On being a fat girl who likes skinny men...

(x-posted from School For Scandal.)

As a teenager, my biggest crushes were Iggy Pop and David Bowie. I fantasized about willowy goth boys, the lankier the better. My longest relationships have been with tall, very thin men. (I like short thin men too, though.)

Then in my late twenties I found myself going through a phase I’ve nicknamed “fucking fat dudes with beards.” I never really had a thing for fat dudes with beards, but there’s a LOT of them in Chicago, and they’re often slutty chubby chasers, so I guess it was inevitable that I’d wind up with a few, considering a few of them seemed to have made the rounds of all the chubby hipster chicks in Chicago.

So here’s the thing. I’ve always preferred thin men. Really thin men. Muscular or lanky, I don’t care. A+ if they’re a bit androgynous, or have long hair and good fashion sense. Blame Bowie. So why was I hooking up with these hefty dudes in ragged hoodies and neckbeards? Partly because it was easy, but mostly because I had this weird sense of INTERNALIZED FAT GUILT.

I am a fat person. Even at my most athletic I wore a size 14 (I wear an 18 now.) I will probably never be thin, and I’m pretty much okay with that. But I felt like a traitor for liking skinny dudes. Why couldn’t I be more attracted to my own people? Was it some sense of INTERNALIZED SELF LOATHING that made me want to fuck ectomorphs? So I hooked up with fat dudes instead out of some weird sense of moral imperative. A friend accused me of being “altruistic with my pussy,” and I’m afraid she’s right.

Here’s the thing- have you ever heard of a hetero MAN questioning his taste if he likes thin women because society enforces the notion that thin=beauty to the point that women develop eating disorders? I haven’t. In fact, I friend dumped someone when he claimed “anorexic women were his type.” Barf. Ok, maybe once I heard a dude say “I know I probably like skinny women because society holds them up as the standard of beauty, but I can’t help liking what I like.” Well, at least he was honest, but he wasn’t exactly feeling bad about his tastes, either.

So we KNOW that men are under pressure to be seen with skinny women as a status thing (hence the many, many straight men who fuck fat women on the DL, and the many cruel jokes about drunk men hooking up with fat women, as if NOBODY sober would want to have sex with a fat woman…) But conversely, are hetero women told that we need to have a thin man on our arm? Is this desire of mine driven by society ? Are ectomorphs being held up as the pinnacle male perfection? Not so much- skinny is often painted as wimpy and unmanly. On the rare occasion that straight women are encouraged to objectify men based on appearances, it’s typically some beef wad like Fabio or the Old Spice Man. But it’s still considered distasteful that straight women pursue men on the basis of physical attraction outside of romance novels and fantasies. Newspapers report over and over that the happiest marriages are between beautiful women and plain men, because the man idolizes his mate and she basks in his attention, knowing she’s got the upper hand in an otherwise completely sexist arrangement. Straight women aren’t supposed to choose men on the basis of appearances, we should be looking for a man with a good job (and maybe personality, intelligence and a sense of humor. But mostly money.)

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

I’m sorry dudes, but appearance do matter, and straight women should expect more. Moreover, if you’re going to put “big rack” and “long legs” on your list of girlfriend specifications, I should be allowed to state that I like big dicks and manscaping. Women should be encouraged to find their partners (regardless of gender) physically and sexually attractive instead of just looking for a thick wallet or a big brain. I’m not saying that straight women should necessarily subscribe to mainstream standards of attractiveness, but figure out what you find physically sexy in your partner and go for it. I have a thing for skinny guys, and they seem to like me back, so maybe opposites attract. I don’t think society (unless you count the glam and gothic musical movements) is responsible for my tastes, and I don’t think I should feel guilty for liking what I like, or that I should apologize for being attracted to a body type that is different from my own.

I think society enforces the idea that fat people are sexually unempowered, and that we should settle for whatever comes along, whether that’s a person who is drunk or desperate, a pity fuck, or other fatties only. God forbid I have a PREFERENCE and a choice in the matter! God forbid I be attracted to men who weigh less than me! ZOMG I MIGHT CRUSH THEM IN BED!!! (Trust me, this has NEVER happened.)

But here’s the thing about Chicago- fat people in general have a lot of sex and a lot of sexual options here, because for the most part this is a city where it’s ok to be fat AND fuck a lot, especially for people in the punk and indie subcultures. Chicago is full of (positively) slutty fat people, fat sex workers, fat burlesque dancers, and others who have embraced their sexuality in a bigger body. I spent almost ten years living in Los Angeles and Japan, two of the most fat-negative places on the planet, and it’s really nice to be in a place where fatties can get their groove on without shame. (I even met a person who had gotten stretch marks tattooed onto her stomach as a statement of fat solidarity…there ya go.)

So here’s the thing- I swear I meet more girls in Chicago (and it may just be the circles I run in) who are “chubby chasers” than not. I know a handful of extremely promiscuous fat men who have slept with half the women in town. BECAUSE THEY CAN! In Chicago, being a fat dude is not a handicap for getting laid. So there is no reason for me to exclusively have sex with fat dudes out of some sense of FIGHTING OPPRESSION WITH MY VAGINA when they are plenty in demand in my town.

I like skinny boys. I am a fat girl. I own this. I am not a bad person for liking skinny boys as a fat girl. And David Bowie has a 24/7 open-ended invitation to hang out with me ANY TIME.

*Please note that I was terribly heterosexist in this essay and used “straight” as shorthand for people who like to fuck opposite gender people. If you like to fuck your opposite gender and other genders or identify as nongendered, etc, please don’t feel marginalized, I just wasn’t sure how to express “likes to fuck opposite gender and possibly other genders” without being insanely wordy.

Consent: is it OK to go from No to Yes in one evening?

(X-posted from School for Scandal)

So, I am really lucky to have good health insurance and a great gynecologist. (I was seeing a GP before who was fucking useless.)My current gyno got me on continuous birth control on a low estrogen pill, as a person whose life used to be ruled by PMDD, this is one of the best things to ever happen to me.

So anyway, I visited her a few days ago for my checkup, and I told her about my plans to become a sex therapist. She told me about how she treats a lot of patients with sexual dysfunction and advises them to use vibrators (and referred me to her favorite vibrator shop). I love having a sex positive gyno (the first one I ever saw when I was a teen told me I shouldn't shave my pubic hair and that I needed to lose weight- I guess she was working at my high school's free clinic for a reason.)

I also told my Doctor about SlutWalk. She told me she treats a lot of women who have been dateraped and the advice she gives about consent is this:

"If you say no one evening, you need to stick to that no. You can say yes the next evening, but you need to be consistent with your consent, otherwise men think that if they push hard enough, they can turn a no into a yes."

I see her point (a similar technique is used to keep dogs from begging for scraps at a table) but if it's generally agreed that if you initially give consent and change your mind, you have a right to stop things without being judged. (I'm not talking about wishing you hadn't slept with someone the next day or retroactively changing your consent, I'm talking about actively communicating a change in consent at the actual moment.) So is it legit to say at the beginning of any evening, "I don't want to have sex tonight," and then after some heavy making out say, "I changed my mind, I do want to have sex tonight?" I think a mature dude should be able to handle this without assuming that he can turn every no into a yes. But is it, as my gyno claims, breeding messy boundaries? It certainly enforces the idea that women are responsible for preventing rape, rather than teaching men to roll with clearly communicated changes in consent without making assumptions.

I can think of one specific incident where I did this. It was on a second date with my previous boyfriend. We started making out and I told him I didn't want to go below the waist. The truth was, I did want to have sex with him but I set this boundary because I was looking for a relationship, not a hookup, and I wanted to take things slow. However, things got late, my train stopped running, and it was clear that I was going to sleep over, and I wanted to. So, I said "fuck it," and changed my consent (and clearly communicated this.) The next morning we talked about it over breakfast. "I did want to have sex with you, but I was afraid you would treat me weird the morning after if we did it so soon," I explained.

"Am I treating you weird now?" He asked, giving me a hug. And we did start a relationship, even though we had sex on the second date instead of the third, or fifth, or six months, or whatever society dictates as the appropriate time to have sex in the context of a relationship.

(An aside- anyone who casts you aside for having sex with them "too soon" is not worth being in a relationship with. Anyone you have to "manipulate" into a relationship, rules style, is probably not going to be a good partner. But it's probably a good idea to keep your expectations low in the beginning.)

So it was a weird situation because I initially said "No" out of fear of rejection, even though I wanted to say "Yes," and did change my consent over the course of an evening. I don't think this incident has made my ex into a date rapist, but I can see how with some less evolved dudes it might be problematic.

Very curious to hear what others think about this.

Slutwalk Chicago DIY Poster Contest: Yr Doing It Wrong

(This article also appears on School for Scandal)

So, I'm pretty stoked about SlutWalk Chicago.

For the uninitiated, Slutwalk is an international feminist movement that began in Toronto, that promotes dissolution of "Rape Culture" by emphasizing that men should be taught NOT TO RAPE instead of all the emphasis on teaching women how to "protect themselves from rapists" with advice ranging from don't wear a ponytail, don't go out alone at night, and most horrifying "don't dress like a slut," the comment that sparked the movement in the first place.
This sort of mindset teaches women to view themselves as "victims waiting to happen" (reminds me of that horrible "potentially pregnant" fracas a few years ago.) I think that self defense education for women is important, but so is anti-rape education for EVERYONE.

All around awesome chick Diamanda Galas once said something along the lines of "Women need to stop thinking like prey and starting thinking like predators," and I think that's what SlutWalk is all about. Driving home the point that even if you're walking down the street in a G string and lucite heels, it doesn't mean you "deserve" to be raped. Nobody should be blamed for their sexual assault. Our culture needs to shift in a way that rape is never considered ok, and that there is more support and less victim blaming and stigmatization of survivors.

The following is a list of things that SlutWalk aren't about (to my understanding):

1. Reclaiming "slut" as a positive label or celebrating "slut pride"

2. Dressing/acting "slutty" in public Girls Gone Wild style (participants are encouraged to wear whatever they feel comfortable in, whether that's a mini skirt or sweatpants)

3. Speaking out against labeling women as sluts. (Well, this one is a gray area because of #1. I think this movement is very anti-slut shaming but not necessarily dismissive of positive sluthood and general sex positivity. But people are still wildly divided on whether or not being called slut is a good thing, and I don't think SlutWalk is intended as a debate on the validity of the slut label.)

None of the above are necessarily bad things and possibly incidental to this event, but I don't think they should be the emphasized in promoting this event. I think a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of this event because "slut" is such a loaded word. That's why I'm a little perturbed by the results of the SlutWalk DIY Poster Contest.

I feel bad picking apart the entries, because to be fair, I DIDN'T enter a design. And it's unfair for me to criticize the works of people who did, because they took the time and effort and put themselves out there, but I do feel like I need to speak out when images seem inappropriate/problematic to the aims of a movement I am a part of. I realize this is my subjective opinion, and if you want to argue WHY you think these posters are great, be my guest as long as you are willing keep dialogue open and respectful.

I will not be reposting images here, but you can click here to see them. I like the idea of a DIY poster contest instead of hiring an ad firm, but I am sad to say that I feel like the majority of these posters miss the point of SlutWalk entirely, and some are just flat out creepy to me.

Of the ten submissions, six feature sexualized images of women's bodies where you cannot see her face. With one exception, they are pictures of extremely thin "conventionally attractive" white women. Four are of women with their lingerie-clad asses in sexually available positions, two ONLY show the ass and no other part of the woman, with catchy taglines like "I think you're sexy but I don't want to rape you," and "Slut Yeah Fuck Yeah." I might be ok with pictures of a sexy REAL people where you could see faces as well as bodies, but these pictures appear to be lifted from mainstream advertising/pornography and I suspect that other people might find them alienating/triggering as well.

I am saying all this as sex positive feminist who loves porn, lingerie, and copious fucking. I don't currently identify as a slut, but I have in the past. I probably will wear something sexy to Slut Walk, because I enjoy dressing up. All this said, these posters leave a bad taste in my mouth. This imagery might make *some* sense if the event was actually focused on "slut pride" instead of rape prevention, but instead I see a feminist movement getting the American Apparel treatment, and it bugs me.

The other side of the coin is a poster that says "Don't call me a slut/other perjorative implying promiscuity" (which flies in the face of the women who do self-identify as sluts, and I don't believe SlutWalk strives to takes a hard stance either way.) Another poster features yet another headless woman in a demure, girlish powder blue dress clutching daisies (it's objectification of a different flavor) with the catchphrase: "Virgin or Slut? Love Who You Are." I understand the positive message that the slogan is trying to convey, but it falls down the Madonna/Whore rabbit hole all over again. Many of us fall outside of that limited dichotomy altogether.

This is about the only poster that I feel accurately represents SlutWalk, so it got my vote. I confess I am let down by the way entrants chose to interpret the meaning of SlutWalk (especially since the movement has been so distorted by the media already) and I hope the winning entry will accurately reflect a movement of women who don't necessarily wish to be labeled in black and white as hyper-sexualized "sluts" or sex-negative "prudes", but complex human beings committed to creating a culture without rape.

Jezebel turns three (but is it worth reading anymore?)

Jezebel, Gawker's "feminist" blog turns three today.

Former editor Maureen (Moe) Tkacik also provided the well-timed cover story for this month's Columbia Journalism Review, regarding the navelgazing hybrid of journalism and blogging that seems to be the fate of modern media (it's kind of TL;DR but I actually did read the whole thing and loved it. It explained a lot about why I ultimately walked away from journalism as a female writer in my 20s and haven't looked back since.)

And most importantly in this string of fateful events, I got promoted to a Gawker "starred commenter" after several years of commenting on Jezebel, a privilege that I'm not sure if I should be more proud or ashamed of.

Moe's article provided a lot of interesting insight to Jezebel:

"2007, I took a job at Gawker Media helping launch a sister blog targeted at Gawker’s demographically attractive female readership—a property that was named Jezebel, at the insistence of Gawker CEO and founder Nick Denton and against my vociferous objections, after the blasphemous Old Testament whore who was eventually eaten alive by dogs."

and

"For most of my time there, bloggers earned bonuses that were tied to the page views their posts received, so the leisurely three minutes required to download a haggard image of Amy Winehouse from a celebrity photo agency and post it with a five-word caption was rewarded as generously as the frenzied hour and a half spent compiling the daily roundup of celebrity gossip, and at least twice as generously as anything I actually wanted to spend an hour and a half writing about."

That would explain the glut of "filler" that the site suffers from- celebrity tweets, cute animal pics, reposts from tabloids, lazy re-hashes of articles written better elsewhere.

I read Jezebel to kill time at work, I don't read it because I think it actually offers that much of substance at this point. And while it boasts its fair share of feminist indignation, it's 90% fluff that I'd probably ignore if I wasn't bored at my office job.

I actually got into reading Jezebel through editor Tracie Egan's blog One D at a Time, which appears to have gone AWOL since Tracie got married and promoted to Senior Writer (though the majority of her "writing" at this point reposts of celebrity tweets and clips from trashy TV shows, which is a shame because she's an awesome writer. But it all goes back to page views=dollars, and that's what's easy and gets hits.)

Back in the day, Tracie(then a staffer at Jezebel's underpaid paper analog BUST) wrote One D at A Time under the moniker "Slutmachine." Slutmachine was like an X rated Williamsburg version of Chelsea Handler- coked out, shamelessly promiscuous and snarky, the crazy friend we all like to live vicariously through. She reminded me a lot of myself- we were the same age and we both had a lot of weird sex and wrote about it, except she was making a lot more money than I was at what I then considered to be my dream job. She took impressive risks as a writer, and it paid off. She wrote about having herpes and why this is wrongfully stigmatized (which is fucking brave, in my opinion.) She and another Jez blogger took secret video at American Apparel of them trying on skanky outfits in what is possibly the greatest Jezebel post ever. Her piece de resistance was an essay she wrote for Vice about paying a male hooker to fake rape her- it's shocking, hilarious and brilliant. Pictures appeared on Jezebel of her getting out of a car sporting a giant fake bush, and re-enacting the Lindsay Lohan knife play photos with other Jezebel staffers in her kitchen. It didn't hurt that she was a gorgeous brunette with huge boobs and amazing fashion sense either. OTOH, she also posted various and sundry fat-phobic and uptight/conventional shit that made me like her a lot less (loosely quoted via Pot Psychology:"I'd rather fuck a fat dude than a dude in a kilt." I'm sorry, that's just weak.)

And then, in her coup de grace, she got got married, retired the Slutmachine moniker, got rid of One D at a Time, and now posts reality TV clips to Jezebel in lieu of, ya know, actual content.

I totally understand and respect why Tracie retired the Slutmachine persona, putting one's scandalous personal life in the public domain has the potential to really fuck up your life. And now she's married and (presumably) monogamous, which changes everything. I hope she's happy, but I do feel a weird sense of loss as fan.

I keep reading Jezebel because I hope that someday it'll be what it once was- sloppy and occasionally gross, brave, and funny, but instead I find another sterile fashion roundup or debate on potential photoshopping of Blake Lively's boobs.

This is what feminism looks like? I want my money back.

Rethinking Cheating in Sex-Negative Culture

I was recently blown away in not one, but two different posts in a certain community I frequent that involved the issue of cheating.  The first post was trying to mock the idea that sometimes, if someone cheats, revealing the act to their partner can be a selfish, destructive act.  The other post was discussing this incident, which is clearly about a privacy issue, but because infidelity was involved, quickly turned into an unimaginative and predictable series of tirades about how wayward spouses deserve to have their privacy violated, even by large telecommunication companies.


The basic gist of the comments in both posts boiled down to these "truths":

• There is never any scenario where cheating is "ok" or morally neutral or the lesser of two evils.  Ever.
• Any and all lying in a relationship is unhealthy, destructive, and bad.
• People who love their partners would never, ever cheat.

Of course, all these assumptions are tied up with Western culture's view of love, particularly the relatively recent notion of "romantic marriage" and idea of lifelong monogamy as natural and expected.  It's amazing how rarely these notions are unpacked, even amongst people who are generally down with sociology 101 and critical theory.  This isn't the moment where I propose polyamory or open relationships as the solution - I'm not one of those.  I tend to view the "marriage and monogamy" versus "non-monogamy" in the same way I view "capitalism" versus "communism" - both systems are full of flaws and rife with abuses, but the former in both cases is presented as the healthy, inevitable norm, and the latter as a crazy perversion of the natural order.


If two people in a relationship have decided that they are only interested in being monogamous, that is entirely justified.  But the lack of recognition that lifelong monogamy isn't a choice someone makes once, then forgets about - as opposed to a choice that is made on an ongoing, daily basis - is kind of ridiculous.  In one of these posts, a commenter sarcastically faux-whined, "Monogamy is hard!"  But that's the thing. It is hard, for most people!  Particularly in long-term relationships where infatuation has waned, and passions have shifted.  I mean, let's not do a disservice to all these couples who have made a commitment to monogamy and stuck to it, pretending that it's what comes easily and naturally to most people, because that's a load of shit.  In doing so we're negating the sacrifices and hard work that lifelong monogamy entails for most people.



But back on topic, why do people freak out about cheating so much?  "Because cheating is a horrible thing!"  Yeah, I know it is.  One of the first things that happens in a discussion about cheating and ethics is those who are of the "Cheaters are worse than Hitler!" camp start claiming that anyone who disagrees with them obviously has never been cheated on, or are even likely cheaters themselves.

I've been cheated on, in a very serious relationship, over a period of time.  I've been directly lied to even when I confronted the guilty party with hard evidence of their cheating.  I never suspected that this particular ex would ever cheat on me, and since we'd explicitly talked about the possibility of opening up our relationship if one of us ever had the urge to cheat, I trusted completely that he'd have no reason to do this.  I was utterly shattered, disgusted with my own naivete.  I came to loathe what really should be considered a good quality in myself: my trusting nature.


But the funny thing is, having the benefit of hindsight, I realize that being cheated on was far from the worst thing I endured in that relationship.  There are many, many ways people can hurt each other.  Many of them are purposeful, and while it's true that some people do use infidelity to lash out at their partners, generally it's more about the desire (emotional or sexual) of the person doing the cheating than anything else. 

"But it's a breach of trust!" the cheaters-are-evil brigade say.  Yes, it is.  So is, say, buying a car without your partner's permission. Yet the trope about the guy who brings home an expensive financed recreational purchase is not treated as nearly as big a transgression as the dreaded cheater.  Cheating is placed in a special category of extra-horrible-wrongness.  And sex-negative values has everything to do with it.


Part of the problem is the way sex and love are conflated.  Women in particular receive strong messages that for them, love has to be present for sex to be worthwhile or good.  That old cliche about trading sex for love actually is fairly spot-on as far as societal messages go.  And I know that for some people, sex is only satisfying and meaningful when in the context of a loving relationship.  Yet a brief glance at human history does make it pretty clear that this isn't the norm.  I suspect that most people have the capacity to enjoy sex within a variety of different dynamics. 

But for some reason, the idea of sex divorced from love is terrifying to many, so we get the idea that people who are  truly "in love" don't have any desire to have sex with other people.  The extreme end of this view are the deluded folks who get upset at the mere idea of their partners masturbating to images or even thoughts of other people.  "Committing adultery within the heart," as a sin, which is basically some crazy idea of thoughtcrime that denies most people's basic experience as sexual beings.  I remain convinced that the conflicts some couples have over porn viewing has a lot less to do with a feminist critique of the porn industry or women's-bodies-as-commodities and more to do with a physical and sexual insecurity so deep that the very thought of our partner getting off to an image other than our own is profoundly threatening.


This isn't to say that I want to blame people - and women in particular - for their insecurities around this issue.  We are bombarded with so many conflicting and fucked up messages about sex, desirability, body image, and relationships that it's amazing any of us can retain any sense of sexual self-esteem whatsoever.  Yet I have a hard time believing that the neurosis would be so deep and painful if we weren't buying into the "sex = love" message.  "If they really loved me, he wouldn't look at porn, because I would be enough," is not an uncommon refrain.  (Some of the folks who say this even admit to looking at porn themselves!)  But there's this fucked-up romantic ideal that we carry around with us that if we are the sexiest, most awesome lovers ever, our partners will fall so irrevocably in love/lust with us that they simply wouldn't have any interest in anyone else.  For the rest of their lives.  Of course, nobody can be the perfect love/lust object, but we hate ourselves for not measuring up, regardless.  And then sometimes we take it out on our partner, or random strangers on the internet who have the gall to confuse the narrative by challenging deeply-held notions about sex and love.

Why even bring up porn and masturbation habits in a discussion about cheating?  Because cheating is relative.   It is not uncommon to find people who describe porn-viewing as cheating.  Others draw the line at "netsex" or phone sex or flirting or kissing or non-physical "emotional affairs" or god knows what.  Cheating, we're told, is a black and white issue: always wrong, never justified, and always a symptom of a "deeper issue" in the relationship, yet we don't even agree on what cheating is!  It occurs to me that "cheating" is whatever event that trips up your own insecurities or jealousy to the point where you feel threatened.  Given that insecurities are personal and vary from person, it makes sense that the definition of what cheating is varies as well.  What doesn't make sense is that once we decide what cheating is, we allow for no gray area with regards to why someone cheats, or whether it's always a horrible, relationship-threatening event.


People cheat for a ton of reasons.  Sometimes the cheat inadvertently because they didn't have a common understanding of how their partner was defining cheating.  Sometimes they cheat because they don't want to be in a relationship, but have not been able to break it off.  Sometimes they cheat because they are horny, or have issues with sexual compulsion or impulsive behavior.  People cheat because they are afraid to ask for what they really want in their relationship, or because they are afraid their partner will leave them if they do.  It may sound crazy to many, but some people cheat because they want to stay in their relationship and are unwilling to go without sex.  Do any of these reasons justify lying to your partner?  No.  It would be far better if we lived in a magical world where relationships are simple, and honest communication is rewarded with empathy and understanding.   That's not the case, and it's frustrating when discussions about infidelity are derailed with reductivist, black and white thinking that don't allow for the full range of human experience and emotion in favor of demonizing cheaters regardless of the situation.

 What I don't get is why people who don't want to cheat and don't want to be cheated on are so insistent on keeping the narrative around cheating so, well, narrow.  Doesn't it make more sense to explore and understand other people's motivations and desires so we can better understand what leads people to cheat - and, if it's important to you - how to avoid situations where you or your partner are more likely to do so?  Just shaming cheaters as irredeemable and malicious doesn't help relationships or prevent cheating.  It just makes people less likely to talk about it, and the culture of silence around sexual desire that isn't socially-sanctioned just leads to a cycle of guilt.  Jimmy Carter may have been mocked for talking about his own non-monogamous desires in the famous 1976 Playboy interview, but he had a point that's worth considering today, dated language, Christian trappings and all.

"Because I'm just human and I'm tempted and Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Christ said, I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery. I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times.... This is something that God recognizes, that I will do and have done, and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness."

The Fine Line Between Feminist and Asshole

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Take Your Boobquake And Shove It

I'm sure anyone reading this has heard about Boobquake, which is just a self-aggrandizing bit of culturally problematic slacktivism in response to an Iranian cleric's remarks that womens' immodesty causes earthquakes.

There are a lot of good posts about why Boobquake is both stupid, racist, and offensive, but the best is probably this at SwitchingToGlide:

"I was initially intrigued by the idea as a sort of campy and playful way to collectively disprove an idea, but after about 5 minutes of perusal, it became glaringly apparent that this North American response to an Iranian cleric was more about Islamophobia and ethnocentrism than the rights of Muslim women. The events are a vector for the co-option of feminist rhetoric to further objectify women, and a demonstration of the smug North American sense of moral and developmental superiority over those “other” brown folks in the Middle East."

The author made a very good point about the huge amount of viral support for Boobquake compared to the lack of attendance at a protest against Quebec's racist, sexist Bill 94 which bans the niqab in a ton of situations and is basic religious oppression at its worst.  I saw a lot of western feminists whine at this comparison - obviously we can't all get our asses to Quebec to protest, whereas clicking on a Facebook link is easy -  but the author's point still stands.  Boobquake isn't just popular because it's easy "activism" - it's popular because it cuts across ideological lines to condemn and mock another culture and religion, one that is widely feared and derided in the west.

It reminded me of a recent episode in the Polyamorous community where an Ugandan columnist derided polyamory and all of our favorite Polyweekly contributors such as Datan0de and Joreth went to comment in the most wrong-headed, culturally-insensitive, and privileged way possible.

The issue isn't whether or not in both cases the remarks that spawned the furor weren't bigoted or sexist, as they obviously were.  I'm not a complete cultural relativist.  But the way largely-white, western activists single out displays of misogyny from other countries instead of critiquing the far more accepted versions in Canada and the US is seriously problematic.  It is of no surprise to me that the instigator of Boobquake identifies as an atheist activist, as does Joreth - if there is ever a group that will engage in racist cultural supremacy in the name of their (lack of) religion, it's that one.  I know that's quite a bombshell to drop at the end of the post, but trust me, the post about how atheist activism needs to get the fuck out of my feminism and anti-oppression work will be coming shortly.

Gossip! Or: How To Be A Privilged Ass

So being new to the blogosphere I haven't really had the chance to throw myself into the kind of rough-and-tumble arguments I'm used to having spent 10 years (ugh, really?) on LiveJournal.  The thing you kids have to understand is that LiveJournal is different - it's basically the rough yet ridiculous high school of the Internet.  People are mean there - me included.  It's the kinda place where a simple disagreement over terminology ends with phrases like, "Fuck you and your mother, you racist cunt!"  Rough and tumble, you get the idea.  Having spent my e-adolescence (i.e. my real-life 20s) in such an environment, I tend to come off as a bit hostile to the more sheltered parts of the Internet, such as the horrible PolyWeekly forums, where the response to genuine disagreements over issues like silencing of queer voices or transphobia is a lot of weird passive-aggressive versions of "Fuck you and your mother." No, really, at this point I pretty much dare any reader of this blog to go to the PolyWeekly forums and try to start a substantive conversation about identity issues and see how far it gets you.  No, I AM FUCKING SERIOUS, I will pay you ten dollars, I just want to watch.

Oh, the point!  So unlike the drama of LiveJournal or the faux-niceness of a lot of message boards, the blogosphere (I will never not un-italicize that, not ever) seems to be about a sort of refined politeness, a salon, if you will, where we all meet and exchange ideas and recursively link to each other endlessly because really, 80% of serious blog content is just linking to another blog.  Social status in the blogosphere, as I understand it, seems to be about three things: how many people link to you, how many people comment to your posts, and how many new blog posts an argument on your blog can inspire.  Obviously under this rubric, we're doing pretty poorly (which is not our fault, as nobody is arguing with us in the comments! Get with it, kids!).

But I did find myself drawn into one particular drama-fiasco by two bloggers I'm not particularly fond of.  What's fun is I can be impartial observer.  The two blogs in question are the feminist blog Tiger Beatdown (already winning points for best name) and L'Hote which is a really boring blog by some dude.

Here's the rundown:
Sady at TigerBeatdown makes a funny although rambly post with another blogger about men, uh, sort of.
Our man Freddy from L'Hote gets offended at Sady's humor (which is really what makes her blog appealing) and her characterization of men who identify as feminist and wear "This is what a feminist looks like!" t-shirts and attend Take Back the Night rallies with the intent of getting laid.  So he makes a stupid comment:

"Look, I have to tell you: your whole enterprise here, the whole long and short of it, appears to be an edifice designed to give you a platform that paws at discourse while denying the possibility of you ever getting called on anything. I mean the whole apparatus of the place. It’s like this constant recursion of LOLspeak/serious speak/LOLspeak, this Russian dolls style thing you’re so enamored with. It’s just a mechanism to introduce a self-limiting aspect on what you want to say; you want to be heard and to be taken seriously, but you want the out to be able to say that you were just goofing. Well, goof away, it’s the Internet, and it’s your dime, but understand that you are denying intellectual rigor when you do so."

Look, peeps, I don't need to see your eyeroll, because no matter how many times I read this comment, I DO IT TOO.  Even better, in the same comment he linked to this bit of brilliance about the sad, sad tale of men in the feminist blogosphere.

OK, so here's where I'm going to out myself: I'm a misandrist, straight up.  On the whole, I am not a fan of straight, white, cis men as I do not like their version of masculinity, and I generally find them tiresome and obnoxious at best: at worst they are violent, harassing, and dangerous. This isn't to say I don't like men.  When I say I'm a misandrist, I mean I hate popular male culture and the behavior that it engenders, and that I do not automatically assume men are my friends or allies until they prove themselves to be so, regardless of how they identify.  I don't think men and women are considered equal in our culture so any attempts to equate this to misogyny or any other form of harmful prejudice are not going to resonate with me because that would be facile and stupid.

Despite my misandry and my years of e-experience, I chose to engage with Freddy, because, why the fuck not?  I guess I was bored.  So let's have a quick rundown, my lovelies, of how not to act if you are a man displaying sexist behavior in a feminist space - and really, let's remember this applies to anyone who is attempting to be an ally in a space where we have privilege, right?


Freddy said something stupid, wrote a stupid post about it (already previously linked) and then Sady decided to slap him a new one.  And he whined, because HOLY FUCKING SHIT some feminists were not nice to him even after he told them he was a feminist and he cared!  THE GALL OF THOSE BITCHES.  So he writes a new post about how insecure Sady must be and how mean they were to him but he wants to know if he did really fuck up, well, please tell him, but also, he's a nice feminist guy and they were mean because they made jokes about his peen.

OK honestly, I did, for a brief moment in all this, feel bad for the guy.  Getting called out on your privilege is hard, making an ass of yourself in front of hundreds (thousands?) of readers is hard, and being defensive is a natural reaction.  A small part of me wanted to believe Freddy when he claimed he really wanted to know if he was doing something wrong, and if so, how to fix it.  So I wrote several comments to him - frank, but not particularly mean - explaining how he'd fucked this up and what he could do to un-fuck it, as did many other nice feminists.

Freddy continues to make stupid, whiny posts because Freddy is not particularly interested in examining his own behavior and luckily he has an echo chamber of high-fivin' bros to reassure him that any feminist - regardless of whether we're fans of Sady's or not - who finds fault his his ridiculous behavior is just a goose-steppin' idealogue spewing our hatred of men all over the 'tubes. 

I guess they're not wrong, in which I mean, this kind of behavior really does reinforce for me why I happily, cheerfully identify as a misandrist.  I get to live in a wonderful bubble called the Bay Area which already means I've pretty much weeded out the conservatives and libertarians for the most part.  Better yet, I get to choose my own circle of friends which means that although I do in fact surround myself with men socially, I never have to hear in my real life the kind of shit that Freddy spews.  And it's funny, because Freddy clings to his feminist label as a way to bludgeon actual feminists, while I only think maybe one or two out of a dozen guys in my social circle would actually identify themselves as feminists.  But the thing is, these guys have proven themselves to be loyal, trustworthy, listenin', right-on dudes, even if they don't have a background in women's studies or really care about identity politics.

And that's what Freddy and his ilk - and let me tell you, they are Legion - will never understand.  For them, "feminism" as a label is seen as a shortcut to the kind of acceptance and validation they crave from women, yet they don't understand that is earned through actions and behavior, not by what you claim to be.