROLL ON US?

I CAN'T EVEN FORMULATE THE WORDS TO EXPRESS ALL OF THE PROBLEMS HAPPENING HERE.

I WILL EVEN USE THE WORD "PROBLEMATIC" TO DESCRIBE IT.

This is how all of this makes me feel.

Guys, California has a new law! If a college student accuses another student of sexual assault, the disciplinary board of the college or university must apply a standard of affirmative consent to their investigation. "Did (s)he want to have sex?" (new standard) vs. the traditional question of "Did s/he say 'no' out loud?" This is a good development because of how lots of time people (mostly ladies) are taught to be polite and use nonverbal cues or redirection or other methods besides outright refusing a Man. This is also good because even if that issue is not in play or a very minor concern, people who are being assaulted often know or suspect that if they do say "no," things will not go well for them. It can be easier (and even safer!) sometimes to give in. Or, say, you may be unconscious and never even get the chance.

Many rapists don't think that they are rapists, even if they know the things they do aren't okay, so they continue to believe and/or at least argue that the out-loud word "no" is the Gold Standard of All Consent. Or they argue that "She only said no at first" or "She said no to that one thing, so I did this other thing" or "She said yes to some stuff early on, so any other words afterwards I couldn't hear because of how I didn't want to" are legitimate claims to make. These are not legitimate claims to make. The new law does not require that consent necessarily be verbal, but it does have to be "affirmative, conscious, and voluntary" and given at every stage of the sexual encounter. This is like when you are making out with somebody and it's getting hot and heavy and you're pretty sure you both want to have sex, but you are not a mind reader, so you say, "Do you want to have sex now?" And then they say yes or no, and if they say yes, you get out a condom and do it. If they say no, you negotiate whether to keep making out and only making out or to stop and do something else. It is very easy and it even works on strangers (who are not rapists). Even if you are both drunk (I should know)! Shikha Dalmia seems to be confused about a lot of these things, like how rapists and rape culture operate. Perhaps even more troubling (for her personally, anyway), she doesn't seem to understand what "good sex" might actually look like.

Here, I plucked some Choice Passages to yell at on the internet. I will try not to recap her entire terrible essay to you, but there were a lot of bad parts. (Hint: all of it.)

Gem #1: "To the extent that the law works, it will actually ruin both good men and good sex." 

This is a thing that makes no sense and also is not true. And she never argues how it will supposedly ruin "good men," just FYI. I'm pretty sure good men are just, like, good, and aren't rapists anyway, so...?

Gem #2: "The obvious problem with the law — which many other states are considering as well — is that it assumes that sexual assault, already a crime under multiple laws, is the result of miscommunication. The assumption is that somehow one partner (and let's be honest, it is overwhelmingly the one with a Y chromosome) didn't ask or realize that the other wasn't into it. But the fact is: Most assaulters know exactly what they are doing. The vast majority of campus rapes are committed by a small minority of repeat offenders who give not a damn about what the woman wants. And if they can threaten violence, they can also lie about obtaining consent."

L;KJAREGPOIAGNJKAG;KAGJKDG. Oh my god, the idea that sexual assault is just "one big misunderstanding OOPS how'd my dick get in there?" is a rape culture myth, not something that feminists/anti-sexual assault activists promote or buy into. Yes, most rapists* are repeat offenders (though they don't like to use the icky "R-word" to describe their actions) who don't care about what women want. Yes, criminals and exploiters can, do, and will lie about what really happened. The thing is, they are now going to have to make a better argument than "I never actually heard the word 'no.'" The point of the law is to kick one of the legs out from under rapists' arguments. They will have to explain how they knew their partner was actively consenting. "She stiffened up and wouldn't make eye contact" or "She said, 'I don't think we should' but not 'no'" or "She asked me to at least use a condom" or "She was pretty drunk, but I could just tell she wanted it" are no longer good arguments either! Those actions do not say "yes."

Maybe the new law won't scare most rapists at all. But knowing that the legal (at least on campus) requirement is affirmative consent is good for everybody! Like, if there is a sweet boy who is shy about talking about sex, but gets scared when he is fooling around with his girlfriend that she is not that into what they are doing right now and he doesn't want to be a rapist, so he forces himself to ask her out loud if it is okay, THAT IS A GOOD THING. More communication is always positive. If she says, "Yes, it feels good!" Yea! If she says, "It's fine," maybe he should ask her more questions about what she would like better. If she says, "I don't really like this, " then he should stop that immediately and also ask more questions about what she would like better. That is how sex works. Good sex, anyway. And I'm not just being reverse sexist! She should ask him the same things. Same goes for partners of any gender/orientation/number. If your partner(s) doesn't seem engaged physically, then use your words. It's called adulting. Like, a good relationship allows for you to be honest that not every sex position or strange Pinterest recipe your partner tries is your jam. Only assholes will be mad that you told the truth.

Gem #3: "So how will the law change anything? But by effectively changing the assumption from 'presumed innocent' to 'presumed guilty,' this new standard will inevitably snag some guys who earnestly meant no harm. Over time, of course, an industry will emerge to coach the accused on how to game the law and get away. "

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? No. No. No. If a guy "earnestly" thinks fucking a girl who clearly isn't actually into it will do "no harm," then he needs to learn that it is NOT OKAY. It is not worse to be accused of assault than to be a victim of it. Go fucking read Mallory Ortberg's opus on victims and what "counts" as a crime and then come back and finish this shit.

But SRSLY, UGGGGGHHHH. Defense lawyers and rape apologists will always be around, this law will just make it harder for them to argue the encounter was consensual. This is the main reason why sexual assault cases aren't pursued/punished: the issue of consent is supposedly "unclear." If there was no consent, it was a crime. These new guidelines make the definition of consent narrower, meaning it's HARDER to slip out of. (And also a college disciplinary committee is not the same as a court of law, so maybe let's not completely conflate the two?) I don't give a fuck how earnest you are if your partner didn't want it. Also, we don't avoid making laws because some people will find away to get around them. That is not how legal codes work, Shikha Dalmia.

Then the really revealing part happens.

Gem #4: "The truth is that, except in the first flush of infatuation, both partners are rarely equally excited... What's more, whether due to nurture or nature, there is usually a difference in tempo between men and women, with women generally requiring more 'convincing.' And someone who requires convincing is not yet in a position to offer 'affirmative' much less 'enthusiastic' consent... initially one has to be coaxed out of one's comfort zone. Affirmative consent would criminalize that."

NO. Negotiating a disparity in desire and sexual coercion are NOT THE SAME THING. Let us discuss how. It is true that rarely are two people exactly in sync as far as desire goes, especially over the course of many years. These things ebb and flow for various reasons, many beyond our control. And what Dalmia is talking about here, the need to be "convinced," seems to be (I'm taking this in good faith) a reference to what amazingly smart and awesome sex educator/scientist Emily Nagoski refers to as "responsive desire." GO HERE NOW READ ALL THE THINGS. Those people who generally experience responsive desire (and it does seem to be more common in women) don't usually want to have sex just spontaneously. Their desire is heavily context-dependent and comes in response (see?) to sexy stimuli. Some of us have always been like, or at least sometimes feel, "It is a Day, I want to bang." But many others sometimes or usually feel like, "I am stressed out or tired or kind of sick or just doing this other thing and I can't imagine feeling sexy right now how could you possibly want to bang at this moment?" This is a great post where Nagoski talks about how to ETHICALLY initiate sex with a partner who experiences responsive desire. It's about creating an environment in which s/he will not just begrudgingly agree, but actually WANT sex. It's also not quid pro quo, though. Just because you did the laundry for your over-stressed partner when it was her turn doesn't mean her underwear is just going to fall off next time she sees you. "Convincing" both in this context and in Dalmia's description has an awfully coercive feel to it.

Responsive partners may not be actively feeling horny, but if they are feeling "open" to sex because you've helped put them in the right frame of mind, then you are working together to make it happen. They will not necessarily feel like having sex until the sexy is already happening sometimes, but that still has to be consensual. Like totally consensual kissing! Eventually, if things are not progressing beyond that on their own, you may want to ask your partner if s/he is still into this. If they're still just warming up, great! If they decide that's all they've got in them for now, that sucks, but that is that. And if your partner is not in the mood, s/he is not in the mood, so maybe ask them what you might be able to do to create the right mood and LISTEN and DO IT WITHOUT EXPECTATION OR IMPLIED OBLIGATION, don't just grope them until they give in. This is just good relationship advice. And as Jill Filipovic pointed out on Twitter earlier, if it's your personal jam to be nagged into sex with guilt, then that's your thing, and is presumably a consensual, pre-agreed-upon kink you've worked out with your partner and is therefore also not rape. If what Dalmia means by "convincing" is actually foreplay, then well, I'm just saddened that she doesn't consider that part of the fun. One still has the ability to consent to particular acts and/or whether things will go further at any point. Still so much not-rape.

Gem #5: "The reality is that much of sex is not consensual — but it is also not non-consensual. It resides in a gray area in between, where sexual experimentation and discovery happen."

No. If many of your sexual encounters are "gray" or not-NOT-consensual, then maybe you should reevaluate your life choices.

Gem #6: Obligatory reference to women's "sexual liberation" and then, "It won't help their sexual actualization now to enchain their partners in ill-advised lines that limit their moves."

ENCHAIN? How dare we venture to SHACKLE THE DICKS OF AMERICA'S COLLEGE MEN? Kill me now. SRSLY. If women and men are all sexually liberated, then anybody can initiate sex or particular sexual moves, so why do we have to worry about "limiting" dudes? For the sake of the Sexy Gay Jesus, lady, "limiting" men (and women! All people!) to sexual conduct that is consensual and therefore legal is not a real limitation, anyway. It is what a civilized society does to protect its citizens from exploitation. How does making exploitation harder hurt anyone? Oh boo hoo hoo, it's not cool for a dude to just "accidentally slip it in"! Have we destroyed experimentation by having to ask first? No. Even scientists have to ask first before they do an experiment. Mostly for funding, but the analogy stands. If you're sexing with other humans, their needs and desires are no less important than your own. Why would you want to have sex with somebody who doesn't want to have sex with you anyway? (Unless you are an actual rapist, in which case, go to hell, and I hope we're making your business more difficult.) Agreeing to fuck is great! Let's all do it!


*Here's some stats and facts from Science about sex offenders.

"Consequence-free sex" doesn't exist, is bad argumenting anyway

In light of the recent SCOTUS decision involving Ye Olde Hobby Lobby and private corporations' rights to impose their owners' beliefs upon their employees, I've been hearing a lot about how sluts just want their bosses to pay for them to have "consequence-free" sex. I'm sorry, what? Ain't no such thing. Yes, people who can get pregnant are particularly concerned about being able to have control over that particular consequence of heterosexual intercourse, but, like, you're making two terrible logical leaps by using this rhetoric.

1. "Consequence" is a generally pejorative term used to indicate a deserving punishment for someone who has done wrong. This only makes sense in this context if you believe sex is inherently wrong (at least for women). Jessica Valenti covers this effectively here. DON'T THINK I DON'T GET IT, CONSERVATIVES, I DO. Remember how I used to be Mormon? As a somewhat politically moderate (but still completely cut off from my own sexuality) religious teenager, I believed--somewhat confusedly--that while we certainly had no right to bar a particularly woman from getting an abortion, that pregnancy was a literal consequence/punishment for having sex. Having in the intervening years thought this idea through to its logical conclusion/also had sex/also seriously considered parenthood, I now believe and think that 10/10 non-assholes would agree that no child should be a "punishment." It's not a great start in life for an innocent baby to be born as "Oops Shit Fuck" or "Shoulda Worn a Condom" or "WTF You Said You Were on the Pill" or "Now My Life Is Over" just because its parents rubbed their junk on/in each other's junk.

Additionally, these conservative attacks on contraception are part of a larger anti-woman/anti-reproductive justice campaign and upon, of course, health care reform. SCOTUS has argued that because a "closely-held" corporation like Hobby Lobby's owners are super-Christian/Pro-Life/shut up and go away, it's cool that they've decided they don't want to pay for actual comprehensive health care for their employees. The decision actually acknowledges that Hobby Lobby's purported belief that contraception like hormonal birth control, IUDs, and the morning-after pill are abortifacients is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT AND NOT TRUE AT ALL, but the court thinks it's cool if they use this deliberate misinformation to screw over their workers because of saving babies or some shit. Hobby Lobby, do you really want every single one of your female workers (which I'm guessing is a large portion of your part-time, minimum-wage-earning retail staff) to risk pregnancy every single time they have sex (even/especially the appropriately Jesus-ly married ones who may even already have a bunch of kids or have an abusive spouse they are trying to escape from and a baby will tie them together FOREVER)? Do you provide paid parental leave and subsidies for and/or on-site child care? NO? Then fuck you. Oh, you're cool with covering vasectomies because it's fine for dudes to decide they don't want to have any or more kids? QUADRUPLE FUCK YOU. Misogynist fucking pseudo-religious corporate welfare bullshit nonsense.

It's a consequence!

2. No human actions are "consequence-free." When reasonable people, especially lady feminists that I follow online, responded negatively to the court's decision in Hobby Lobby's favor, douchebags call them irresponsible sluts who should shut their legs and stop whining about wanting to have "consequence-free" sex. First of all, who are these dudes fucking? Probably mostly straight ladies who they probably mostly don't want to ALWAYS get pregnant.  But let's ignore the sexual double standard for a second and talk about "consequence-free." Sex is not consequence-free, whether or not you're using contraception. Neither is eating or waking up in the morning or wearing or not wearing your seat belt or telling your spouse that you love them or having another beer or putting on those sexy green pants today or not calling your mom often enough. They may be tiny, even imperceptible consequences, but each decision puts into motion a series of events.

So let's talk sex consequences. Let's assume you are having some PIV sexy times and you are protected against both pregnancy and STIs. What are some other possible consequences?

• You enjoy yourself.
• You're a little sore the next day.
• You feel a strong desire to wash your sheets.
• You figure out you're not really into that one position or act or whatever.
• You mentally chastise yourself for bringing home some law school douche against your friend's advice who gets whiskey dick and has the audacity to a) ask for a non-reciprocated blow job, b) stay all night despite nobody finishing or particularly enjoying themselves, and c) request your phone number in the morning even though you're about to catch an international flight and then will be moving states in like two weeks. POR EJEMPLO.
• You stay up too late.
• You realize you really, really like the person you're boning.
• Your ex finds out and gets jealous and acts like a baby on social media.
• Your roommates judge you for being promiscuous.
• You want to do it again.
• You are really hungover, which is not really the sex's fault, but maybe you wouldn't have done it without all the shots in the first place.
• You experience a mind-blowing orgasm that takes you to a higher spiritual plane.
• The person you're fucking starts to get a little too attached and you have to let 'em down easy.
• You decide it's okay to not fuck anybody else for a while.
• You get a pretty good story out of it.

CONSEQUENCES. Everything has consequences. Science makes it possible to avoid some of the most inconvenient/possibly health- or life-threatening consequences. Like pregnancy, childbirth, and dreaded venereal diseases.Yea, science and medicine! It treats kids' cancer, too, so you can't say it's all bad.

People are going to Do It. They're Doing It right now. Even if you think women (esp. UNMARRIED ones) should be punished for Doing It, you probably Do It, too. Everything in life has consequences. Nobody's asking to eliminate consequences. That's not how the universe works. But if you think that sexually active people (women) deserve to have to undergo the discomfort and danger of pregnancy and childbirth and THEN raise unwanted children from banging once instead of just maybe learning an awkward lesson about who they shouldn't go home with or an awesome lesson about who they should be with FOREVER AND EVER, I don't even fucking know what to say. You are a killjoy, probably a hypocrite, and almost certainly a dude. FUCK YOU BUT NOT LITERALLY BECAUSE YOU WON'T LET MY EARNED INSURANCE* COVER BIRTH CONTROL AND I WILL NOT BE HAVING YOUR ASSHOLE, JR. BABIES THANK YOU VERY MUCH.


*Haha, employer-subsidized health insurance! Cute. Temps and adjuncts don't get that. We pay out of pocket for our coverage, but my Nuva Ring costs $0 a month, so there. THANKS FOR THE SLUT PARTY, OBAMA!

Bitches be opining about rape jokes

I did stand-up once two years ago. It's time I weighed in.

Have you guys been following the minute details of the most recent dudes defending their right to "joke" about rape controversy? Because I read all the ladyblogs and have a bit of a vested interest in "not hating women" and also "comedy" and made the mistake of reading comments sections on some of these articles, I have presented more than one impassioned argument to my husband while drinking and working on a jigsaw puzzle in front of the TV about this. Since things are still happening, I guess I'll finally get around to writing about it, too.

Previously on Feminists vs. Douchebags:

May 4: Awesomely awesome Sady Doyle went to a comedy show. She is a funny lady who also enjoys other funny people! However, in a sadly unsurprising turn of events, one of the dudely openers told a series of HILARIOUS jokes about women that were unfunny and sexist and also some of the punchlines were, "I raped her." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I don't think I can stop laughing, it is so funny to rape people chicks, amirite, bros? Anyway, Sady tried to engage with this comic about why he thinks that's okay. Does he not realize that his audiences inevitably include rape survivors? Though originally eager, once he realized what she really wanted to talk about, he was not so forthcoming. And so Sady published her piece and then he and his fans and other dudecomics got all upset about her "attack" and also "free speech" and "shut up, bitch."*

May 9: Comedian/activist/radio host/lady I know a little bit in real life Molly Knefel observed the nasty aftermath and wrote her own piece for Salon in response. Molly points out that male comedians sometimes do stop joking around and make serious social statements. She used the example of Patton Oswalt, who spoke out after the Boston Marathon bombing to much adulation, but defended DoucheBro-in-Chief Daniel Tosh's rights to make uncriticized rape threats (jokes?) at a show last year. Molly expressed disappointment that he and other comedians with a high profile don't feel the need to condemn the sadly endemic violence against women in our society in the same types of ways. Salon played up the Patton Oswalt angle, and some of his fans (among others) decided that instead of reading her article as lamenting a culture that values certain lives over others, that openly condemns certain types of violence while ignoring (at best) and trivializing violence against women, they assumed she was trying to trash Patton just to get attention. Hahaha, obviously.

May 10: The incomparable Lindy West then jumped into the fray with "An Open Letter to White Male Comedians." She contends, "I have more experience doing comedy than you have being a woman." She shuts down various arguments about feminists trying to "silence" male comedians or about how "it's just a joke." Guess what? It's not a joke to a lot of people, particularly women. And telling someone to shut up because they said they don't like your jokes is the actual definition of silencing, so nice try. Anyway, all the good things are there. (Also, see her post-Tosh guide "How to Make a Rape Joke." You can! But either avoid be a dick to survivors while doing so or just admit you're cheering on rapists!)

June 4: After continuing the conversation on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell on FX with comedian Jim Norton,  Lindy received a whole new slew of dudely outrage. In a video (where she reads offending tweets aloud) and post a Jezebel, she asks, "If comedy has no lady problem, why am I getting so many rape threats?" Though here we can see they are all hilarious jokes/trenchant social commentary meant to subvert the dominant paradigm. Haha just kidding!** They are clear silencing tactics.

There are lots of other people writing important shit about this, too! Because SRSLY, if you are not a rapist, why would you want to identify with rapists? Rapists are not cool.

This is all a prelude to what's really important, which are my thoughts and feelings. Guys, as an aspiring comedy-type-person, I do sometimes get an icky feeling in my stomach about stand-up comedy/Comedy Central/comedy "communities."  I did that thing once! Stand-up at an open mic! In Bowling Green. Not exactly a hotbed of comedic geniuses (or progressive politics, for that matter), mostly just about a dozen or so young white dudes writing terrible jokes about ex-girlfriends for each other. (#sorrynotsorry #truth) Up to this point, I had actively avoided my regular bar on comedy nights, having been pissed off before while trying to innocently get my drink on--and that's mostly when the professional touring comics were performing. But somebody I know thought the open mic night needed some feminist infusion, and I agreed to put together a five minute set in solidarity with a few others who wanted to infiltrate the thick douchery. I think it went pretty well! I only had to shut down one dude's creepy comedy "virgin" joke when I signed up. However: I spent the rest of the night after my set watching dude after dude tell awful "jokes" about how women are irrational and dumb and slutty and have icky bodies and also why won't any of them date him? But not fatties, no, no fatties. Also, racist stereotypes are super funny! Also, this gem: "One time I berated a random woman on a dating website, here let me read my messages to you off of my phone verbatim, no seriously this is the 'joke,' that she's a fake bitch whose profile I looked at and she doesn't like hearing about it and I am incapable of recognizing that I am actually a terrible (unfunny) person really proud of harassing strange women online!" I don't recall any straight-up rape jokes, so that's a victory, maybe?

I know this is one spot on one night in one shitty little college town that can't be seen as representative of all women's experiences with various local comedy scenes, but I walked away largely demoralized. I never wanted to go back. I felt the other comedians were hostile to women/basic human decency. Who would want to network with them? I got busy with my PhD program and teaching, so I didn't ever make it to any other clubs in Toledo or anything to try again. And while I'm on the fence about whether stand-up is really my medium (should probably do it more than once),*** nobody wants to go somewhere that's supposed to be fun knowing they will probably be uncomfortable and/or offended at least part of the time. Why would I want to break into a "scene" that's hostile to my presence? I suppose I'm lucky(?) to not be a survivor of sexual violence, but it's not just rape victims who think it's uncool to make fun of rape victims. You want to make fun of rapists--without resorting to jokes about them being raped themselves in prison? Go for it. But if your joke is, "I am a dude and I raped a lady, aren't I edgy?" that is not a joke, that is not subversive, that is just you contributing to rape culture. Seriously, it's science.

And if one more article declares some kind of "inherent" conflict between feminists and comedians, I'll cut a (non-gender-specific) bitch. I think any of the writers I cited above would be surprised to find that you can only be one or the other.


*This is the only kind of speech that is freely allowed.
**This is called "verbal irony," son.
***I am enjoying doing improv stuff right now! Just because there are often more dudes doing it, doesn't mean it has to be unfriendly to women! I've also got a number of friends from my classes doing stand-up here in the Twin Cities, I should probably go see them/try it myself again and then I can decide which places might need to be avoided for my sanity.

I have opinions

Guys, do you ever read things and then feel feelings and think thoughts about them? I do sometimes, but usually I just click the next post button on my Google Reader and hope a cute kitty will show up. However, I  had vaguely complex responses to MULTIPLE THINGS I saw on the webernets, so I'm going to go all op-ed on your asses and share.

Captain Awkward hits a (my) nerve while taking a physical boundaries/personal space question: "Do we hug? Because my feeling is that no, we don't." Are you my husband? Are you one of my stuffed animals? Are you my sister or parents (but not either of my brothers, because ew) when I haven't seen you/am not going to see you for like a year? Have we ever been roommates? Am I drunk and already your good friend? If you cannot answer yes to any of these questions then you will never, ever be invited to touch me. Deal. A ROUND OF FIRM HANDSHAKES FOR EVERYBODY! I was just saying to my sister that I also find small talk invasive, so basically I just hate people, is what I'm saying.

Over at Jezebezzle (that's what I'm calling it now because why not this is MAH BLOG), we hear about a nice girl named Kendra who goes to D.C.'s American University. She is recovering from an eating disorder. One day she was at the student gym and some frat douche was there wearing a "Please Don't Feed the Sorority Girls/Campus Beautification" t-shirt. So she was like, "This is horrible and reminds me of why I was anorexic," so she wrote an op-ed in the student paper about how that shirt was douchey and sends a bad message and how it was triggering for her. She wasn't like, "Ban all t-shirts" or "All men are the devil" or, as I would suggest, "Ban Greek life from campus and while we're at it, let's dismantle the patriarchy." But anyway, lots of assholes are calling her oversensitive/acting like she's some kind of attention whore for writing about her experience. She said that shirt was offensive and pointed out that lots of people (mostly ladies) have issues with eating disorders, so maybe campus-sponsored groups shouldn't be making shirts that encourage disordered eating or posit thinness and hotness as the one and only purpose for lady college students. People are assholes. Criticism is not censorship, it's just pointing out that you're using your free speech to be a dick.

WTF, Evolution? is cracking my shit up.

There's probably other shit I have feelings about, but this is enough for now. HELLO WEEKEND, I WILL BE DRUNKING YOU SOON.

Or I'm just a monster

It's possible I've been reading too many outraged/incredulous feminist responses to Ross Douthat's recent lamentations about how few babies (white) American ladies are having these days, but I totally thought this Frigidaire tweet (I don't actually follow Frigidaire, I swear) said "kid-free" instead of "kid-friendly."

DO NOT MAKE SPAGHETTI OUT OF YOUR CHILDREN, PEOPLE!

I suppose non-child-meat-containing foods are technically "kid-friendly."*

*Also, what is going on with the uneven capitalization here? All or none, people. "Kid Friendly" is not a brand name. I can tell by how there is not a trademark symbol next to it.

Ridiculous Taiwanese TV Show Shockingly Mishandles Sexual Assault Plotlines

Truth be told, even the promo pics are pretty rapey.

Friends, I mentioned recently that I've been watching the Taiwanese show Absolute Boyfriend. At first it was fun: robot boyfriend who doesn't understand human interactions or emotions or that he should probably wear underwear! Cute next door neighbor who harbors a secret crush for our hapless female protagonist! Various workplace shenanigans! Ku Hye Sun who was so likable in Boys Over Flowers and still is here even though her lines are awkwardly overdubbed because either she doesn't actually speak Mandarin or she has a funny accent or something! That terrible but bizarrely catchy theme song! But then eventually it got rapey. Then it got more rapey. And neither rapey plot point was handled in a responsible manner.* And I do not watch my foreign TV shows to think about politics--I want silliness, romance, ladyfeelings, and a complete disconnection from reality. Absolute Boyfriend, though I will continue to watch it because now I'm in it and WTF? and also I clearly have an Asian drama-watching problem, has filled me with more angst and rage than a light-hearted TV show about a robot boyfriend really should. And now all -0.2 of you who care and the rest of you who don't but feel obligated to read this because you are my sister or something are going to hear about what is wrong with this shit.

Now I know that there a few different versions of this show and that they are all based on some Japanese manga, but I've only seen this one so I can only speak to how it is dropping the ball on the rape plot lines. Without going into too much detail, here is some background info: Xiao Fei orders a robot boyfriend from the internet (obviously). Part of the deal of her being able to keep him even though she can't actually afford it is that he sends back her emotional lady data to the "company" (which apparently is run by a 10 year-old?) for help in developing more robot boyfriends for people to buy. BECAUSE LADYFEELINGS ARE SO MYSTERIOUS, AMIRITE? But anyway, the company needs some sexy data from Xiao Fei so they can understand female sexuality or something, but Xiao Fei is an inexperienced lady who is not ready to do "that" (and yes, that is how they ALWAYS say it) with Nai Te (the robot) or anyone else. But the company keeps pressuring her to do "that" since that is basically what a robot boyfriend is supposed to be for and it is awkward and uncomfortable. ANYWAY, two terrible things happen related to this icky plotline:

1. Nai Te (who is apparently developing real human emotions but still has trouble understanding "appropriate interpersonal behavior" and "consequences of one's actions") gets jealous and desperate and thinks that Xiao Fei doesn't want to be with him, so he basically locks her in an isolated vacation cabin and tries to rape her. But he stops when she starts to cry and then he feels bad, which he should obviously, but then SHE APOLOGIZES for not wanting to have sex with him and begs him not to leave her. And though he later says what he did was "unforgivable" and apologizes a lot, she is both kind of afraid of him but also feels guilty that she "made" him do that to her. PROBLEMATIC.

2. A horrible, horrible other character who lies to Xiao Fei about who he is to get her to trust him (and also ends up being a robot or something? But an evil one?) tricks her into coming to his hotel room, drugs her, and (as far as we know, since they don't show anything but clothes being taken off and the "morning after" in bed scene) rapes her. Xiao Fei apparently is only disturbed that she apparently "fucked" this guy (excuse me--did "that" with him) and not that she can't remember anything about it and now she feels guilty for "cheating" on Nai Te. It is terrible! And this other robot keeps threatening her and blackmailing her and also kidnaps her at least once later on and Xiao Fei just feels guilty about it when really she should have reported the FUCK out of him to the police for drugging her and raping her. We later find out that he was just pretending that they did "that" together to get her to pull away from Nai Te but THIS IS STILL NOT OKAY. She was walking around, feeling horrible, not telling anyone what happened and feeling responsible for it (again). PROBLEMATIC.

So actually Xiao Fei has not actually been raped by any of these robots, but it has come pretty close, and she is full of regret and shame and guilt (like many real sexual assault survivors are!) but no anger at these dudes for trying to/actually taking advantage of her and no acknowledgement that she feels so awful not because she "doesn't love Nai Te enough to do 'that' with him" or because she "cheated on her boyfriend" but because she has been sexually assaulted multiple times now. And even if the second one was fake it is fucked up and UGH.

So what I'm saying is, I have a lot of feelings about the incredibly irresponsible storytelling going on here. Xiao Fei needs to stay away from all the robots and get together with her doting childhood friend from next door who probably would understand that sexual assault is sexual assault and a crime and not her fault and also he is adorable and wears cute vests and cardigans all the time.


*Possibly worse than Veronica Mars season 3, people. That's how badly this was done.

Why sometimes you just have to get your feelings hurt and why that is not so bad, after all and also I too once watched 500 Days of Summer and hated it

Let me tell you guys a little story: It is about how Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown is an awesome feminist blogger/hero/one of my internet girlfriends. I did not discover her writing until it was featured on ye olde venerable blog Shakesville, like, a year ago or something, and I have been eating up Sady's pop culture awesomeness since then (she is also writing at Feministe these days because she has hit the feminist blogosphere big time). Anyway, she is hilarious and sometimes I think maybe it sounds like we have similar thought processes/speech patterns and I would like to establish that though I am not CONSCIOUSLY copying Sady Doyle, it is possible that I have been influenced by her writings and would like to publicly recognize that because I like to be intellectually honest like that. This is a long prelude into what is basically me linking to her recent review/analysis of that one movie, (500) Days of Summer* and talking about how I watched it too a couple of months ago despite my reservations and then telling you anecdotes about my romantic life experiences that I will extrapolate into important life lessons for the kidz who might want to try this "dating" thing.**

Ahem.

So Sady at Tiger Beatdown recently watched that movie and wrote about it at her blogplace. Basically you should read it because it is good and she talks about literature and whatnot but for my own purposes I would like to agree with the part where she says that, basically, even in movies that are ostensibly progressive-ish because they are about hipster boys with rich emotional lives, girls are horrible and everything is their fault. This is how: because this time, Zooey "Giant Blue Eyes and Melodic Voice" Deschanel plays a girl who states firmly and up front to adorable Joseph "no clever nicknames but attractive and almost makes me not hate this movie quite so much" Gordon-Levitt's character, who has a crush on her, that she does not want to be in a relationship. Nonetheless, they become pals and start fucking and basically hanging out constantly, much like a couple, but Zooey/Blue Eyes/Summer continually emphasizes that she doesn't want to make it official or anything. But he's, like, in denial and in love with her anyway. Then she breaks it off. Then he is all heartbroken and whines for the  next hour or so about how sad and lonely he is and how she's such a bitch and led him on and boring boring EEEEEEEEEMZ. SRSLY. It's like all eemz all the time. Like fucking Tickle Me Emo up in here. And it pissed me off. And Isaac. We were pissed off. I may or may not have thrown a snack food at the screen during this movie.

But anyway, here's the point: It's not that I didn't think it was okay for JGL's character to feel bad. Of course it's okay to have feelings, even if you're a dude! DUH. And I'm not going to call him stupid for getting involved with her even though they wanted different things because, hey, we all have to make mistakes and she's hot and was willing to get with him for a while.*** But he also had no right to be so damn indignant once she broke it off because her message had been consistently anti-commitment. And though the movie does occasionally call him out for being overdramatic about the whole thing, I think we're supposed to feel sorry for him. But I don't. Let me share a (totally hypothetical) personal experience to illustrate:

Say you are a single person enjoying a rare but exciting streak of promiscuity. Say you meet someone you like, who seems to like you, and you hang out and hook up a few times. Say this other person is fun and really, really good in bed. You would want to keep sleeping with this person, no? But say you made it clear that you don't want a relationship because you're, for example, moving away in a couple of months and can't start anything right now. So perhaps this person you're seeing who genuinely enjoys hanging out with/fucking you on occasion meets someone else around the same time as you that they like, someone who is not moving away. So say eventually it becomes clear to you that the person you've been hooking up with is feeling kind of ambivalent about continuing your non-relationship, but you want to keep fucking, so you pretend otherwise and keep pursuing, even though you know you should just let it die a natural death. Then say it gets to a point where though you're pretty sure you're not going to fuck anymore, the person who you were hooking up with has to tell you that they like this other person and are going to date them, citing your aforementioned disavowal of commitment since you're moving away and whatnot. And you are all cool about it because all's fair and everybody's upfront and adult, etc., but you can't help feeling kind of rejected anyway. Perhaps you've been carrying on with any number of other dudes in the meantime, but still feel weirdly sad, like you've been dumped.

What I'm saying is this: even if you keep it "casual," sometimes you'll get kind of attached. Since I tend to (almost) always fuck dudes who I am or want to be friends with, it can be hard for me to separate the physical from the emotional. And it is messy. I'm not saying don't have casual relationships, flings, one-night stands, or what-have-you, I think they can be valuable learning experiences, or at least good stories. I am saying that in the above example of things that might have happened in my real life, I can empathize with whatever JGL's character's name was in that stupid parentheses movie. The guy I was seeing wasn't TRYING to lead me on, and I could tell he wasn't as into me as I wanted him to be but still liked hanging out and having sex. So when he "ended" it, I was a little bit sad and my self-esteem was a little shaken. Even though it was not a relationship in any way and I was moving soon anyway and blahblahblah casual. Because sometimes these things happens. But guess what? I didn't feel bad about it for that long. I talked it over a bit with some friends, let myself feel a little hurt, and then moved on.**** Like, the next week I went to visit another suitor in another city who I was also not having a relationship with (who I eventually had to "end it" with too, which was sad but necessary and not as casual as it ostensibly should have been). ANYWAY, DATING IS COMPLICATED. So this rambling rant is meant to say that it's okay to get your feelings hurt by people you're seeing even if you agree to keeping it "casual." What this may teach you is that perhaps you should avoid trying to keep it casual, because you will inevitably get emotionally involved. Or maybe it will teach you that you should make sure not to get into situations where the other person is clearly not as enthused about it as you are because you will probably get hurt. Or maybe it teach you that maybe the other person sucked or that you are a sucker. Or maybe it will not teach you anything useful at all, but merely provide another notch on the ol' proverbial bedpost. What I'm saying is, you often have to fuck, fuck up, and be fucked over in order to really figure out what you want or what works for you in a relationship. That is life. Just don't turn into that embittered 500 Days of Summer guy. It's okay to be hurt, but she was honest with him, and he is not justified in staying angry at her for months and months. Is what I'm saying. Also, she gets married, like, immediately, to someone else. WTF?



*Does this title start with a parenthesis so that it may always be alphabetized first? "Well, before A comes numbers, and before numbers comes punctuation marks!"


**Clearly 94% of this blog's readers are right about my same age because they are my real life friends (and not actually kids) and already know my anecdotes, but BEAR WITH ME. Sometimes people from random foreign countries accidentally find my blog through a Google image search or something and is not always a 100% bounce rate, thank you very much, Google Analytics.

***This is totes just like Ted and Robin in the first season of How I Met Your Mother, which I may have just been watching, like, yesterday!


****Weirdly, the "breakup" conversation was the same one in which I found out that when he said he'd been "single" for about a year and was just getting back into dating, it was because he was divorced. Which only happened because his ex-wife was in a photo album he was showing me. Besides pretending not to feel dumped, I had to pretend it wasn't really weird that he never told me in the month or so we'd been hanging out that he used to be married. AWKWARD. I'm going to assume he told the girl he actually ended up dating sooner than that.

Manly Man Man Commercials During Football but WHAT ABOUT THE (GIRL) CHILDREN?!

Covered all over the interwebz are discussions of the particularly pathetic and desperately misogynist commercials shown during this year's Super Bowl. Via Jezebel, I quite enjoyed this flow chart to analyze the masculinizing effects of television commercials. As Amanda Marcotte from Pandagon, puts it, these commercials would have us believe that modern masculinity is barely surviving a vagified assault. Heehee. VAGIFIED. That Dodge Ram Charger (ladybrains have trouble keeping track of all those different types of cars!) commercial ("Man's last stand") was so sad, I didn't even want to punch anyone. 'Cause I mean, SRSLY? Dear sirs: No one can MAKE you eat fruit or not act like an asshole in front of your girlfriend's parents, but they are generally advisable actions. Also, why is Dove marketing man-soap? But I digress. But anyway: the problem with the Super Bowl's "I'm a MAN" commercials is not so much that they are insulting to women (though they are) or even that they are insulting to men (which they most definitely are also), it's that a huge (inter)national media event like the Super Bowl reaches its icky, capitalist-fueled gendered message tentacles into the homes of millions: millions of CHILDREN. Though I do a kind of disgusting amount of research on the gendering of boys and the devastating effects of hegemonic masculine ideals enforced by peers, parents, and fucking football commercials on young men, I want to talk about the lady children. Yes: GIRLS. Though I am now a dirty, hairy-legged feminist academic elitist man-hater who is able to view cultural productions like advertising and pick apart the gendered messages therein and sometimes make oversimplified jokes to my gentleman consort like, "Get it? 'Cause [insert consumer good here] is totally like a PENIS!" I was once a young girl. Ahhh, those were the days.* (The following discussion is incredibly heteronormative, so sorry lovely gay readers, I am not quite so familiar with how gendered media messages fuck with your relationships too--or not! Feel free to lay some knowledge on me in the comments.) Growing up in my pre-ex-Mormon days as a kind of proto-feminist girl, the messages I received from role models, peers, and the media made me kind of terrified of men. And I don't mean in a child molester kind of way, though getting leered at by teens and adults while still in elementary school and reading too many of my mother's Woman's Day and Better Homes and Gardens magazines certainly made me aware of my inherent vulnerability to assault or abuse because of my gender. No no, I mean in a "I really like boys and I want to get married one day and hopefully have a boyfriend as soon as I'm allowed to date when I'm 16 and whatnot, but from what I understand, male people are assholes who are stupid, lazy, mean, and just want to fuck me." Though this sentiment probably manifested more as a kind of nebulous, anxious discomfort and with less swearing in my head. See, I have older brothers, and though they are far more masculinely gendered than really seems necessary, they are, after all, PEOPLE with all the complexity that that entails and I experienced the good and the bad the way you do with regular, three-dimensional humans growing up with them. My dad is also happens to be an awesome guy who clearly has feelings, cares about people, is very smart and competent, and appears to be the best kind of partner to my mother. So when my (kind of proto-feminist herself) mom would say things like, "[Mormon] men have to have the Priesthood because it forces them to help people." I thought, "WTF? Like dudes are incapable of caring about people or something? That doesn't jive with the masculine-identified human beings I am acquainted with." Something really rang false when responding to some friends and me talking about a teenage boy we knew being creepy to a younger girl, she said, "All boys care about is sex. If they didn't, they wouldn't ever want to get married and have kids." As much as I cringe at thought of my own our anyone else's parents' sexuality, I (internally) called bullshit even then. I'm pretty sure my dad WANTED to marry my mom and WANTED to have kids for other reasons besides being able to get it on. Gross. And though in elementary school the occasional asshole boy in my class would try and tell me girls were bad at such-and-such task, it always sounded particularly stupid since I was inevitably smarter than whoever was saying it and probably most if not all of the other kids in my class too and I assumed it was mostly motivated by jealousy. Don't worry, my self-esteem took the culturally-sanctioned nosedive at puberty. So while the sexist messages that got blatantly expressed didn't seem to gibe with reality, they caused me a good bit of anxiety (shock, shock). I knew plenty of stupid dudes, immature dudes, creepy dudes, etc., but I figured that any place before college wasn't really the place to find the semi-gender-nonconforming man of my dreams. I think being friends with/having crushes on/being like by so many cool dudes who ended up eventually coming out as gay helped me keep hope alive for men who did not adhere to the arrogant, violent, insensitive dude stereotypes I had been taught were the inevitable elements of masculinity. And though I've never gone for the manly-man type and they're not likely to go for me either, it did take me a few relationships to figure out that just because someone doesn't overtly present as super-masculine doesn't mean they don't buy into certain stereotypes of acceptable male behavior. Casual misogyny in the guise of intellectual arrogance, "irony," or complete inability to comprehend the emotional life of others does not a feminist man make. And while I realize everybody has their flaws and it is difficult to just shrug off our life-long gender training, it becomes clear, at least in retrospect that shit I put up with from men was due to (at least) these three factors:

1. Insensitivity, cluelessness, or even cruelty become self-fulfilling prophecies for men who grow up in a society in which these attributes are if not exactly encouraged, then at least tolerated as unalterable parts of the male psyche. Being a terrible and immature partner is CUTE and ENDEARING, see? Just ask Judd Apatow!
2. Male privilege insulates young men and boys from being called on certain behaviors that are unhealthy and I would say unacceptable in interpersonal relationships. Because jackassery has been tacitly or overtly condoned by parents, teachers, previous partners, and probably mostly male peers, many men think that being a jerk is the appropriate masculine performance for heterosexual relationships. Heaven forbid you become "pussy-whipped" and learn empathy! But can I just point something out? Acting like an asshole doesn't make you more of a man, it makes you more of AN ASSHOLE.
3. Perhaps most troubling, us ladies grow up if not exactly believing in these stereotypes in full, at least having been beaten over the head with them so often as to be complacent when they may be enacted in our real-life relationships. I put up with unacceptable treatment from male partners who were supposedly pro-feminist or at the very least "progressive" because I expected such behavior to a certain extent, and figured that at least they were liberal dudes who didn't REALLY hate women and I couldn't really do better anyway.

Do you see how these things are fucked up? Not only do we (the culture at large AKA advertising executives I HATE YOU ALL) stunt men emotionally and then encourage them to act out like whiny babies who are supposedly victimized and emasculated by the lady-run world that is tragically not just like an episode of Sports Center on loop, but we tell women that this is what men are "just like," that we should accept this, roll our eyes, and clean the toilet our own goddamn selves. NOBODY WINS IN A PATRIARCHY. Duh. And since changing the definitions of masculinit(ies) is a slow and difficult process, the least we could do is find a way to reach out to those young girls and women who are watching the Super Bowl (They exist! Shocking!) and teach them to critically read the media. Most importantly they need to know that they deserve better than what society wants to offer them in the form of romantic relationships. Because as man-hating as these commercials are, women are the ones who inevitably have to clean up the messes (emotional, household, etc.) caused by dudes who have soaked up the cultural stereotypes that allow them to be lazy and reckless because, hey, they can't help it. CARS PENIS STEREO HOT CHICKS FOOTBALL PORN ELECTRONIC GADGETRY BACON SEXBOTS EXPLOSIONS FAST CARS HAMBURGERS CONTROLLING WOMEN'S BODIES BEER CHIPS BEER CHIPS BEER CHIPS. *At 26, I still think of myself and most of my female friends as "girls" as opposed to "women" most of the time, but I would be pissed if someone who had power over me and/or I didn't like called me one. I think that's part of the reason I've latched onto "ladies"--it is kind of silly but still sounds more mature than "girls" without having to claim the full adulthood that "women" entails. I THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS, PEOPLE.

My New Best Friends

I'm totally asking them to my Teeth/Stepford Wives feminist horror party this weekend!

Things That Are Good

Via Shakesville, the Radical Gay Agenda finally reveals its sinister recruiting methods: Also, I can has juxtoposition? (Feministe) Also, BEST. CARTOON. EVAH. I can't wait until I'm nine months pregnant and sneaky Barry Hussein shoves me into one of those profit-raising machines known as women's "health" clinics. BTW- fetuses can't be waterboarded. They live in a womb. WTF?

I continue to do a great job writing final papers

La dee da, I should be working, but instead I'm drinking one of the Rock Star Juiced (Guava) 24 oz. cans that Thrift Store Champion bought a flat of at Big Lots! and playing on the internet. I am working on which direction to take my paper on Walter Benjamin and the democratization of the means of cultural production. I wanted to do something with that awesome Pin-Up Grrrls book I read this summer, and got a bunch of books about feminism and art blah blah blah. But I was rereading The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction last night and all I could think about was YouTube. And I said to myself, "I do not want to write a YouTube paper. Also, I'd have to restart all my research. And it would have to be like recent journal articles, etc., which are harder to find than books in a cursory search." So here I am trying to figure out where to go with it and just fucking around on the internet instead of reading more. Annnyway, enough about my working block. I just have to have, like, an outline for tomorrow or whatevs. So, links! -Amanda talks about an Evangelical Christian who realizes that maybe morality doesn't have to be based on specific belief in one specific version of god. This is a minister who traces his spiritual journey in a segment of the always-awesome This American Life. Amanda says:

What made the whole thing even more fascinating was that Pearson got all these letters from people who conceded outright that the existence of a hell where the majority of people go was a moral outrage, but who nonetheless suggested that he best comply with god’s wishes. God, in other words, is a terrorist holding a gun to people’s heads. And, more importantly, if you’re moral you do everything in your power to save other people from the wrath of this evil, torturous being by spreading the, um, Good News. Their entire system relies on the belief that people are more, not less, moral than god. Jesus’ role in this is that he became a man, and thus basically adopted some of man’s morality, and he pleads with the vicious, nasty, vindictive god to show a little mercy to his creation.

Obviously, most Christians would deny that this is what they really believe, but thinking about it in these terms is intriguing and ultimately kind of revealing about how much of religion is based on fear. Christian minister finds morality doesn't come from god. (Pandagon) -There's a buzz going around the feministernets (yes, I just made that up) about some bullshit article that I am too lazy to find and actually read and link to that basically blames third-wave feminism for increases in binge drinking among young women. Blah blah blah, women having equal rights and feeling freer to do shit that guys have always done is BAD. I'm not going to pretend that my frequent excessive drinking is healthy or something, I know it's not, but I also know that I can get away with it right now (I'm young, a grad student, live in a small town and have nothing better to do, etc.). I also won't claim that I don't enjoy feeling like somewhat of a badass when I down straight liquor or can match guys twice my size drink-for-drink. I also won't pretend that I don't also use alcohol to lower inhibitions and enjoy casual hook-ups. I realize mixing sex and alcohol can be problematic, but I think the fact that it is so common is largely due to restrictive cultural conceptions of female sexuality that are at odds with physical reality. Getting drunk is fun. Having sex is fun. Often hooking up is far easier when you're both drunk. So what? I'm in my fucking twenties. Is this not the time to sow my wild oats? Why has no one in the past been concerned about young (or old, or any) men and their oats, but get all pearl-clutchy when it comes to girls doing it to? I WANT MY FUCKING WILD OATS AND I WILL SOW THEM ALL I WANT. I'm a feminist. I also drink a lot. I have no bullshit ideas that drunkenness is somehow a "feminist" state. Duh. Just because feminism has allowed for women to "behave badly" without the same kind of social consequences that would have come with them in the past doesn't mean everything I do makes some sort of feminist statement. I'm fucking sick of fucking pseudo-feminist or anti-feminist or just generally "concerned" journalists and pundits blaming feminism for anything they believe is wrong with society, without actually examining the roots of certain phenomena. As if just because our coping strategies have changed means that we live in a fucking post-patriarchy. Assholes. Anyway, there are a lot of good posts out there (see Jezebel, Feministing, etc.), but I particularly enjoyed Jill's discussion: Chicks Drink. Blame Feminism. (Feministe) -This has been bouncing around the 'webs, and if you haven't seen it yet, it's fucking awesome. Jack Black as Jesus as the best idea ever. Also, perennial faves Allison Janney, Andy Richter, Margaret Cho, and that guy who plays Darrell on The Office, as well as NPH!

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

Rape Fakers: Problematic sexual harassment training

I was doing sexual harassment and diversity training for my graduate assistantship recently and I came upon this section about rape allegations:

FALSE ACCUSATIONS Both men and women sometimes attempt to file false claims of discrimination or harassment. Their reasons are many: psychological problems, the desire to get back at a manager or co-worker or gain status among peers, the attempt to earn money in a lawsuit, or perhaps an attempt to protect their jobs if they are performing poorly. False claims -- those not made in good faith -- can lead to serious discipline and financial liability for the accuser. Once sexual harassment has been reported, the school is obligated to investigate all claims, including accusations that later turn out to be false.

Problematic? I think so. Why do they even need to include a section on false accusations? Shouldn't that go without saying? Doesn't that just perpetuate the BULLSHIT assumption that false accusations happen all the time? FUCK. THAT. NOISE.

Purity balls: creepy patriarchal fad or CREEPIEST patriarchal fad?

Random aside: I just spilled chicken salad all over the tank top I've been wearing since yesterday. I am a classy lady. No doubt about that.

Lesbian princess orgies totally don't break chastity vows, right?

If you see these words written, stay away: "culture war," "hook-up culture," "personal responsibility," "purity," etc.

But anyway, purity balls.* If you haven't heard about them yet, then you can go ahead and thank The Sexy Gay Jesus for sparing you thus far. But I am not as merciful as SGJesus. Because they are gross. And they need to stop. People write these articles in mainstream magazines and newspapers about these creepy, sex-obsessed patriarchs and try not to be all "judge-y," when really we should all be totally judge-y all the time about men who think they own their daughters' reproductive organs so literally that they have the ability and the "God-given" right to give their little girls' pussies away to another man on their wedding day. Ew. So these guys dress up in suits and take their daughters (some of whom are far too young to even understand what a chastity pledge really means) to an anti-sex prom, vowing to "protect" the girls' purity, and we're supposed to believe that when the girls promise to abstain until marriage, they're really making a free and fully-informed choice. Right.

And can I just say something? I always thought the idea of "daddy-daughter dates" was kind of creepy. Sure, I like(d) doing stuff with my dad, but can we keep explicitly romantic concepts away from said stuff? I'm really glad my family wasn't into the "your first date will be with your dad when you turn 16" shit like some other Mormon families I knew. And guess what? I didn't turn into a big whore (until later, obvs). I didn't really date until college, and barely even kissed a boy until a month into that relationship. I was nineteen. And a half. I know the Mormon/sex/fear thing had something to do with my reluctance to date before that, but most of it was due to the fact that the opportunity never presented itself and I was having way too much fun hanging out with my girl friends to ever start feeling that frustrated about not having a boyfriend. Of course, I am a big trashy whore now. As you know. So we should probably go ahead and blame my dad for not properly guarding my 24 year-old uterus from teh evil unmarried penis. And also, I need to take a shower now that certain words (guess which ones) were used in the same sentence.

Jeff Fecke, the father of a daughter, points out what should be an obvious red flag:

This is everything that is wrong with the “purity” movement in a nutshell: it’s incestuous. And not incestuous in that a small number of people seem to run the whole movement — though that is part of it — but incestuous in that it actively encourages incest. It gives fathers an inappropriate level of control of their daughter’s sexuality. Like, way inappropriate.

Uh, yeah.

Also, in a description of the ceremony itself: "Then Randy and his friend Kevin Moore stand in front of the cross, holding up two large swords, points crossed." I feel like there's something... I don't know, meaningful about that type of imagery. Can't quite put my finger on it. But if I did put my finger on it, I'd have to give back my chintzy chastity ring. Ha! Haha! Hahaha! Gross. And the word "purity," when applied to human beings, smacks of eugenics or something. It should only be used when discussing chocolate, precious metals, and/or snobby musical choices.

TBogg, another non-creepy dad, calls out these purity freaks for making sex into this scary thing that is totally going to RUIN YOUR LIFE blah blah blah bad parenting, because most of these girls are going to have premarital sex anyway, but they'll be too afraid to even look into contraception:

And if you think a vow of chastity made by a twelve year-old during a farcical virgin pageant in a Holiday Inn ballroom is going to hold up against the tidal wave of teenage hormones to come, well, you're a bigger fucking idiot than even your kids think you are.

Pretty much.



*"The Pursuit of Teen Girl Purity"?! Ehhhhh.

Today's links brought to you by a glowing sense of vindication

Sorry to gloat without explanation, friends, but this one's not for the internet. Yet. Just sayin' that I am in a great mood, and only just now opened an energy drink. So happy hump day! Wipe those Cheeto crumbs off your fingers, change into a fresh pair of pajamas, and open up the blinds on that basement window, blog readers!* I gots some linkies.

-First comes from the Boozehound Cinephile (I bow down to the more experienced drunk). The bloggers over at Pajiba have been writing about good TV shows or something, blah blah blah--he talks about screwdrivers. In the involved and analytical sort of way only a true conoisseur can appreciate. Apparently the screwdriver is a telltale "alcoholic's drink." Just because we've kept massive amounts of frozen orange juice concentrate on hand for the past four years and it is a VERY rare a occasion that we have even less than two different bottles of vodka, doesn't make me an alcoholic! Seriously, people. Although I did like Ted's theory that drunks like screwdrivers because they can just pretend that they're drinking juice. I mean, not that I would have ever done that in the presence of some nice Mormons who came to visit me shortly after I left the church and was still letting them come over, pretty much only because I knew them personally and felt like I should let them fulfill their home and visiting teaching callings. That would have been really tacky. For the record: I do order screwdrivers in bars sometimes because I want something simple and not carbonated, but I only consider it a true "cocktail" if we're using vodka at least one step above Smirnoff and orange juice that tastes something like actual oranges and none of that sickly sweet Sunny D shit. The Dirty Dozen. (Ted Boynton, Pajiba)

Mulder likes screwdrivers, take a drink.

-I know I've got her over on my short blogroll and she doesn't update a lot, but seriously, you HAVE to go read Terrible Mother. She is seriously one of the best writers on all of the internet. She will break your heart and patch it up with her poignant, funny, and engaging accounts of an everyday but amazingly beautiful life lived. Yes, I'm being sincere for once. Please don't walk away! She uses sarcasm too! Go check out her latest post (as well as the archives), written on location at her dying grandmother's house in California. She talks about family, love, and relationships with an honesty and an accuracy (if that makes sense) that I've rarely seen in writing. In California, I Dream of Snow. (Terrible Mother)

-So recently GWB was like, "Hey, thinking about maybe possibly looking at the 'family planning' section of Walgreen's** is totally an abortion and we're not going to fund that shit," and HRC and (one of my home state's two awesome lady Senators) Patty Murray were like, "Nice try, assholes." A lot of people are talking about it, but I'll link to Amanda's post because, you know, I like doing that. Everything's abortion. (Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon)

-Speaking of women and choices (esp. vis a vis reproduction), Lisa Kansas spells out clearly how people would just prefer that we not have any, because any choice we do make is WRONG. "'Men' and 'mankind' apparently not being defined to include 'ambulatory wombs.'" (Lisa Kansas, PunkAssBlog)


All right, we'll call this good for now and save a couple links for later. Or tomorrow. Whatever.


*If you do not read enough blogs to realize that these are all stereotypes about bloggers, well then... I just felt really super-nerdy all of a sudden. Goddamn the webernets are an insulated place sometimes.

**So I totally bought (non-fruity) condoms at Walgreen's yesterday, and I swear the older guy (like, in his sixties "older") who works there a lot and always seems kind of patronizing was acting especially jackassy to me. He gave me shit about unloading my own basket (it had other things in it besides condoms, people) because "no one ever knows what to do with them afterwards" and seemed annoyed that I tried to use the pen pointer thing on the credit card screen. I was TRYING to be helpful, asshole. But apparently I shouldn't help you avoid repetitive stress injuries or preserve the integrity of the touch screen. I can't say for sure that he was judging me for being a whore, he does have a shitty job, but I can't say for sure that he WASN'T.