(Squirrel eating nuts in CROTCH of tree branch. Such a cutie pie. Hee.)
So, so far today, as of 2:49 p.m., PDT, nearly 5,000 men have come here to my radical feminist blog in hopes of getting a glimpse of Britney Spears’ upper thighs, pubes and labia. (That’s what those parts of a woman’s body are called, boys, I won’t be using the words you use.) I think it’s absolutely grand — poetic justice of the most inspiring kind – that instead of finding what they are searching for, they are finding my radical feminist blog, my and our writings about Britney Spears and what pertains to her, and to all women under male heterosupremacy, and our radical feminist commentary. I can imagine what they are expecting to see when they type in “Britney Spears crotch” and up pops my blog post, entitled ”Goddesses on Parade.” Anyway, my wheels have been turning. Hee hee.
Here’s my proposal: what if ALL of us, or as many as possible of us, as feminist bloggers, blogged about the perp mentality of the man who shot those photos of Spears and about how all who seek out the photographs are participating in that perp mentality. What if all feminist bloggers who did this included “Britney Crotch Shot” in their blog post titles? 
All the misogynists and perps would end up at our radical feminist blogs, on the receiving end of our collective analysis of their woman-hating behaviors!
How about it? Come on, you wimmin! It’s the blogosphere opportunity of a lifetime (from a radical feminist perspective, that is)!
Hee hee.
If only you could read all the misogynist commentary I am receiving and spamming forthwith. It would do your hearts good, honestly. These poor guys. They came here hoping to whack off to stolen photos of Britney Spears’ nether regions and what did they find instead? A radical feminist smack down! It’s a communist plot! False advertising! After all, Britney probably planned the whole thing anyway, they all say, because she is seventeen kinds of descriptors I will never write or say, so far as they are concerned. Which, of course, makes them all the more feverish in their determination to conquer her, if only by whacking off to her photograph. That is what men are doing, you know, lots of the time, maybe most of the time, when they whack off to photos of nude celebrities, porn stars, beautiful women. The alternative sexual universes men create for themselves via pornography are fueled, not by sexual lust primarily, but by feelings of hatred and vengeance towards all women, but in particular, beautiful, successful, women who are untouchable, unreachable, impossible to personally dominate, something most men find intolerable. It’s not about desire. It’s not in any way about appreciation for beautiful women. It’s not really about sex, either. It’s about dominating women, conquering women, feeling frustrated when opportunities to dominate women are elusive or nonexistent, and whacking off to a snapshot stolen by a brother misogynist as a pleasurable way to pretend you have degraded and dominated a woman. If you talk to men, listen to them, pay attention, you will find that they often turn to pornography when they are angry at the women in their lives or at women in general. In their minds, to whack off to pornography comes as close as they can get to violating and degrading women they cannot dominate. (And this an important reason why participating in pornography cannot liberate women. Women who model for pornography just make it easier for men to fantasize vengeance against, degradation and dominance of, all women. None of the dynamics of male heterosupremacy are changed. Women are not empowered; women who model for pornography just make the disempowerment via objectification of all women easier for men to achieve.)
The Britney Spears “crotch shots” saga is another one which, like the fake submissive woman ad on Craig’s List, tells the sad, sad truth about men. I think men looking for these photos should be exposed to the truth their behaviors tell by hearing about it from us, when they click on our blogs in their quest to violate Britney Spears, if only in their imaginations.
Heart
***They came here hoping to whack off to stolen photos of Britney Spears’ nether regions and what did they find instead? A radical feminist smack down!***
ROFL
I love it!
Excellent Heart – you have touched on something that I have been thinking about for a post that I have half written. Particularly the 2nd last long par. May just have to quote you!
I’d add something intelligent if I wasn’t so busy LMAO…
Blessings.
I find your post titles hurtful because of the generalizations. I think it distracts from the fantastic quality of your posts.
Hey, all.
Looking forward to your upcoming post, stormy.
Say, foolswisdom, can you say more about my post titles? I’d rather not alienate people right out of the gate if it’s avoidable. Thanks for the kind words, too.
Heart
Alienate away!
Foolswisdom, “complimenting” women to control them is so old hat.
If you had read anything here, really read it, you’d either have understood the point of various “hurtful” thread titles or would have also found offense in Heart’s otherwise “Fantastic” posts. Since you arrived at neither point, you’re either illiterate or a manipulative liar. Or maybe you just don’t know any better right now.
I could be wrong, have been before. Maybe you were just offended by her punctuation and dislike colons for all I know.
Men and their compliments:
These precious things
Let them break their hold over me
He said you’re really an ugly girl
But I like the way you play
And I died
But I thanked him
Can you believe that
Sick sick
–Tori Amos, Precious Things
Heart, I wouldn’t worry about ‘foolswisdom’.
A five letter word beginning with T and ending with L, springs to mind.
Back to your bridge FW!
I wouldn’t worry anything about foolswisdom. He seems to be just another male who, in his fervor to exercise his patriarchal perv-ness, stumbled in here, and now has a cranky wanky cause he wasn’t immediately gratified. Like most men, he lashed out at any female within shouting distance.
If he means the title ‘the truth about men’, I can PERHAPS see the point about generalization. But HURTFUL? That’s an odd comment.
I still want to say no, it isn’t all men, etc., despite the fact that I had one of the “nice” ones drop his mask right in front of me just the other day and was flabbergasted (although not really surprised) to hear him repeat, verbatim, the standard s***.
I have actually thought about it, would there be another, slightly more qualified, brief, catchy title that would work for those ‘the truth about men’ posts? I haven’t come up with one. I agree with the last 3 commentators, alienate away.
You’re absolutely corrrect that pornography further enslaves women. Men, driven by lust, have also spurred on the radial feminist movement because women are liberated from traditional marriage, and easier to get into bed with. Women have bought into the lie that sexual freedom means sexual promiscuity.
While I’m sure you and I come from different standpoints, I’m sure we can agree Women’s Lib. does not mean serving male libido!
This is brilliant, and I wish I could say more right now, but I have a massive headache, so I’ll just relate this; I think it’s apt. Recently as someone in my life yet again accused me of man-hating, I said, “Ya know, there’s a big difference between hate and truth-telling, and I’ve stopped giving a shit if people can tell the difference.”
I can’t believe there are still women who don’t get it: ALL men. ALL men. All. It’s concealed to get laid. It’s revealed when they lose it. Take a look at the nice men in the Craig’s List post: see the lefty cool guy with the bandana, the guys out there in ‘nature’, the grandfatherly looking guy? There will be women who they have helped across the street, stood up for in a harassing situation, loaned money to so they could buy school books for their children, spoken for when she didn’t get a promotion, agreed that women should be able to walk here and there safely. Get real. They’re all rapists. It’s not this guy is good, that guy is bad. Men. They are all men, and they all have the privilege. The man you are sleeping with/working with/sitting next to in your gender studies class/being a blood donor/working for community issues/saving your babies life in the pediatric ward~~~~~~~~ALL.
Thanks for all those good thoughts and that excerpt of the Tori Amos song, Rich– I have never been much a fan, but she does seem to come up with some very good things at times.
When I write, “The Truth About Men,” that is actually something I got from John Stoltenberg, Andrea Dworkin’s partner/husband, who wrote in one of his books that “pornography lies about women, but it tells the truth about men.” We all know ahead of time that men are not a homogenous monolith; we know we have allies in men, too, not many, but some. The thing is, the allies don’t get their feelings hurt when I post these titles, just as conscious white people don’t get our feelings hurt when someone says, “The truth about white people,” just like conscious het women don’t get their feelings hurt when someone says, “The truth about het women,” or “het relationships.” How personally we take this kind of statements really is kind of a barometer of how “conscious” we are. I approved foolswisdom’s comment in order to talk about these things, really. A lot of conservative/evangelical Christians are reading me right now and some of them have never engaged feminists/radical feminists before and might not have ever once thought about 99 percent of the issues we are concerned with. They see, “The Truth About Men,” and they think I am hating on men. Then they read and they say, “huh, this isn’t what I expected.” It never is. Men in fundamentalist religion are very very clueless about feminism; the truth is that some of them are reachable, very much so. I think John Stoltenberg must have some sort of Christianity in his background– one of his mentors, for example, was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an evangelical pastor who was a leader of the German resistance to Hitler and who died in prison. This is another reason I don’t like “godbags” terminologies, too. Some of those godbags are reachable. I was. Lots of my friends have been. My sons. And some other men. But not if you scare them away by calling them “godbags.” I don’t want to unwittingly do the same thing, by calling them “terrorists,” for example. At the same time, certain kinds of things, in fact, *do* constitute terrorism, and I also want to draw attention to that exceedingly important fact.
It’s interesting– if I type “Britney Spears crotch” into Google, I come up with this blog post on page 8 of the google listings and if I type in “Brittany Spears crotch” into Google, I come up with my Brittany Spears Crotch: Question” post on page 5. I can’t come up with the “Goddesses on Parade” post anymore, at least not through page 50 on Google. I don’t really know why my posts come up in those first few pages; I just unapproved a comment in which the guy said he has “Britney Spears” in the title of a post and isn’t getting near the hits, so maybe it’s my “terrorism” post titles. Doofus. How is typing in “Britney Spears Crotch” going to lead anybody to the word “terrorism”?
So I don’t really know how it all works. But here are the relevant Britney Spears post stats as of right now (the numbers being the number of hits so far today, as of 10:15 a.m. PDT).
“Britney Spears Crotch” — Question 2,080
More Truth About Men: Britney Spears “C 487
“Goddesses on Parade”: Birth, Pornograp 213
So now these guys really are getting our radfem analysis of the crotch shot internet thing, over 2,500 of them so far this morning. So that’s all good.
Hey, Gregory Soderberg, I am glad you and I agree Women’s Lib doesn’t mean serving the male libido. Just wanted to say that being liberated from traditional marriage doesn’t equal being easier to get into bed with, and zillions of us, especially us radical feminists, do not buy into the lie that sexual freedom means sexual promiscuity (which we really don’t actually even believe in in the traditional sense, “promiscuity” having very sexist connotations and underpinnings, but that’s a discussion for another day). I am completely agreed with you that it is indeed a lie, particularly when it comes to heterosexual women, that having sex with all sorts of men is, in and of itself, empowering or liberating or freeing; it is not.
The Sexual Liberation movement of the 60s, though it came at the same time as feminism, the Civil Rights and peace movements, was a movement most feminists ultimately found to be not at all empowering for women. Far and away, men were and still are the beneficiaries of heterosexual notions of “sexual liberation.” Because women are subordinated by men in the world, for het women, all of this “sexual liberation” has meant unwanted pregnancies, STDs, being exploited, objectified and used by men in greater and greater numbers and ways, not to mention being abandoned to raise children without child support, etc. Feminism split during the Sexual Liberation movement years between feminist women who rejected the “Sexual LIberation” movement as male and anti-woman, and those who still believed women could be liberated in the ways the SLM said they cuold be. The side that rejected the movement is the radical feminist side, but our rejection isn’t about religious or traditional notions of morality, it’s about what most benefits and liberates women as a people. Trust me, radical feminists are not “easy” for any man to bed!
Well, lots could be said about that, huh.
Melissa, thanks and hope your headache gets better!
Heart
Of course not ALL of the 2500 who are reading the Britney Spears posts are pervy men! Some are feminist women like us! That’s something which can’t be parsed out. But my search terms tell me there are still lost of pervs, searching.
Heart
The other thing is, I’m (off and on, the list changes all the time) on the “Hot WordPress Posts Today” list:
Hot Posts Today
How to Crap All Over a Product Launch, by Microsoft Corp.
Christmas in the Sun for UFC Employees
“WOW-1.12.x-to-2.0.1-enGB-patch”
this one time…
Vista Crack Update
More Truth About Men: Britney Spears “Crotch” Photos, Poetic Justice, A Proposal
What’s Eating Taylor Hicks?
Part 2: Dec 2006 Exam Tips (BPP)
Football Manager 2007 7.01 patch released
Monday Morning
______________
And my blog is (at this moment) 4th on the “Today’s Hottest [WordPress] Blogs” list:
Hot Blogs
Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger
not my secrets
Web Worker Daily
Women’s Space/The Margins
Koptalk Exposed – The Insider Insider
The Utube Blog
strange maps
Public Eye
Oracle Scratchpad
Technically Speaking
http://wordpress.com/
http://botd.wordpress.com/?lang=en
_____________
Kinda cool, given that there are 511,000 WordPress blogs in existence!
Hee.
Heart
Reachable, sure. OTOH, and I meant to point this out way back when, but what Fool did was an aggressive act, just like it was an aggressive act when that guy came on here and said that “hey, those bad people out there aren’t really Christians, not like ME, and Jesus was a swell dude, just like I’m a swell dude, and guess what: Jesus is God and that’s a fact and you can’t argue about that reality, because mine trumps yours because it’s part of that objective T-R-U-T-H.”
What all of these people, men, need to know, is regardless of their reachability quotient (or the women they are serving as proxies for, I guess, being that they’re the outsiders speaking up in droves, not the women you want to reach), is what they’re doing is aggressive.
Yeah, I agree.
Heart
Thanks for the clarification.
I’m definately up for it.
I was seriously harassed by a real live pervert the other night
(see my post…
http://puddlejumper.wordpress.com/2006/11/28/what-counts-as-sexual-assault/)
and hated the way its left me feeling so unable to fight back. If it annoys a few men who have nothing better to do than look up womens dresses then you can count me in.
x
I doubt that our site has anything like your readership, but here is my post about Britney Spears’ Crotch.
[...] Following all the quite pathetic yet disturbing hype over “those” pictures, Women’s Space/The Margins came up with a cunning plan. Let me explain by quoting their most recent post which you can find in full here view post [...]
Cool, Miko! Off to view!
Heart
as i type this, you are the 56th hit in google. kind of scary to think that men are still looking for more after browsing through 55 links.
Go nexyjo! Love the “crotch shot” on your blog, heh heh, and your posts, too, puddlejumper, miko and Nexy.
Heart
Melissa’s point, “there’s a big difference between hate and truth-telling,” is really important.
Very interesting on origin of the title “The Truth About Men” – ! And yes:
“The thing is, the allies don’t get their feelings hurt when I post these titles, just as conscious white people don’t get our feelings hurt when someone says, ‘The truth about white people,’ …” .
All men have male privilege, this is certainly true.
I think it’s acceptable for foolswisdom to say as he said: he doesn’t want to be lumped into a category called ‘All Men Are Pervs’. Perhaps ‘hurtful’ was exaggerating his feelings somewhat, but he’s allowed to express his objection to it, surely, however facetiously the title was intended.
Oh, and this is a great post by the way!
I was absolutely intrigued by the Britney saga last week (behind my metaphorical cushion, of course) but I’m breathing a sigh of relief this week that she’s as good as forgotten about again.
I’m not a feminist blogger, per se, but I will accept your challenge of posting with the title ‘Britney Crotch Shots’ just to see if she is still at the forefront of many silly male minds.
(I should add that of all the pornography available to fans of same these days, I myself would not rate those sorry pictures of Britney’s very highly at all. Not that that’s the point of course, but it did fuel my morbid curiosity.)
Tenderhooligan, where on earth did the title say:
“The truth about ALL men” ?
It didn’t.
It is men in general, and how they behave as a group. The pro-fem men are at least smart enough to know it (probably) doesn’t apply to them. It is only those who belong to the group referred to (the ‘guilty’ ones) that get ‘offended’.
That wasn’t my point – I was trying to understand why foolswisdom might have reacted as he did. And I thought that it was possibly because he did take it to refer to ALL men. That was merely what I was getting at.
stormcloud, I think even allies and pro-feminist men get offended under one circumstance and that is when they are actually going to lose something, when someone’s feminism is going to cost them, or they’re afraid it is. I’m thinking about Amananta’s situation now, possibly even profacero’s:
still want to say no, it isn’t all men, etc., despite the fact that I had one of the “nice” ones drop his mask right in front of me just the other day and was flabbergasted (although not really surprised) to hear him repeat, verbatim, the standard s***.
It is shocking when a man you believe gets it all of a sudden evidences he does not in a very shocking way. Very painful. I don’t know– I think it’s pretty easy to present as an ally and so many men do. It’s whether they’re allies when it might cost them that tells the tale.
Heart
I found your blog just like probably hundreds of other people have by now–by trying to find pictures of Britney sans panties. I was surprised, a bit amused, and interested to find this instead, so I read a bit. I am even more interested and amused by my mixed reactions to what I find here. I am a woman, and I consider myself a feminist, if a rather uninformed one. Most of my exposure to feminist theory has come not through gender studies but through sociology and anthropology, where feminists have provided valuable challenges and new frameworks for understanding our world.
However, as I understand it, feminism proposes that we bring more voices into the conversation, not shut out voices that disagree with us, as hegemonic patriarchy has done. With the shady, anonymous nature of the internet I can understand why you would screen your comments, but I wonder who you are shutting out of this conversation?
Another thing I find interesting, and perhaps you and your readers have some explanation, is that you seem to have attributed two motives to people who want to see Britneys crotch: either they are perverted men who want to “whack off” (which I find a disturbingly negative and normative attitude towards masturbation), or they are women who want to confirm negative views of her. Yet neither of those objectives were on my mind as I typed into the search engine. I just knew those pictures were out there and I was curious. Thats pretty much it.
But what if I did want to masturbate? And why cant I say crotch? I understand the grave importance of addressing a long, brutal history of oppression and exclusion towards women, but I dont think that making more normative rules for ourselves or for others is the way to do it. And I dont think that denouncing men is the way to unify women, because a discussion about the problems with men is still a discussion about who men are, not who women are.
But (I wanted to say this at the end of that comment), I still want to express appreciation for what you are doing here. You are clearly passionate and dedicated, and this blog is indeed a refreshingly challenging voice. So thankyou.
Now on to find Britney.
It’s whether they’re allies when it might cost them that tells the tale.
That’s the key! The one in question is now back in line (it seems) but this is (seems to be) largely because other authorities let him know that the small cost now in question was worth not having to pay a greater cost later on.
Alex – it’s not my blog but your comment is the most recent one so I’ll just say: if you’ve got experience with big-time trolling, you’ll know that allowing trolls to run wild only drives away serious readers and commentators. This can kill a mailing list, or a blog. That’s why the moderation – it’s not to silence dissent. On denouncing of men, I think that’s addressed already in this thread.
[...] But see what WomenSpace has to say. [...]
I will be back to post in a bit; for now, all I have to say is that as of 6:36 a.m. PDT, over 7,000 people have read a bunch of stuff on my blog, but mostly all my Britney Spears posts. The mania continues. Craziness.
Heart
“However, as I understand it, feminism proposes that we bring more voices into the conversation, not shut out voices that disagree with us, as hegemonic patriarchy has done.”
Huh, I always figured that what feminism proposes is that women are human and that in order to be treated as such, feminists should engage in political acts that directly confront, question, out, and combat acts of sexist oppression and violence. Feminism may also be a lot of other things, but giving everyone a chance to spew forth whatever craptastic misogynistic tripe they can come up with to further marginalize and dehumanize women is not one of ‘em.
I think you have feminism confused with a circle jerk, Alex.
Truth About Men and Pornography
Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, reacting to the recent Internet craze over Britney Spears crotch photos, offers this “truth” about men:
The alternative sexual universes men create for themselves via pornography are fueled, not by sexual lust prima…
[ ]…
Hey there big boy/girl, looking for some hot pussy shots of Britney Spear’s crotch? Well, have I got some shots for you: Photos of Britney’s crotch , more photos of Britney’s crotch and just a few more. I’ll keep on adding more as I come across them…[ ]
[...] You want hatred? You got it. The only thing I hate more than sluts like Britney flashing their “gina” are idiot feminist like you telling me that I don’t really understand the nature of my own desire. [...]
HA! Aradhana! I thought your trackback juxtaposed against Silent Running’s was interesting, (and I love your post!)
Hee.
Well, I probably shouldn’t have approved Silent Running, but I sort of did it for you, Alex, so you can see what we deal with as feminists. I spam all woman-hating, misogynist posts and posts which clearly smell like troll; in other words, the person doesn’t come to participate, the person comes to disrupt, as profacero and Sass have said. Some of the comments are really really awful–extremely violent, threatening, full of horrible, horrible hate speech against women, racist stuff, you name it. So I spam that.
I hear you when you say you looked for the shot out of curiosity– I’m sure that was the motivation of many. But I think most of the people who went looking were men who hate Britney Spears. The hatred isn’t personal; it is a hatred of her persona. Beautiful women like Spears are hated by men — the same men who would be in the sack with them yesterday if they got a chance to be, or who would rape them if they thought they could get away with it. This photographer violated Spears’ privacy. He did not ask for permission to take her picture. He didn’t ask permission to disseminate the photos on the internet. He could do that and get away with it because of our despicable “public person” laws in this country. (Europe doesn’t have similar “public person” laws. I think the way public person laws allow for the violation of women’s privacy is atrociously discriminatory against women. Women who are public persons are not in any wise similarly situated with men who are public persons societally. Public persons laws allow for their ongoing, repeated sexist violation and there is nothing they can do about it.) Those who have bellied up to take a good look have, in my opinion,participated in this violation, which belies a perp mentality, a rape mentality. I think most of the men who looked, looked because they despise Britney Spears– because she is beautiful, rich, successful, and above all, out of their reach. I think they did whack off to her image, either directly, or they saved it off as pornhounds do, in their imaginations, for later use.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with masturbation, of course– for men, or women. I do believe it is objectifying and exploitive to masturbate to photographs of women who are essentially prostituted, as porn actresses are, and I believe it is worse than objectifying and exploitive, moving into violating, to masturbate to stolen photographs like these of Britney Spears. Using sexist, oppressive imagery in the interests of having an orgasm is what I call “whacking off.” All masturbation doesn’t qualify, by far.
The word “crotch” is all right– ugly and crude, but hey, a crotch is a crotch.
I’m glad you have found our discussions interesting, and I hope you stick around.
Heart
Is Porn Fueld By Hate For Women?
James Joyner posts this interesting statement from feminist Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff: The alternative sexual universes men create for themselves via pornography are fueled, not by sexual lust primarily, but by feelings of hatred and vengeance towards al…
Hi Heart,
I left a reply for silent running. Wonder if he expected any backtalk from the feminist body-parts?
You know, you’re right. I did go and track down those pictures…and they just made me kind of sad. I guess I still hesitate to believe that men in general are secretly as violent and perverted as some commenters are implying–they are, after all, my friends, family members, and colleagues, and I try to afford them the same benefit of the doubt that I hope other people will grant to me. However, reading through this site has given me a lot to think about, and probably be depressed and angry about, that I had formerly been ignoring. And trust me, as someone who pays attention to social issues and the state of our earth, there was already plenty to be depressed and angry about. Where do you find hope?
HA! Prolly not. Feminist body-parts– reminds me of those, what were they called? something-lights? Insta-vaginas? Insta-mouths? Insta-bootie-holes. Eesh. Well, you’re a better womon than me to be able to go read, Mary Sunshine. I do not want to ruin my appetite.
Well, here’s a comment that came through that I did not approve exactly, but will instead paste for your all brilliant responses. I’ve got moderation set up now so that whoever has had a post approved once can post without being moderated. But that becomes a problem with posts like the one I’m about to paste here– I want these kinds of comments to continue to be moderated. So anyway.
****
Caliban Darklock | darklock.com/blog | IP: 72.232.131.22
It’s always interesting watching radical feminists claim that men hate ALL women, when in fact we pretty much just hate radical feminists.
The vast majority of people looking at these pictures today are not looking for anything sexual. It’s just what people are talking about. If you haven’t seen the pictures, you can’t join in the discussion. It’s a tribal thing. When you attribute all the interest to sex-starved men who want to possess and subjugate unattainable women, you’re simply not dwelling in reality.
And when you choose to depart from reality so you can try to make men look bad, we tend to hate you for it.
****
Heart
Now a cosmetic surgeon in NYC has offered her free surgery! You know, cause she’s all fat above that snatch now.
OH and Caliban we hated you first. neenerneenerneener
Such fucking babies men are. Men only hate radical feminists…as if they ask your political ideology before they rape you.
I really hate you most right this second btw, but I’m sure your tiny penis already figured that out.
AFM, rock on!!!!
Mary
oh dear me, I can’t believe it. I put in a sitemeter just today at 4:40pm my time. It’s now 7:45pm my time….
I have a relatively new blog – and guess how many ppl have visited my crotch shot link? Over 565 as I type this….
I would say that there are three visitors from your site Heart – the rest are ALL FROM TECHNOCRATI!!! Insane really.
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s27aradhana
I found your post an interesting read – though I disagreed with the stereotypes, and the male domination theory seems a little farfetched (I’m inclined to think that psychology is a science that can be altered to fit viewpoints and opinions.) – though… one wonders what was going through the male fashion designers head when he designed pencil skirts, stilletos, and the see through blouse.
Nevertheless, your blog posts are very well written, and broaden the viewpoint, if nothing else.
Hey, Aradahna, by 4 p.m. today, I’d received 14,049 hits. Since 4 p.m. today (it’s 6:02 now, so that’s two hours), I’ve had 2,404 hits.
I’ve gotten a total of 691 from your site!
Oh for crying out loud. Well, I’m glad they are here, reading away. They’re starting to branch out now and read all sorts of stuff.
Welcome, Sarahtoga.
Heart
Copied, post not approved:
Debbie | IP: 59.100.41.111
Actually I’m a woman who wants to show my daughter Britney’s photo to demonstrate how modern feminist delusions have made skankiness a desirable attribute among women and is also responsible for the moral decline in today’s society.
Dec 7, 4:30 AM — [ Edit | Delete | View Post ] — Bulk action: Approve Spam Delete Defer until later
Yeah, you know cause all the pornographers are feminist’s didn’t ya know?
I wonder how it is people in this day and age actually believe that kind of crap Debbie tried to post. What feminism has to do with what she blames it for is beyond me, unless what she means by moral decline is women rebelling against traditional roles. Sure, feminism is responsible for the decline of traditional roles, but since that kind of morality is morally utterly bankrupt, it is not feminist delusions, rather feminists shining the light of day on those roles that has weakened their stranglehold.
So true, AradahnaD and Aletha. It’s interesting– “Debbie” had a screen name with “Valerie Solanis” in it. How non-Valerie Solanas is her post! This is the kind of comment I don’t have energy to devote to anymore. First, anybody who uses the word “skank” is in my opinion (1) a misogynist; (2) has momentarily lost her temper and needs to chill. “Skank” is hate speech. Then, it is feminism which illuminated all of the dynamics and forces by way of which some women are made to *be* skanks by a woman-hating culture. It is patriarchy which pronounces some girls/women “skanks” (usually for no reason that can be discerned) and it is feminism which says, “Enough of pronouncing women skanks.”
The *only* possible logic I can envision for “Debbie’s” post is, maybe she has only been exposed to Camille Paglia- or Nina Hartley-style “feminism.” The all-sex-all-the-time-porn-is-great perspective, though is patriarchal and serves and benefits men, not women.
Heart
Well, I am a male human being and I got here because the “poetic justice” part was making me curious. Poetic justice for Mrs. Spears, that is, I don’t care about “poetic justice” for random horny teenaged losers.
[...] My recent favourite attack is a ‘feminist’ attack on the proliferation of pornographic images on the Net. In particular, the internet has been aflutter with a group of photographs that were taken of Britney Spears’ crotch that revealed that she did not wear underwear to a variety of functions. A group of feminists who take offense at the objectification of female genitalia on the Internet are fighting back. [...]
[...] Strange women decide that all men are rapists here (HT Silent Running), and conclude that all men are therefore scum because of that. The comments are always fun on sites like this. For example: The hatred isn’t personal; it is a hatred of her persona. Beautiful women like Spears are hated by men — the same men who would be in the sack with them yesterday if they got a chance to be, or who would rape them if they thought they could get away with it. [...]
I have sexual fantacies. I cant remember the last time I “thought” about an unreachable woman. I guess I feel, deep inside, that there is no such thing as an unreachable woman. I am so sad that it seems that men are not allowed to have a fantacy without it being considered in a negative way. I have a girlfriend of 5 years and I must admit, I still have a sexual fantacy once in a while. Is this something you would consider a bad thing? I am goodlooking and have access to what some would consider unreachable, yet I dont fantasize about them. In fact, I have NEVER had a sexual fantacy about Britany, can you believe it?! I think domination and conquering are turn offs. Why am I posting? I guess just to remind everyone out there that I feel alone, that I am a warrior for the light and all the stupid men are against me, it hurts to see that the woman are too. Please dont forget, that there are those out here with open, compassionate, good hearts. Please consider us. I know, you believe that we ALL have masks that fall off and we say stupid things. Im sure that never happens to you! I make very strong and heartfelt moves to be as real as I can at all times. It is heard and there is little reward and a lot of critisism.
much love with hurt feelings
james
ps, I dont hate Britany Spears. Heck, I dont even hate GWB. Hate and agression are the real problems here, weather it be a man’s or a womans.
Two post-scripts: (1) Further discussion here: http://barticles.mytimesdispatch.com/; and (2) Appended to my earlier comment was the notation, “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” Reading over the exchanges above, it strikes me that the entire DISCUSSION is awaiting some moderation, and not finding much.
My goodness. I never realize how many whiners are on the “right” side or the political spectrum. Do they every actually take the time to read anything a feminist actually says, or do they always dismiss it out of hand, just to retain ignorance?
I followed several of those trackbacks.
My goodness. I never realize how many whiners are on the “right” side or the political spectrum. Do they every actually take the time to read anything a feminist actually says, or do they always dismiss it out of hand, just to retain ignorance?
“that I am a warrior for the light and all the stupid men are against me, it hurts to see that the woman are too.”
All the women? Just the stupid ones? Or feminist women here are stupid?
Warrior for the light? Good grief. Much love with hurt feelings? Um, ok, right.
I found this post because I was ranting on the Forum about who chooses the hot topics and how fed up I was of having to see this all the time – well I stand corrected and think it’s a great idea to get debate going. I tend to stand with Alex on the need for multiple voices and the contribution of feminism to challenging patriarchal discourse. The ‘all men are rapists’ is an interesting one – I would always shy away from any kind of essentialist view of anything to do with humans but would agree that when men are placed in certain extreme situations they become vulnerable to being carried away into horrific behaviours and rape is hardwired as one of them – the rapes in the stadium after Hurricane Katrina, atrocities by combatants, rape and murder of estranged wives and children – there are no shortage of examples sadly. However, having been a radical feminist in the 70s and 80s I have slowly had to admit that some women are also capable of horrific behaviours under extreme conditions although I do believe it is to a far lesser degree than men. They are certainly very good at emotional abuse and lesbian relationships are not necessarily more wholesome than than hetero ones.
We are not far removed from our animal natures and I think rape and violence are adaptive responses to fear and threat – and precisely because of this, for things to change men must take responsibility for controlling themselves, each other, through a commitment to non-violence. The most useful thing any man can do is to start to address their conditioned idea that women shouldn’t be trusted or listened to (thanks a bunch whoever wrote Genesis, you arsehole) because women are the peacemakers and lifeprotectors of this world. But in the end, we have to share this planet and there are lots of women who want to have relationships with men and are just never going to find a vagina sexual try as they might so I guess we just have to keep fighting for more say and control for women one step at a time. I’m hugely grateful for women like you who are willing to step up and speak loudly. I’m also comfortable at where I am with my feminism too.
[...] An interesting thing happened to me recently. Every time you log on to WordPress you get a page with ‘hot posts’, most read blogs etc. and I was fed up with so many of them being about some (obviously unsavoury) picture of Britney going commando. Now you lot know that I do find it hard to keep quiet when my feminist bone is tickled so I posted a complaint on the WordPress Forum. I found out, via one of the responses, that a large amount of the entries that were appearing in hot posts (because of the amount of visitors) were actually participating in this campaign. [...]
Um, hi Heart.
I just thought I’d point out this little piece of dandiness from the editorial bowels of my own town’s newspaper, supposedly in response to your post here.
I say supposedly because I’m not sure what the author, one Bart Hinkle, thought he was reading when he posted his response.
Not sure why, but it sorta shocked me to see a blogger in a legitimately journalistic venue like the Richmond Times-Dispatch outright making shit up.
In case my comment to his blog post ends up getting deleted (which would almost be funny… hello, censorship!), I’ll excerpt my response here:
Far more laughable than that is your choice to make up “man-hating” strawfeminists out of the ether, e.g., through inferring that anyone on that site had made any such suggestion with regard to Sports Illustrated as you infer above.
As of this writing, there are a total 64 comments at the post in question; at no point in either the original post nor in the comments thus far has anyone said anything about Sports Illustrated. [...]
There are more credible arguments to be made in support of the view you espouse; you do yourself and your readers a significant disservice when you outright manufacture source material in order to justify such “responses” as this.
Huh. This is the guy who wanted to know whether, if regular pornography is misogynist, gay male porn is misandrist. Nobody felt like having that discussion, I guess.
Well, gay male porn is a different kettle of fish, in that men, as a group, aren’t subordinated to women, as a group, under male heterosupremacy, it’s the other way around. The reason het pornography is misogynist is, men create it for men using the bodies of women and bonding over their common objectification and subordination of women. (There are other reasons it is misogynist, of course, but I’m focusing on the reasons which make it different from gay male porn.) Gay male porn is created by men, with the bodies of men, for men. Issues of sexism do not come directly into play (although they can inform gay male porn as I’m going to say something about in a minute.) I have never watched gay male porn, have never seen so much as a DVD cover, know nothing of it personally, from personal experience. The idea of a bunch of naked men having sex is terrifying to me; I don’t mind saying so. In general, sadly, I find the bodies of men scary and threatening and always have, even though I’ve been married three times to men and had a bajillion relationships with men. That’s what’s true, and I’m saying it because I think the same is true for many women and they don’t want to admit it because (1) they are embarrassed; (2) they think there’s something wrong with them; (3) they’re afraid of being called lesbians, even if they are (though het women are also afraid of men’s bodies); (4) they think they’re the only ones. Anyway, I’m not afraid to say it. I have been afraid of men’s bodies and body parts, even when I loved the men themselves and had many, many children with them. Anyway, be that as it may, I think that to the degree that whatever is presented in gay male porn reflects or glorifies societal dominance hierarchies, then it will be racist, classist, fatphobic, looksist, etc. Then there is the overarching issue of objectification, just in general, whether we can ever create a new, more just and equitable world if we are all busy objectifying one another in order to get ourselves off.
Well, there are a million issues. The issue Mr. Hinkle poses as a challenge to the idea that pornography is misogynist is that gay male porn can’t be misogynist, therefore pornography qua pornography can’t be misogynist. But no. Traditional, het porn, is misogynist in a way gay male porn is not, although sexism can inform relationships between gay men, as well, i.e., where one man is dominant and the other is submissive, one man is “effeminate” and the other is a “manly man.” But it’s still not the same thing. In this world, women are the class of people who are subordinated via objectification of our bodies. That is nowhere more evident than in regular old pornography.
I saw that Hinkle wanted to dismiss what we’ve said about pornography on the basis that it’s grounded in notions of “false consciousness.” He’s wrong about that. I have to go for a bit, but will talk some about that later on.
Heart
I have been reading this post and others on this site. I also went over to Puddlejumper’s and read about her frightening experience.
I have so many reactions to all the verbiage that has been posted here. I hardly even know where to start.
I am 53 years old. I am a massage therapist. I went to college at the height of the sexual revolution, before there was AIDS and herpes to worry about. I had a lot of fun then, had sex with multiple partners. Now I am married to a very wonderful man. BTW, despite Pony’s rant about ALL men being rapists, all men, all, this man I share my life and space with is NOT a rapist. I find it interesting that you would moderate the hate filled comments from men, but not Pony’s rather hate filled message.
Of course, since he shares the ALL work of the household with me, cooks for us, listens to me when I rant, brings me coffee in bed, encourages me to blog even though it takes my attention away from him, works a part time job for which he receives not one dollar in pay because ALL the money goes to the IRS to pay MY taxes, makes beautiful love with me when we are both in the mood, I suppose he isn’t really a man. He is more like an angel.
I am so sorry that you find the bodies of men scary and threatening. I do not. I find them intriguing, and human, and the repositories of stress just like the female bodies I touch. However, I do not think you are wrong when you say that there are probably a lot of women who share your fear. I find that very sad. In my line of work, I find that there are people of both sexes who are afraid of the other sex, mystified, confused, terrified.
I consider myself a feminist, but I guess I am not radical. I can not find the kind of hate and rage within me that seems to be required to be radical. So I guess I’ll just go on about my life of being a healer, and leave the radicalism to y’all.
Here’s my proposal: what if ALL of us, or as many as possible of us, as feminist bloggers, blogged about the perp mentality of the man who shot those photos of Spears and about how all who seek out the photographs are participating in that perp mentality.
On December 4th, I wrote two posts about how paparazzi who take these photos are just porn photographers. I often write with sarcasm and humor, but I still make my points. I don’t necessarily agree with everything said here, but I sure don’t agree that these photographers need to be out there pointing their cameras at everyone’s crotch.
http://fracas.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/on-porn-plumbers-and-paparazzi/
http://fracas.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/crotch-obsessed-paparazzi-ahead-put-on-panties/
I may not have put “Britney’s crotch” in the title, but I did already write about it!
Oy.. ok, I see my post is waiting moderation because of the two links in it. I also see after the fact, that you wrote this post Dec. 3 and I linked to two posts I wrote Dec. 4. Oh well… it’s all the same anyway. I didn’t read this post till today. I guess the intent is there anyway – to let the photographers know that not everyone out there thinks they’re doing anything other than lowering themselves.
You know what fracas they don’t care what we think, that is, the we who are women (goes without saying) but the we who are news photographers. They only care if they got the shot, and that’s all their colleagues care about too. Did he get the shot? Damn he’s who I want to be. Believe it. There is no shot that is too base as long as 100 photogs wish they’d hit it, and some photo editor somewhere hollers out “we’ve got A1″.
“the we who are not news photographers”.
All men are rapists, by entitlement, by privilege. A man isn’t a rapist only because he beat some woman unconscious, and then had his way with her, she being a virgin, or one of the other descriptors of a woman who could be ‘raped’. Our culture allows all men the right to rape, by the fact that very little of rape is actually finally, named rape. It’s always called something else. And very surely, mostly, in almost all instances, our fault. They can rape, if and when they will. And the chances that they ‘will’ when and if they have the chance in all the ways that are rape (force, harrassment, seduction, using drugs, alcohol or peer pressure, pleading and talking you into it, refusing to take no for an answer, “she wanted it” –all those are rape). Find me a man who has not done one of those things, and you may have found a man who is not a rapist.
It’s not that some men are and some men aren’t…rapists. They all are, because we allow them to be.
healingmagichands said: I consider myself a feminist, but I guess I am not radical. I can not find the kind of hate and rage within me that seems to be required to be radical.
There is a saying, if you are not angry, you are not paying attention, but as for hate being required to be radical, I think that is your interpretation. I do not see the link. That being said, I think men are all capable of rape, though some would never commit rape. The same applies to any kind of crime, though men are far more inclined to rape than to commit most other kinds of crimes. I would say, the general male attitude towards women makes rape seem acceptable, exciting, even normal. Boys will be boys, after all. A few men have a different attitude. You are lucky to have found such a man. There surely are not enough to go around.
Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls.
Anyone who came here to see Britney’s ‘crotch shots’ would be stupid because the content is clear from the title.
Copied and pasted porn links onto all three of my blogs.
Thanks guys.
Blessings.
magichealinghands, I’ve enjoyed your posts and hope you’ll stick around and post more. I also hope you’ll make your way to Michigan– I think you’d love it.
I think Aletha’s right– being radical is not about hatred, although we are often accused of that. Women are justifiably angry, many of us, about the way women are treated in the world, about what is said about us, about what is done to us and blown off as trivial. Sometimes we do rage. Rage is, at times, what is appropriate.
I don’t think it’s sad that I have feared the male body, or male body parts. I think it makes sense. Men use their bodies against us, as women and girls, beginning when we are very small, beginning when they are boys. We grow up necessarily afraid of what might happen to us at the hands of men if we trust them, if we are taken in by them, if we go the wrong places, wear the wrong things. Most of us try to suppress those fears in order to trust certain men, and most of the time, those certain men we decide to trust prove, in the end, untrustworthy. I think what would be saddest would be to continue to suppress our fears, you know, because we are so anxious to believe something about men, or a certain man, which might not be true. I think it is entirely possible to love and accept a man as he is, while yet being afraid of him. I think it’s possible to have great sex with a man who, underneath it all, you fear (which is a whole ‘nother discussion for a different day, the way just as for men, violence and sex are fused, for women, fear and sex are fused). Fear is a woman’s experience in the world because all around us we are, in fact, violated by men.
And yeah, sometimes we rage. I have certainly had my own seasons of rage. I have zenned out a bit in recent months, and I can pinpoint when it happened, or began to happen. It began to happen last August at Michfest at the Tuesday night ritual. The moon was full, the drums were amazing, the women doing the spiral dance with me were amazing, we were singing about being women, weaving the web of women, weaving the web of life. It was beautiful and exhilarating; we danced in that meadow for a long, long time, and I think I made some decision then to enter into a certain kind of rest from the rage I had been experiencing for quite some time. That said, well, at times, we rage over the injustices we have known and experienced. I think, honestly, that our rage has more to do with love than it has to do with hate, but that’s also probably another subject for another time.
Go, breatheinspirit! I’ll check you out.
Heart
Pony – saying all men are rapists doesn’t seem that much different to saying all women are bitches, all black youth are criminals, all gay men are paedophiles. These are all stereotypes that arise from patriarchal society and reflect that discourse IMHO. The point of saying ‘all men are rapists; is a political act not an essential fact – and as such needs to be used judiciously. Of course, if you feel a world entirely without men would be a better place, that is your perogative, but then don’t complain to me about people who think the world would be a better place without disabled people, jews or any other grouping.
Telling other women that they are effectively colluding with the enemy by sleeping with men is not likely to raise their consciousness about the socially conditioned hatred and mistrust of women. Instead they are more likely to retreat back into the comfortable warmth of being a deluded woman enjoying the benefits of patriarchal protection as long as they don’t step out of line. It is also more likely that they will join in the demonising of radical feminists. It takes time and is scary for many women to realise the extent to which they are colluding with patriarchy against their own sex and if we care about all women, I think we need to develop a bit of compassion to temper our anger.
I do agree with your analysis but I’m not convinced by your last line: “They all are, because we allow them to be.” I absolutely refuse to take any responsilibity for male violence. It is men who need to take responsibility for it. As I see it that is the only way we may end up with a shift in balance and the possibility of men and women living together with mutual respect.
if you feel a world entirely without men would be a better place, that is your perogative, but then don’t complain to me about people who think the world would be a better place without disabled people, jews or any other grouping.
Well, but disabled people, jews, other minorities are marginalized, subordinated people groups in a way that men are not? If you came across a discussion in which people from an ethnic or racial minority were grousing together and saying things like, “The world would be a better place if (insert oppressive group here) were not in it,” I’m betting you would understand what they were expressing there. In fact, without our (generic “our”) oppressors/subordinators, the world would, in general, be a better place! This is just what is true. To say it is true doesn’t change our love for individuals, no matter who they are.
As far as colluding with the enemy, I agree with you that clobbering anyone with this type of accusation isn’t likely to result in new and useful alliances!
At the same time, the truth is, the way the system is set up, we in fact do, as women, have to “collude” with those who at the very least benefit from our subordination. We have to cut deals of various kinds with them in order to survive. None of us, however separatist, is completely exempt here.
It seems as though we understand this on a deep level *except* when it comes to heterosexual relationships. For example, when people sit around and talk about how exploitive corporations are, or the American marketplace is, people usually don’t become defensive and say something like, “Well, do you expect me to quit my job then?” (if they work for an exploitive corporation), or “Do you expect me to quit buying what I need?” We all understand that collusion with capitalism and exploitative institutions of many kinds is something none of us can avoid completely. But it seems much harder when it comes to relationships with men to not take discussions of what men do really personally.
I like what I think Aletha said– I think all men do have the capacity to rape given certain situations, conditions, but many never would or will. What is significant is, the same can’t be said about women, I don’t believe. I don’t think that’s about differences between men and women. I don’t think men are “naturally” more violent or are born with a rape mentality. I think, as I’ve said before, that men have been corrupted by power in a way that women have not been so far.
Heart
(Hi, heart! I found my way back but I still haven’t found that other thread about the Dems.)
I guess I feel, deep inside, that there is no such thing as an unreachable woman.
There it is. Male privilege in a nutshell. And people wonder why we say we live in a rape culture.
No, all men are not rapists. But all men are raised in a culture like this, that condones, minimizes, allows for and excuses rape. Even if all men don’t rape themselves, they benefit from the easier access to women and women’s bodies (via pr0n, crotch shots of celebs taken against their will/knowledge, women being more submissive, thinking men’s entitled behavior is the norm, etc.)
How many women submit to sex regularly because they think they have to, because they think they will lose their man if they don’t, who perform acts that make them cringe because they are told it’s the mainstream? You could make the argument these women aren’t technically “raped”, but they are certainly used by men’s demands and our culture which backs them up.
And here little mr. warrior-for-the-light feels there is no such thing as an unreachable (ie unfuckable) women. And he thinks he’s on our side. Un. Fucking. Believable.
I wrote a story on my own site about a ‘webcam girl,’ it was not a tale of support, actually it might be completely in line with what you wrote here. It was the tale of a man who ‘fell in love’ with a woman who ran her own cam site, and he consequently raped her.
The reason I mention all of this, is that one of the top search terms people have used to find my website is ‘teen webcam.’ I think about guys looking for something very different from what they find. I’d like to think some of them actually stick around and read the story, but I can’t know.
I’m going to run some errands then read through all the comments when I return.
Snowqueen, Heart has responded to most of your post so I won’t repeat that. I agree with her. I’ll just respond to this.
“Telling other women that they are effectively colluding with the enemy by sleeping with men…”
Nowhere have I said that, so I don’t see it necessary to defend myself against something I haven’t said or implied, but which is indicative of *your prejudice*, in fact.
We allow them to be…means, we as a culture. You and I fight against that but it’s a tough up hill slog isn’t it? We allow them to be, by our laws, by lack of enforcement of what laws there are (which are coming from a position of sexism).
I direct you here, to understand better what I think on the matter of “all men are rapists”. I’d like to discuss this more, but this is off-topic here, an anyway, what I think you can find lots of other places, such as Feminista, I Blame the Patriarchy (where it’s never off topic). Not that it is exactly here, but that Heart is onto something else this week and I don’t want to derail it further than I already have.
Read the list “Only rapists can prevent rape”. Enjoy yourself on the way down the posts. Christi’s quite something isn’t she?
Because you wore a short skirt
October 24
http://www.christinielsen.com/blog/about2getskinny/
Thanks Heart for your tolerance to me, and all the grief I must cause you.
I don’t mind using the words they use one bit.
Of course, my “blog” is just links I like. Oh well…
thanks for your creative inspiration!
http://juxtafem.wordpress.com/2006/12/09/britney-spears-crotch-britney-goes-commando/
[...] Source: More Truth About Men: Britney Spears “Crotch” Photos, Poetic Justice, A Proposal « Women’s Space/The Margins [...]
I love the dialog here. I just finished today’s post on my blog. Writing it made me reflect on the experiences I had in my own life as I pursued my goal of becoming a physician. I was pretty angry then,when I was denied a place in the class because there was a quota of women and it had been filled, and besides I had not displayed the “right attitude” during my interview. whatever that means. Then I came over here and began reading the thoughtful responses to what I wrote. (And I definitely want to come to Michigan. Fortunately I don’t have to ask a boss if I can get off. . .)
I have to admit that I get enraged, sometimes too enraged. Anyone who as gone through the incredible mood swings of menopause will suspect that I speak the truth. But one of the lessons I learned during that very crazy time was that I should learn to channel that rage. Otherwise, I might slam my thumb in the knife drawer and that could be painful.
I also have to bless my life experience. I was raised by a very strong woman who believed in equality of the sexes passionately. My paternal grandmother helped instill that passion in her. Grandmother got a Master’s Degree in 1921, a time when women simply did not go to college. She also was one of a group of suffragettes who were jailed in Kansas City for protesting outside the courthouse there. So I came into my adolescence armed and well supported.
I am also lucky that I never experienced violence against me. Considering the harms way I have thrown myself into during my life, that is something of a miracle. I happened to go to Alaska at a time when the ration of men to women in the state was around 7 t0 1. A man who hurt a woman or violated her or made her unhappy by being disrespectful was likely to get stomped on by volunteer knights. Our rarity made us precious, and in the extremes of weather we experienced there, competence was admired. It didn’t mind what the sex of the competent person was, it was respected and rewarded.
I just hope that in our rage we don’t forget that the human race is made of two halves. In order to function and survive, we need to be equal, and we need to forgive the past and move on. Not forget it, forgive it. I don’t like to see the pendulum swinging too far into rage. We should have some love and tenderness and compassion for each other too.
I suppose I am too idealistic. Probably comes from doing massage and trying to make people feel better, to heal them.
Whammy! You know this type of searching can be done for a lot of things. I wrote this mock article (with socialist intentions) on my blog about “steve heyer” the CEO of Sheraton… It’s a MOCK article (and I state so on my blog – to CMA). leftistlooneylunch.blogspot.com/2006/11/must-see-tv-new-reality-show.html
Yet, someone came looking for Steve Heyer to my blog (it didn’t ring a bell at first)… Seems like if we all called out corporations this way too – on our blogs, we could expose a lot more than ‘crotch shots’.
But I see the evil in this, really – this could be messy. who knows maybe it’s already happening when we search for things. “online cospiracy theories”.
Hi Heart and Pony,
I see how you’ve taken what I’ve written so let me explain what I meant, hopefully a bit more clearly. Of course I’m aware that there is a difference between the power dynamics of mean and disabled people etc. and wasn’t commenting on what might be a casual remark as you rightly point out. Pony didn’t say that she thought the world would be a better place without men – my point was that *if* she did (a rhetorical device, if you like) then in a way the point I was trying to make was did not apply anyway. And aiming to create a woman-only world is a valid political position and I know some women who hold that. I do think that it’s ethically problematic but I think I muddied the argument by bringing that up.
My point, I guess, is to do with intention. If the intention is to remove patriarchy as the dominant discourse then what will the final outcome be? In my view, the final outcome needs to include all humans regardless of gender, race and physical or mental capacity being able to live in an equal society. (Yes, I know, I’m a hopeless idealist). I don’t know if Pony shares that view so didn’t want to assume so.
I wasn’t trying to directly criticise Pony for her views, but to express a note of caution. There is a big difference between understanding all men are rapists as a product of discourse and the same phrase as indicating an essential fact about all men. I actually do believe that rape is hardwired into men as I’ve indicated above, as an evolutionary/adaptive biological trait. ‘My existence is threatened so I must procreate now!’ ‘I must have control of all the women in my pack’ – throwbacks to a very different time in human existence. However, we have also evolved into animals who have language and can reason and that is, like so many things, a blessing and a curse.
For me the biggest mindblowing effect of feminism was discovering the idea that the way we talk about things is the most powerful tool of the human. *I truly believe that discourse creates reality*. Reading Mary Daly’s Gyn/ecology changed my relationship to language forever and I think it literally changed my world. So the way I understand the statement ‘all men are rapists’ is as a political act of subversion of the highest order. In the 60’s and 70’s I can remember the horror with which it was greeted – but it opened a debate that has changed many aspects of society (small steps, I am not claiming a major shift). I look around at many young women today who think that they are ‘liberated’ because they can get a job, think they have equal pay, can get as drunk as a man, think it’s cool to call other women ‘bitch-slapping harpies’ unaware that in so doing they are using hate speech on themselves (in case you hadn’t worked out, heart, my blog username is inherentvalue) and I think to myself ‘is this what I fought for?’ And I think what has been lost is the understanding of patriarchy as discourse. So I have no argument with you, Pony, I just think that we need to make this point as clearly as possible. You may have a different view of course.
You’re quite right that you didn’t say that women who sleep with men are colluding with the enemy, Pony and I apologise if it came across that way – I was simply trying to make the point that if you express the ‘all men are rapists’ as you did above in response to healingmagichands it is in danger of being read as a ‘fact’ rather than the outcome of an incredibly powerful argument and when that happens, one of the effects can be that women who read it who are unaware of the argument will be left with the idea that they are colluding with the enemy which is very frightening and then they don’t stick around to get to grips with the arguments.
I think this is a superb blog by the way – haven’t seen such good debate for years. by the way, Heart, my original post to the Forum which brought me here appears to have been removed! The last post I saw was from raincoaster who just couldn’t resist taking a dig at you – but being in the uk I then went to bed so am intrigued why it’s gone.
That should read ‘men and disabled people’!
Sorry to use up your page, but I wanted to say thanks to Pony for directing me to Christi’s site and Pony doesn’t have a clickable link from this page. They are currently trying to water down the rape laws here in the UK in response to the idea that women who are drunk make themselves vulnerable. UK readers should be writing to their MPs.
I’m coming back in a minute to respond to your great post, Snowqueen, but first I have to say, check this one out! Now there’s a new wrinkle!
Heart
Great thoughts, Snowqueen, and you are so right in pointing out that patriarchy is a discourse, feminism is a discourse responsive to patriarchy’s, and that in engaging in that discourse, we re-create the world. One huge frustration I have sometimes around the internet world is the way, usually when tempers are flaring in an argument, people start hollering something along the lines of, “Do you all ever engage in any real ACTIVISM,” or “What do you people do other than sit at the computer all day!?” Because they evidence just what you describe in your comments there, a real lack of awareness of the central role of language in revolutions small and large. Discourse really does, just as you say, create reality, create revolution, build new worlds. I appreciate your reminding me (and everybody) of that — I don’t get much opportunity to discuss this particular angle to feminism and it is really interesting and enjoyable and so useful. Elsewhere I’ve been somewhat involved in a discussion of the origins of the words “womyn,” “wimmin,” “womon,” and have felt a frustration rooted in the ideas you’ve set forth there. The way the meanings and origins of these words IS so hotly contested, and the intense reactions people have to these words, themselves establish how central language, itself, IS to revolution. Why do some people get so upset when they read these new spellings of the words “woman/women”? Why is the source of these words so hotly contested? Because, just as you say, words are central to the creating of new worlds, new paradigms, new politics, and so language will always be an important site of resistance. This is something we all knew back in the 60s/70s, for example, when black people were rejecting the word “Negro,” or “colored” and insisting on the identification “black” or “African American.” Again, the right of black people to name themselves *was* hotly contested, and it was always the racists who were most interested in disputing black people’s right to name themselves or who wanted to zero in on, for example, dictionary definitions of these words (as though the dictionaries themselves were not a product of white, male, heteropatriarchy!) In the same way, there is always resistance to the language those in oppressed people groups create for ourselves and that resistance has everything to do with societal power. As we knew back in the 60s/70s, “who defines, has the power.” And of course, that’s what Mary Daly’s amazing and brilliant — though always denigrated — project is about, exposing the sexism that lives in the language of heteropatriarchy, exploring new, woman-created language in a way that is always performative for the reader, always consciousness-raising. That is little understood, though, and so women often give up, frustrated because Daly isn’t at all an easy read. She’s not supposed to be– the idea, or one idea, is that the reader will be having all of these moments of insight while she’s reading as to the way language functions to preserve dominance heirarchies.
Well, thanks for getting me thinking about that!
I find your willingness to say rape is hardwired in men as an evolutionary adaptation– well, kinda refreshing. HA! Not to morbidly laugh, but I am morbidly laughing! On the social constructionist scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being someone who believes what you believe about rape/biology and a 10 being someone who doesn’t believe in ANY such gender hardwiring, I am probably about an 8. I am, in general, a social constructionist and believe that gender *is* constructed as a subordinating social category. But I don’t go so far as some radical feminists, in that I do believe some differences between men and women have their basis in biology, a position which, in this day and age, is not particularly popular, even though I’m more social constructionist than not! So here you are just out and out saying what you say about rape! Though I disagree, I appreciate your forthrightness and think we could probably have some interesting discussions.
For everybody reading, the post Snowqueen is talking about as being deleted is a post on the WordPress forums which everybody with WordPress blogs can participate in or read if they want. I have almost never posted or read there other than to ask technical questions. But over the last few days, one of the techie types there who gives WordPress advice on her own blog basically tore me a new one in response to the discussion Snowqueen is describing there where she learned that many of the WordPress “top posts” were actually part of our little radfem campaign here. The techie type came back guns blazing to call us, as Snowqueen describes, “bitch slapping harpies” and “hit whore**”, sounding for all the world like a really woman-hating man, even though the person is, herself, a woman (she says). She didn’t relent, either, when Snowqueen argued, and then others got in on the discussion. This post is, in part, a response to all of that. Interesting, Snow Queen, that the thread was removed (although I’m glad it was, very disconcerting to go to the WordPress support forum and see myself being trashed by one of the people offering “support”?!) It’s discouraging, too, in that this is a person with, in general, progressive, environmentalist blogs! Why are so many animal rights/green/environmentalist types such freaking misogynists?! Why does their concern for the earth not extend to, hello, WOMEN. Especially when they ARE women?! Yeesh.
Aradhana, so true about all the possibilities! And Snowqueen, thanks for the encouragement, for defending me, and for your great post on your blog which everyone should check out, the 999 most beautiful crotches referring to the “crotches” painted by the amazing Judy Chicago.
Heart
Thinking more about this, when I first started actively participating in feminist internet discussion years ago now, there would always be a lot of objection when feminists even used the word “patriarchy”! As though the word were some relic of ancient days or something, an embarrassment to the cool kids, or who knows. And who benefits from *that*! Thanks to women like Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy, though, patriarchy-blaming has been and is continuing to be restored to its rightful place in the overall feminist scheme of things.
Heart
Wow what an amazing response, thank you for taking the time to write that. I know it’s disconcerting that I hold opposing metaphors with apparent ease, lol. It’s taken a lot of thought though it’s hard to explain.
I started using ‘Ms’ virtually as soon as it appeared and was always amused by the intense anger my insistence on its use aroused in both men and women. I used to find that when I said ‘why do I have to reveal if I’m married or not when men don’t', most of the women started getting interested.
I actually wondered if the Forum discussion was removed because timethief didn’t want people to see what a women-hater she appeared, but logically it was more likely to be because they didn’t want anyone else to link to your site. I thought the hypocrisy of criticising us for promoting a blog was breathtaking anyway considering the amount of utter drivel is promoted by people doing the ‘hey take a look at my cool new blog’ thing.
Keep up the good work!!!
Have you looked at Breatheinspirit’s page? It’s definitely not for women. It’s all pornography. Horrible.
But you ladies,
Nice blog.
Shelby,
My site is not full of porn. I’m a bit confused as to how you can be commenting on other feminists sites concerning the googlebomb and you fail to recognize after seeing me commenting here that I’m part of the current campaign to thwart the pornographers.
Cheers.
Timethief is one of those environmentalists who appears to think nuclear power gets a bad rap. I drew that conclusion by clicking on her link under Nuclear Issues, only to find, “The North American Young Generation in Nuclear unites young professionals who believe in nuclear science and technology and are working together throughout North America to share their passion for a field that is alive and kicking!”
Give me a break. If that is what she calls environmentalism, I am not terribly surprised at how she interprets feminism.
Love the sinner but hate the sin? Anyone who came to your site looking for a cheap thrill got a little bit of what they deserve. Great job.
‘The alternative sexual universes men create for themselves via pornography are fueled, not by sexual lust primarily, but by feelings of hatred and vengeance towards all women, but in particular, beautiful, successful, women who are untouchable, unreachable, impossible to personally dominate, something most men find intolerable. It’s not about desire. It’s not in any way about appreciation for beautiful women.’
It’s not anything, it’s only masturbation.
Relax
Um– nah. Masturbation is no problem. Masturbating to prostituted women and images which humiliate, dehumanize or degrade people or animals is a big problem. Orgasming to scenes which humiliate, dehumanize or degrade living creatures means the degradation, humiliation, dehumanization, and especially, abuse of male power will not end. That’s the problem I have with the alternative sexual universes men create.
Masturbation is — and should be — a whole separate issue.
Heart
That discussion Rich has begun about the screen names people pick out for themselves is pretty interesting. Why does “fabio” call himself “fabio,” with a small “f”? Fabio, of course, being this theoretical sexxeee hunk-type guy, but our commenter here uses a small “f,” maybe so as to complement his admonition to us to “Relax,” something like, “I’m a really studlyhawtsexeeee hunk like Fabio, but to show you I’m not dangerous, look at my small ‘f’.”
Tee hee.
Heart
While I’m at it, I should use my opportunity to state how disgusting I find Fabio to be. I never have opportunities to say that.
I mean, take a look for yourself.
Why is this scary person considered to be hawt-studly-sexxee-attractive?
He just looks scary to me.
Heart
Eh. I feel bad for the real Fabio. Not BAAD, but it is interesting how he was completely set up by men to take a fall, to be mocked, at the same time as men set him up to be a sex symbol of some sort to women, even though women certainly never asked for him. I mean, what better a guy: his physique is comical — men certainly aren’t in any danger of trying to live up to him as any sort of standard — and he’s been polished into some sort of cartoon character. So men are protecting their own interests by using him while fucking over women, too, so yeah, everyone can make jokes about him and sea gulls or cod pieces, about how he’s a tool, but he really is a tool on a political level for the patriarchy. And it’s very uncomical men — husbands, boyfriends, etc. — who are taking advantage of that.
Of course, back in the 80’s it was ok for him to be on the cover of their videogames:
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&safe=off&q=fabio+ironsword