Accidental Historian

No Girlz Allowed

Read this article.  Read it right now.  I’ll wait.

Done?  Awesome.  I know that it pained you to have to follow a link through the internets and all, but I made you do that because that particular article is important.  It’s an attempt to say something that has been sadly missing from the whole bullshit contraception kerfuffle and it does it very well.

As such, it’s a good jumping-off point.

The thing that struck me when I first got news of the whole Issa-Fluke catastrophe was the reason Issa gave for Fluke not being allowed to testify about women’s reproductive needs so that five old, sometimes celibate men could.  When Issa refused to allow women to testify his reasoning was that the hearing was not about women, but about religious freedom.

The implications of that line of thought are staggering.  They are also, sadly, mundane.

Claiming that the hearings were about religious freedom and not about anything having to do with women clearly states several things about religion and women in America.  First, and most obviously, it declares that woman have no place to speak in society.  Second, it somehow puts “women” and “religion” on opposite ends of some sort of spectrum and in a zero-sum argument against one another.  Third, it takes away the notion of “religious freedom” from the class of “women.”  To wit: women can have all the religious freedom they want as long as they choose to use the religious freedom dictated to them by old, sometimes celibate men.

Now, let’s bracket off the big question of utility here, as there was a place where an argument could be made and that was as an issue of cost.  Providing contraception, after all, is not going to be free.  It is, however, more cost-effective for insurance companies than paying for even the cheapest birth.  Contraception, then, can be considered a form of preventive health care.  And, of course, there are all the women who need it for non-sex reasons.  This also can’t be part of a larger personal responsibility crusade.  I could eat greasy cheeseburgers three meals a day and still end up with a subscription for Lipitor covered by my insurance without having anyone say, “We’re thinking of not giving you these drugs because gluttony is against our religion.”[1]

Moreover, all you have to do is run across this ABC News article entitled “Erections Get Insurance, Why Not the Pill?” to realize that Viagra – which has significantly lower non-directly-sex-related use in America – has been covered by insurance pretty much since it came on the market.  As such, any argument about not covering the Pill is officially a load of horseshit.  Also, as I’ve mentioned before, 28 states have had laws about covering the Pill on the books for years.  There hasn’t been a public outcry about this until now.

Then, of course, there’s this notion that religious institutions should be allowed to regulate what kind of medical care their employees can get.  This is, in a word, wrong.  Health coverage is a form of compensation in America.[2]  As such, it is no different from the dollars in my paycheck.

Judging by the number of pastors that get caught with hookers or blow or snorting blow off the asses of hookers, I’m pretty sure that religious institutions don’t meticulously track where their employees spend their paychecks.  Sure, they can say, “We’d prefer you not blow this money on hookers and blow,” but they can’t really pre-emptively stop it.  Moreover, no one is really talking about the scandal of churches allowing their employees the freedom to use their hard-earned dollars on hookers, or blow, or cigarettes, or alcohol, or pornographic videos, or to pay back their credit cards with those totally-not-usurious 21% interest rates.  I’m also pretty sure that churches aren’t demanding that their employees immediately turn their paychecks over to charity, even though Jesus did command the rich man to sell off all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor.

Take that all away, though.  What is the central point of the kerfuffle?  It’s that men get to talk and women get to be talked about.  Men get to make decisions and women get to be decided for.  This goes back to the whole idea that the conversation was about religious freedom and, as such, it was preposterous that anyone would even bother to think that a woman would have anything of value to say.  Take away the bit where it was about women and contraception.  Just take the reply at face value.  “The menfolk are having a conversation here,” Issa basically said, “Women have no place here.”

Conservative religious leaders don’t give a shit about women.

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This takes me to an interesting place: porn.

It’s an interesting place since I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of people who are less capable of speaking authoritatively than I am on the subject of sex are in grade school.[3]  But, hey, what are ya gonna do?

Ever since I created my Tumblr account I’ve realized that there are few things in this world more fun than just fucking around on Tumblr and seeing what all there is to see.  The other day I discovered that porn stars seem to put up Tumblrs.  It should come as no surprise that said Tumblr accounts are filled with pictures of naked or nearly naked people and that in some of those pictures the people are having sex with each other.

Now, as best I can tell, the purpose of this exercise is to titillate and, in doing so, sell further titillation to people like, well, like me.  At no point in this journey was I particularly titillated.  I certainly did not become aroused.[4]  I found the whole thing fascinating on an anthropological/sociological level.

See, I’ve never really understood porn.  I get it on an intellectual level.  Its purpose is pretty self-evident, really.  When I was growing up in the church I was also told it was one of the most dangerous things ever.  I’d hear about the dangers of porn.  I’d occasionally hear a testimony from someone who had discovered porn and subsequently became addicted.  So I avoided the stuff, which, really, wasn’t so hard in a world without Tumblr.  In fact, it’s still pretty easy now, even in a world with Tumblr.  The trick is to not really give a flying crap.  But that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, after I stopped worrying about making baby Jesus cry I eventually figured out, “Hey, it’s okay to watch porn.  I also realized that, holy shit, lots of people do it and most people aren’t exactly ashamed about it.  So I ended up tracking some down.  My response was pretty much, “Wait, this is it?”

I didn’t care.  I couldn’t figure out why, though.  Mostly I just had a sense that there was no real point to it or, if there was a point, it certainly wasn’t one I was noticing.  It didn’t help that even I, a guy who knows fuck-all about actual sex, managed to watch about five seconds of the stuff before I realized, “This is totally unrealistic.  How the hell could anything I’m seeing here possibly seem like a good idea?”[5]

So, yeah.  Porn.  I don’t get it.

I was on Tumblr, as I was saying, and ended up on a porn star’s Tumblr.  I do not know who it was.  I was too busy at first trying to figure out why this person was putting up lots of pictures of herself sitting naked in a bathtub and also why she didn’t eat a sandwich from time to time before I finally realized, “Oh, hey, porn star.  Now I understand.”  I mean, I still don’t get the obsession with bathtub-related self-photography, but I totally get why naked pictures would be a thing.

Tumblr, dude.  Tumblr.

Interspersed with said bathtub-related self-photography were pictures that would best be described as “on set” or possibly “promotional.”  Tumblr being what it is, pictures were also often accompanied by links to other Tumblr accounts maintained by other porn people.  I spent about 20 minutes wandering around because I was fascinated by the whole thing.  In doing so, I finally figured out one of the major reasons I’ve never understood porn and probably never will and also why I have no urge to do so.

Any picture I saw of a woman having sex in a porn pretty much came across as a picture of a woman having absolutely no fun.  I suppose this is probably the partially Lawrence Weschler-trained, self-taught art aficionado in me[6], but I found myself looking more at the composition of the scenes and the various similarities rather than, y’know, genitals.  I quickly realized that every woman in a picture with a man wherein sex was happening was on a lower plane, in what appeared to be a really uncomfortable position, looking up at the dude, and always wearing the exact same facial expression.[7]

The facial expression was not one of someone who was enjoying herself, either.  It also wasn’t the look of someone who wasn’t enjoying herself.  It was, instead, a look designed to communicate exactly one thing that I can really only describe as a combination of worship and appeasement.  It’s…it’s weird.  It’s hard to explain, but it’s basically the look that I imagine is on the face of any woman who’s telling a guy with whom she has just had extremely dissatisfying sex that, yes, he’s the best she’s ever had and trying to sell it really hard.

I can’t help but think that this facial expression kept repeating because, for some reason, people who buy porn want to see it on the women upon whom the sex is happening.  And that set composition of the man above, and the woman below and looking upwards with that, “Oh, god, yes, this is the best thing I’ve ever done, don’t you believe me…tiger?” can’t possibly be an accident.

It also occurred to me that in all the times I was warned about the evils of porn it never actually came up that porn was depicting an extremely unrealistic, reductionist view of sex.  The idea of objectification of women might have come up, but certainly the idea that having sex porn-style wouldn’t actually do much to help the woman enjoy herself didn’t enter any conversation I remember.  The idea that sex as depicted in porn is really just meat slapping together while no one actually seems to be enjoying themselves never entered the conversation.  And, believe you me, I heard from enough people who had watched enough porn that there should have been that body of knowledge available, even in my restricted Christian circles.

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So Rush Limbaugh spent three days calling Sandra Fluke a slut.  Some other jackass broke out the cost of contraceptives and decided that meant she spent an average of $3 on condoms a day for three straight years.  Darrell Issa didn’t allow a woman to provide testimony at a hearing about women’s reproductive rights because those rights are non-existent compared to old men discussing their religious freedom to deny reproductive health care to women.

I wonder how much time all those guys spend watching porn.

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[1]Quite frankly, I would only be able to accept the religious freedom for pharmacists bullshit if it also included an opt-out for pharmacists who don’t want to give out drugs for high cholesterol to obvious gluttons, don’t want to prescribe expensive, brand name drugs due to corporate greed, and don’t want to accept credit cards due to a religious injunction against usurious lending practices.  Until that happens, though, it’s all a game of slut shaming disguised with piety.

Come to think of it, that pretty much explains all of religion, which is odd, considering that whole bit in the Gospels where Jesus treated women as people and made it a point to not slut shame.  It’s almost like the buffoons who represent Christianity in this country are a bunch of small-minded, misogynistic dickheads who have co-opted Jesus and re-made him in their own image for cynical, self-serving gain.  But, really, who would do that?

[2]Which is yet another in the long line of arguments in favor of universal health coverage.  It’s this thing that’s supposedly a terrible idea because it will cost more in taxes.  The fact of the matter is that right now I pay hundreds of dollars a year and my employer pays thousands of dollars a year for my health coverage.  The fact that the money goes to Blue Cross Blue Shield apparently makes it good money to spend, whereas if it went to the government it would be bad use of money.

My argument is that I’m having money taken out of my paycheck either way and I’m pretty sure that I don’t have much of a voice with Blue Cross Blue Shield, so that sounds a lot like taxation without representation.  And they’re more likely to drop me because of some pre-existing condition than Medicare is to drop my 91 year-old grandmother.  Also, if I lose my job tomorrow I also lose my insurance coverage, while my grandmother will not be losing her Medicare any time soon.  So, really, what’s so fucking great about private health insurance again?

[3]The rest conveniently gathered together the other day for a group picture:




[4]This might sound like one of those, “The gentleman doth protest too much,” sort of things.  But, really, why the fuck would I lie about something like that?

[5]Also, the thing that porn people do with their tongues, where they, like, flap them around in each other’s general direction as if they have a hyperactive, meth-addled hummingbird trying to escape from their mouths sideways.  WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THAT?  WHO DOES THAT?

Other than porn stars, obviously.

[6]Yeah.  I’m tossing Lawrence Weschler references in the middle of a discourse on porn.  Eat it.

[7]And those were pictures intending to promote the videos.  It’s not like it was a photo essay of reasons why porn is anti-woman on Feministe or something.  They were put up by the actual porn stars to say, “Hey, look at this awesome thing.  You know you want to buy it.”

In Which Charles P Pierce Says it All

I've recently added his Esquire blog to my feed.  Why?  Because he's freaking awesome.  At this point my list of non-fiction essayists/columnists who can regularly turn a delightful phrase such that I suddenly wish I was a half-competent writer myself stands at five:  Fred Clark, Lawrence Weschler, Ed Kilgore, Charles P. Pierce, and Lawrence Weschler again because, holy shit, can that guy put words together to form a sentence.  And sentences together to form paragraphs.  And paragraphs...well, you get the point.  Oh, and I guess if I had to add a sixth I'd go with John Scalzi.  He ain't bad, neither.

Anyway, Charles P. Pierce, ladies and gentlemen:

(And can I say for the record that there is no "fierce debate" around the country about contraception. There is what people do, and what they like to do, and there is an immensely unpopular position held by immensely unpopular people. This is not a debate, let alone a "fierce" one. This is an issue on which the country made up its damn mind long ago, regardless of how ginned up some politicians can get the rubes. It's also not a debate about "religion," unless, to borrow Garry Wills's felicitous phrase, one reduces the Gospels to "the mere smithying of chastity belts." There is only one reason to describe what's going on this way in your newspaper -- you don't want 55,089 phone calls and/or e-mails from faith-based nutbags. We continue.)

Or, to put it in other terms, those on the side of contraceptives for women are the New York Yankees.  The anti-contraception lobby is the Boston Red Sox.  The 2003 Boston Red Sox.  Pretty soon they'll be the Chicago Cubs.

Tossing My Two Pennies Down the Well

So, I've managed to almost entirely avoid weighing in on the manufactured birth control controversy.  Mostly because I'm, y'know, a dude.  And I'm, y'know, not exactly sexually active.  Also because I'm, y'know, not a fucking idiot who thinks the only proper place for women is barefoot and pregnant and makin' me a sammich.

Oh, and I'm totally aware of the economies of scale between birth control and pregnancy.  Also, I know that some women take birth control for health reasons and not just not-getting-pregnant reasons.  But, that's really beside the point.

Since I understand the concept of looking up things that happened before last week, I know that more than half the states in the union have had laws similar to the one that got the collective panties of the old, theoretically celibate, Catholic bishops in a bunch.  I also know that most of those laws have been on the books for nearly two decades.  And I know that Rick Warren happens to live in one of those states and isn't in convenient that that giant bag of douche suddenly realized that the purpose driving his life was to get rid of such laws during an election year.[1]  Oh, and, of course, that rich-ass motherfucker got to play the role of martyr for his faith in the process.  Because everyone's alway stepping on the faces of those poor, downtrodden Christians.  No one in the goddamn country is more persecuted than Rick goddamn Warren.

Wait, where was I?  Oh, yeah, birth control.

The narrative we get from jackasses like the celibate old men of the Church, television blowhards, or super wealthy, out of touch blowhards, all of whom are men, some of whom are known Viagra-popping philanderers, is that the only women who want birth control are slutty mcsluttersteins who constantly crave cock, day in and day out and day in and day out (ifyaknowwhadImean, wink wink, nudge nudge).

Let me just toss this thought out there:

I once dated a girl whose dad was a Baptist pastor from the GARB, which is one of those groups that makes the Southern Baptists look positively progressive.  She went to private schools wherein she learned creation science and, due to that, genuinely believed the world is only about 6000 years old.  She did a year and a half at Cedarville, which is one of those Christian colleges that makes Wheaton College look like a hotbed of free thought and free love.[2]

She was one of those no sex before marriage types, as were her friends from back home.  She told me one time how weird it was to deal with her friends who were going on the Pill in preparation for their soon-to-be post-marital status as sexually active women.  It wasn't because of the going on the Pill itself aspect of things.  It was because the inherent chemical and hormonal changes included mood swings and other such emotional changes.  She herself, if I remember correctly, pretty much took it as a given she'd be going on the Pill a few months before her wedding.

This, for any modern social conservative who happens to be reading, is how you define being on the wrong side of history.  Birth control is not a controversial topic in this country.  The only people who seem to think getting rid of birth control is a winning topic are the people who can't take it and need it least.

Angry, rich, old men might have the pockets to pull the strings for aspiring Presidents.  Angry, scared, easily led people might be enough of a voting bloc to make it seem like there is a deep hunger in this country for the likes of Rick Santorum.

But there's a bigger voting bloc out there than everyone else combined: women.  Just over 50% of people of voting age in this country are women.  Hell, given the statistics I've seen (and my own half-recalled observations), better than half of the people who attend church in this country and are active in ministries are women.

Sure, some of them can be tricked or lied to or browbeaten or diverted to the role of Uncle Tom.  But if you're starting with a voting bloc that's enough to carry an election all on its own, you probably shouldn't be doing your level-headed best to alienate them.  This is especially true when you consider that there are plenty of men out there who are willing to join with women.  It required the actions of men, after all, to bring women's suffrage to America.  Women couldn't vote or write laws, so men had to do it on their behalf.

The angry, scared, old men who tried to stop women back then were on the wrong side of history, too.

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[1]Moreover, this really takes to task one of the conservative canards in this country: that of "States' Rights."  The idea is that the state, rather than the federal government needs to have the most power because states, somehow, are more responsive and better at meeting the needs of their people.  But the state as a laboratory of democracy is, like so many other things, only the right way to do things when the states agree with what the conservatives want.

As such, they want DOMA as a federal law to protect against Massachusetts, Iowa, Washington state, California, and whoever else legalizing gay marriage.  But if the state is the best arbiter of democracy, is not a given state allowed to make something legal if that's what the state's citizens want?

Ergo, if 28 of 50 states have a law about providing birth control to women on the books, then are we not looking at more than half of those laboratories of democracy saying, "This is good for the citizens of this democracy?"  I mean, we're not quite to Constitutional Amendment percentages there, but the point stands.

Also, remind me to write up a post one of these days about why the federal system we have in America is ultimately a huge load of counterproductive horseshit and Ruth Bader Ginsberg was absolutely right.  That'll be fun.  Everyone loves hearing about the Nullification Crisis, right?

[2]Okay, it might not be that bad.  Cedarville is certainly no Pensacola Christian College.

The Dancing Monkey Needs a Road Trip

Over at the Washington Monthly's "Political Animal," Ed Kilgore -- who earlier today gave me my band name of the day: "Declining Honkitude" -- put this little gem at the end of his report on the CPAC agenda:

Even at a deadly serious conference aimed at taking back America from secular-socialists, there has to be some socializing. Fortunately, for the single set, TheTeaParty.net is hosting a presentation on “Conservative Dating.” Check out this description:

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod, that would be amazing.  Especially in light of the actual description.

Learn everything from how to avoid scaring away your own personal Dagny Taggart in the first five minutes of the conversation, to whether Tea Partiers and Occupiers can share something more than a dislike for bailouts.

For those who are wondering, Dagny Taggart is the protagonist (in the strictest sense of the world) and author insert of Atlas Shrugged.

Note, too, the implication that it will be a workshop for men, since the goal is to "avoid scaring away" and the object in question is a female.  I so wish I was in Washington, DC RIGHT NOW.

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Actually, when I think about it, the implications of that little description are utterly terrifying.

I have never actually read Atlas Shrugged.  I have, however, been involved in discussion of the book and read snippets of a couple of the sex scenes.  They are not so much "sex scenes" as "rape scenes."  And they're a special variety of rape wherein getting completely sexually dominated in a not-particularly-consensual sort of way by a great captain of industry causes Dagny Taggart to respect and/or fall in love with said man.

So, yeah, I'm kind of hoping that the first tip to "avoid scaring away your own personal Dagny Taggart" is, "Don't be the sort of guy who says he's looking for a Dagny Taggart."

Otherwise...ugh.

Friday Finishers

Internet/Planned Parenthood - 1 / Susan G Komen Foundation - 0

48 hours and the Susan G Komen Foundation is backpedaling hard.  It's also interesting that last year Planned Parenthood received $680,000 from SGKF, whereas in the last two days they received $250,000 from the Fikes Foundation, $250,000 from New York's Mayor Bloomberg, and another $650,000 from other sources.  By my math, that's $1.15M in two days.  $1.15M is a bigger number than $680k.

The thing here, though, is that the Susan G Komen Foundation is going to lose in the long run.  The only people who supported them in this were the, "Planned Parenthood iz abortionz!  Oh, noez!" types.  They, um, they don't take well to reversing course and will now undoubtedly abandon the foundation in droves.  The people who got pissed off in the first place and started this backlash, meanwhile, won't be returning.  The Susan G Komen Foundation's withdrawal of support for stem cell research, tendency to spend a shitload of money suing anyone who used the color pink or "for the cure," rank hypocrisy, and rather transparent attempts to play with right wing politics/politicians have gotten a lot of press.  Also, I think there's a barely contained hatred of cause marketing and "awareness" as an end-goal running through the public consciousness.  Since Susan G Komen for the Cure's pinkwashing is the most obvious and ubiquitous example of that very thing, it doesn't surprise me that the backlash to this came so fast and hard.

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I paid a great deal of attention a couple years ago when Anonymous launched its worldwide protest of Scientology.  Really, I paid way more attention than that particular issue deserved.  At the time they were seen as a bunch of short attention span script kiddies with an overinflated sense of self-importance going after a joke of an organization.  That is, they were seen that way by the few people who bothered to pay attention.  That particular interpretation was correct for the time.

I grew up reading Arthur C. Clarke.  He is, of course, best known for HAL 9000 and big-time space opera stuff.  One of the things he constantly hit on in his work, though, was the effect computers and computerized networking would have on humanity.  He was basically writing about a human internet-based hive minds when most people were still dialing in to Prodigy on 14.4 baud dial-up modems.

To me, the interesting thing about Anonymous attempting to take down Scientology wasn't the act itself, it was the way they went about doing it.  They organized a rolling, worldwide protest and a series of DDoS attacks against Scientology's web servers in a matter of a couple weeks and managed to pull everything off with surprising precision.  I read the transcripts of some of the chat logs after the fact and at the time I described it as the first example of an internet hive mind.  It was, in its own way, truly impressive.  And it accomplished next to nothing.

Then Anonymous teamed up with WikiLeaks.  And then they took down HBGary just to prove they could.  Even that was still rather limited, even if it made a much bigger splash.

The raw power of the internet has spread beyond the borders of 4chan and /b/, however.

Ten years ago the Arab Spring would not have happened.  Hell, it probably wouldn't have happened five years ago.  I'm not saying someone wouldn't have tried.  It's just that the protests would have maybe been footnotes in the newspapers or a quick item on the evening news between a cat fashion show and the big house fire down on Fifth.  Thanks to the internet and the ubiquity of social networking the entire world had a real-time feed of the earliest stages of the protests in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt and [various other places that currently slip my mind] and the powers that be couldn't simply make them go away and pretend like it never happened.

Then in the last month we had the SOPA/PIPA blackout (which, honestly, I'd accept arguments to the effect that the blackout did nothing or that it totally killed the bills.  But they weren't really going anywhere very fast in the first place) and the backlash against Susan G Komen for the Cure.  I guess my point is: we're increasingly living in Arthur C. Clarke's world.  I, for one, am looking forward to the quantum black holes that allow us to see through time and the device that creates a field that can instantly detonate all explosives inside its reach.  I'm less sold on the whole "everybody's gonna be bisexual now!" thing, though.  So, y'know, some positives, some negatives.

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It was also kind of fun getting to play a tiny role in expanding and amplifying the signal.  Slacktivist linked to my Wednesday and Thursday posts on the subject and spread Scalzi's offer.  So that was totally awesome.

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In the comments on that post I made an off-hand comment about how I ought to write a book about growing up conservative and Evangelical in Wheaton, IL, then becoming a liberal atheist, also in Wheaton, IL.  It occurs to me that personal memoirs of 30-something-former-Evangelicals are kind of big right now, so...y'know.  I might.  Nothing like getting in at the tail-end of a glutted market!

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I had this stuck in my head all morning.  Now you do, too.  ENJOY!



Also, is it just me, or is it REALLY, REALLY HARD to actually believe Freddie Mercury when he's singing about women?  I'm not thinking they made his particular rockin' world go 'round...

 

EDIT:  On further consideration, SGKF might not really have backed down.  I'm seeing a lot of commentary to the effect that all they're doing is saying, "Yeah, we'll honor our existing agreements, then allow PP to re-apply in the future."  That's not exactly a ringing...much of anything, really...

Public Outrage

So it appears that the Susan G Komen Foundation's attempts to tap in to massive public outrage have been wildly successful.  I don't think they'd intended it to work like this, though.  Since this has been pissing me off and I want to do what little I can to keep pushing this particular issue, here's a cavalcade of Komen links:

PZ Myers - Big Charity:

It does make sense if you’re a right-wing corporate entity that has funded its growth on a foundation of a universally appreciated cause, but that actually has closer ties to conservative corporate and religious interests. They aren’t so much against breast cancer, as they are for protecting “good” girls, and against those fornicating sluts who get abortions, and can go ahead and die horribly. They listen more to the anti-abortion crusaders (some of whom are on their executive staff!) than to women.

Gin & Tacos - Race to the Cure To Being Relevant:

The organization's current president, Karen Handel, ran for governor of Georgia in 2010 and lost in the Republican primary. Sarah Palin endorsed her. During her campaign she promised repeatedly to defund Planned Parenthood. She took over Komentm a few months ago. You do the math.

You should have a low opinion of them because they're a fake charity run like any other company with a product to sell. In this case the product is a combination of guilt, pity, and hope dissolved in a weak acid and dyed a nauseating pink.

Betty Pinson - Behind the Pink Curtain - Komen's Political Agenda:

Nancy Brinker, the founder of Komen and sister of the famed, now deceased Susan G. Komen, has always thought of herself as a heavy hitting player in politics.  As you've seen in other diaries, she raised millions for Bush's election, as well as other GOP lawmakers. She was appointed by Bush to high positions in his administration.  She has a very large ego and likes to play the role of political kingmaker, using her corporate backed non-profit organization to further her agenda.

Laura Bassett - Susan G Komen Loses Support After Planned Parenthood Decision

One of Komen's own affiliates withdrew its support as well. The Connecticut affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure said in a statement on Wednesday that it "shares" people's frustration over the decision and that it will continue funding Planned Parenthood of New England.

ABC 7 Chicago - Planned Parenthood, Susan G Komen rift heated:

"Komen caved to political pressure," wrote editorial writer Tod Robberson in the Dallas Morning News. "The next time Komen for the Cure comes asking us for an editorial supporting one of their local events, I'm going the think twice."[1]

Lea Goldman - The Big Business of Breast Cancer (from 2011):

After all, in the nearly 20 years since the pink ribbon became the official symbol of the cause — Estée Lauder cosmetics counters handed out 1.5 million of them in 1992 as part of the first-ever nationwide awareness campaign to leverage the pink ribbon — breast cancer has become the NFL of diseases, glutted with corporate sponsorships, merchandise deals, and ad campaigns. This is true year-round, but especially in October, when breast cancer marketing reaches a frothy pink frenzy. This month, an awareness-minded consumer can buy almost any knickknack or household item in pink — from lint brushes and shoelaces to earbuds and Snuggies. If she happens to be in an American Airlines Admirals Club, she can snack on pink cookies while drinking pink champagne. If instead she finds herself at one of the nation's 500 Jersey Mike's Subs franchises, for about $7 she can order the "pink ribbon combo," consisting of a sandwich, chips, and soda served in a limited-edition pink plastic cup (because nothing says "cancer awareness" like chips and soda).

Gin & Tacos - Pinkwashed (from 2008):

What's wrong with pinkwashing? If you're going to buy soup anyway, isn't it better for Campbell's to send a dime to charity? Yes and no. Yes, it's obviously good that charities receive donations. No, it's not healthy to encourage people to believe that they have Done Their Part and Made a Difference by shopping. It's unhealthy to tell people they are expressing their individuality by buying an iMac and a Jetta and choosing the Pottery Barn collection that really communicates who they are as a person. It's unhealthy to reassure your long-dead inner radical that you are not part of The Machine by feeding it.

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Meanwhile, last year SGK gave $680,000 to Planned Parenthood.  Yesterday, according to the news I've seen, Planned Parenthood raised at least $650,000.  I'm pretty sure that number will keep going up.  Want to help?  I've got two suggestions:

First, you can buy eBooks from Scalzi between now and the 8th.  I sure as hell did[2]:




Second, you can donate money directly to PP.  I gave them $10 last night.  I also chose to do so in honor of these fine folks:

Susan G Komen Foundation
5005 LBJ Freeway, Dallas, TX
Suite 250
Dallas, TX 75244

I hear that the Susan G Komen Foundation will be getting a lot of lovely thank you notes in the mail in the near future.

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[1]I include this one because, first, it's an op-ed in DALLAS, TEXAS and, second, because the Susan G Komen Foundation is located in Dallas.

[2]The two on the bottom row don't count, as they're not Subterranean Press eBooks.  But I got them anyway because, hell, why not?

Men Behaving Badly

I’ve come to the conclusion that the easiest form of blog fodder for me is to simply link me to an article by Kay Hymowitz.  I suppose that’s a protip for those of you who want more content from me and don’t really care if it’s repetitive and angry.  It seems, after all, that every time I run across an article by Kay Hymowitz the article itself is repetitive and stupid.

I (unwittingly) followed a link to one from the comments over at Sadly, No! and was surprised by two things: 1. good god, the woman’s been writing these articles for at least three years, and 2. holy shit, she’d been recycling the same article.  I had to check the byline, since I knew I’d read parts of the article she wrote (and blogged on them) before, but the articles in question weren’t from 2008.  This “most recent” one was.

Since I can’t leave well enough alone, I find it absolutely necessary to, yet again, wade in to this horrid stew of misogyny, stupidity, douchebag apology,[1] and Uncle Tom feminism.  Why?  Because this sort of shit matters.

There is a certain subset of men who are horrid, vile people.  There’s absolutely no way around this.

[Um, this next bit is just a big wad of trigger-riffic stuff.]

Witness, for instance, the latest tempest stirred up by Rebecca Watson.  I’ve written about her run-ins with dickhead men in the past.  Quite frankly, Rebecca doesn’t need me to defend her.  She’s a grown-ass woman, after all, and she has some people with much louder voices than me in her corner.  Still, she brought something to wider attention that I think I do need to add my voice, no matter how small, to.

The situation is this: a 15 year-old girl posted a picture of her smiling face with her new copy of a Carl Sagan book on the atheism thread over at reddit.  She was then inundated by a whole bunch of men, many claiming to be significantly older than her, making rape jokes, kidnap jokes, and any number of increasingly disturbing anal rape jokes.  There are literally absolutely no excuses for this.  Absolutely no one should be subjected to that sort of bullshit from anyone, ever, anywhere.

This is the behavior of sociopaths.

No one should ever, for any reason whatsoever, be subjected to a pile-on of strangers making commentary about the value of their own blood as a sexual lubricant during unwanted anal sex.  It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s not cool, and it’s not even remotely civilized.  It’s making rape jokes.  It is threatening someone with unwanted bodily harm of a most intimate sort for giggles.

The worst thing about this, though, is that Watson chose to highlight only the comments that were upvoted by a margin of at least 2:1.  It put into stark relief the problem of anyone trying to make the, “But it’s just a few bad eggs making tasteless jokes,” defense.  Yes, it was a few bad eggs making tasteless jokes.  And several hundred other bad eggs, well, egging them on and supporting them.

So, again, let’s recap: a bunch of guys on the internet threatened to forcibly sodomize a teenage girl and a whole shitload of other guys stood around, watched, and laughed.  When someone pointed it out the big shitstorm was, “How dare you rain on our parade?”  Yes, men such as PeeZed and Ed Brayton vocally smacked down the dipshits and their apologists, but the fact of the matter is that it should not have been necessary.  People should know better than to threaten to visit anal rape women just because they’re cute and have the temerity to, y’know, exist.

This is a huge problem.

But what does it have to do with Kay Hymowitz, or an article Kay Hymowitz wrote in 2008?  I’m glad you asked.  No, really, I am.

Men who threaten to anally rape teenagers on the internet can only get away with it in an environment where there’s no social cost to threatening to anally rape teenagers.  They can only thrive in an environment where they’re celebrated for the humorousness level of their anal rape jokes.  It’s really not that hard to stop the problem, but somebody has to stop letting it happen.  Consider, for instance, how quick people are to cry racism when some random Tea Partier goes after Barack Obama for something.  Shouldn’t we be crying, “Holy shit, there’s something wrong with you?” whenever men treat women like garbage?

Is it weird that I even have to ask this question?  I think it’s weird that I have to ask this question.  I mean, seriously.  It’s nearly 2012, people.

Anyway, Kay Hymowitz…right.

Some of the biggest actors in the “treat women like pieces of meat who only deserve to be fucked” sphere are the MRAs.  I’ve mentioned them many, many times, but for the uninitiated, MRA stands for “Men’s Rights Activist.”  The “rights” of men they’re activisting about are pretty much the same as the “rights” of white people to treat those stupid darkies like sub-humans.  They see feminism and the feminist movement as this terrible thing that is well on its way to ruining men as we know them.

MRAs enjoy a strong Venn Diagram overlap with another group of dipshits known as Pick Up Artists, or PUAs.  Basically, PUAs sit around and share tips about how to pick up hot women, fuck them, and then never talk to them again.  Think Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother, but without the redeeming qualities of being NPH, scripted, and Wayne Brady’s white brother.  MRAs and PUAs, while often sharing bodies and everything, most definitely have one major thing in common: they believe women are good for absolutely nothing outside of the whole “temporary penis receptacle” thing.

It occurred to me today whilst juxtaposing a terrible Kay Hymowitz article and an absolutely awful collection of men on reddit that there might just be a commonality here.

In the Hymowitz article in question, entitled “Love in the Time of Darwinism,”[1] pretty much tries to prove the point that men are simply trying to evolve in the face of feminism.  This, I shouldn’t have to tell you, is incredibly stupid.  “Darwinism” doesn’t apply to this situation in any way, shape, or form, beyond the whole idea of competition for sexual selection.  The collection of dim bulbs and ne’er do wells that occupy Kay Hymowitz’s tragically depressing world are trying to have sex, but aren’t actually trying to perpetuate the species.  I imagine that your average PUA lives in terror of the day he gets a call that starts, “Hey, um, we hooked up about nine months ago…”

Basically, “Darwinism” here is used, whether Hymowitz realizes it or not, in the sense of “Social Darwinism.”  Social Darwinism, of course, gives us such non-evolutionary bullshit as, “Them darkies ain’t as good as us white folk,” and, “Hey, let’s kill all the Jews, since they’re obviously inferior to us due to their strange lack of blond hair and blue eyes.”  Let’s not dress this up as something more interesting or less infuriating than it is.  I mean, really.

Anyway, it’s articles like this that provide cover for jackasses.  Let’s consider this gem for a minute:

For one illustration of dating à la Darwin, consider what’s known as the Seduction Community. The Community is a loose network of dating coaches, gurus, and their followers whose philosophical origins lie variously in Darwin, Norman Vincent Peale, and hyperlogical geekdom. Women want alpha males, the Seduction Community agrees; with some effort at self-improvement, any man can learn the game—Game, as it is reverently known—that will turn him into a Pick Up Artist (PUA).

I’d go pull out my bottle of Woodford Reserve and turn this in to a weasel word drinking game, but I’m afraid I don’t want to die of cirrhosis of the liver before I get a chance to see 2012.  But let’s unpack this.  It’s the “Seduction Community.”  Oh, that’s sweet.  Women like seduction, right?  That plays off of the notion of romance and whatnot.  And community?  Who doesn’t like community?  And, hey, if you name-check Darwin and Norman Vincent Peale and say it has “philosophical origins” that makes it sound like people sat down and thought long and hard about this shit.

Then, of course, there’s my favorite bit:  “Women want alpha males, the Seduction Community agrees.”  Yeah…did anyone in the Seduction Community think to ask, y’know, women?  No, of course not, BECAUSE WOMEN DON’T FUCKING MATTER.  Only fucking women matters.

Also, I love the, “with some effort at self-improvement,” bit.  Because, well, let’s go look at what “self-improvement” means in this funhouse mirror world:

It teaches the ordinary nice guy—in Gamespeak, the Average Frustrated Chump (AFC)—how to reinvent himself to survive in a ruthless dating environment. That means desensitizing the AFC to rejection and, alas, building up his jerk quotient. Teachers encourage clients to project confidence and sexual energy, what is called, depending on the guru, “cocky funny” or “amused mastery.” In The Aquarian, a New York–based music magazine, Kevin Purcell describes his experience at a Game workshop: “One of our first tasks was to walk around the hotel silent, repeating in our heads ‘I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about me.’ This mentality, it was assumed, would help lower the wall of anxiety and make us less prone to the pain of rejection. Like soldiers responding to a drill sergeant, when asked ‘What are you?’ we were instructed to loudly proclaim, ‘A fucking ten!’ ”

Does anyone, anywhere (outside of the world of PUAs, obviously) actually see anything even closely resembling “self-improvement” in this little vignette?  I sure as shit don’t.

You know what?  I spent a year and a half walking around in Texas repeating variations of the words, “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about me,” in my head.  Did it make me more confident?  Yes, actually.  Did it make me a better person?  Abso-fucking-lutely not.  It made me an asshole.  I do not like being an asshole.  Apparently, though, I’m supposed to want to do this:

Remember those women who want a guy who will open the car door for them? They may be lucky if they find one willing to add “please” to “Pass the ketchup.” Women complain that instead of calling to ask them out, or even make plans for a date, men simply text, “Heading downtown. Where r u?” as they walk to the subway. That may be deliberate. “There is no longer any reason to answer the phone when a woman calls you or return her call when she leaves you a message,” insists one dating pro at World of Seduction. “What should you do? Text message, of course.” Text messages, he argues, deflect unnecessary personal involvement and keep women on edge.

True story: it just occurred to me that I accidentally did this to someone.  It was more of a, “I’m really busy at the moment and I’m not sure I really want this person in my life, and as such I’m kind of distracted,” sort of unintentional thing.  She yelled at me, which totally pissed me off at the time, but holy shit, I totally deserved that.  And probably a swift kick in the nuts.  Realizing that I basically emulated the PUA thing makes me want to go take a shower.  And then go track someone down and apologize to her.

For those who are paying attention, that’s self-improvement.  Realizing you’ve done something horrible and deciding not to do it anymore is a sign of improvement.  Resolving to become a more horrible person is not.

Indeed, the Darwinists wonder, why pretend we’re interested in anything other than sex? Jillian Straus recalls meeting a man at a Hamptons pool party who, early on in their conversation, asked: “So, are you getting any?” One of Cohen’s lessons in contemporary politesse came on a first date with a man who asked her how many guys she had slept with and whether she owned a vibrator.

I…um…wait, what?

Seriously.  What.  The.  Fuck?

I hate men right now.  I’m not even joking.  I have to be associated with people like this?

Anyway, it’s a pretty short hop from this sort of shit to joking about anally raping a teenage girl on the internet.  Ultimately, the jackasses who do and encourage that sort of thing are totally at fault for their actions.  People like Kay Hymowitz, who provide cover for this completely and totally irredeemably vile garbage are complicit in the problem, however.  By acting like PUAs have a point and all they’re doing is choosing to respond in a completely acceptable fashion to something that women have done to them, Hymowitz allows them to think they’re doing the right thing.

Not that they’d actually care, anyway.  Kay Hymowitz is a woman, after all, and not therefore not worth listening to.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a shower.

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[1]I have a theory: any time you see an article that includes “Darwinism” in the title and features the word prominently in its body you can instantly dismiss the writer as someone who knows fuck-all about what Darwinism actually means.  This theory is null and void if you’re reading an article by an actual biologist about actual Darwinian evolution, however.  But, really, I don’t think too many of those articles actually have the word “Darwinism” in their title…