Precious and Fragile Things

Melissa McEwan posted about why consent matters in regard to Representative Anthony Weiner after it's come to light via a Times article that Ms. Genette Cordova neither consented or solicited for pictures of Weiner's genitalia.

Listen, there is no one (who doesn't know Weiner personally) who did not want to find out more than me that Congressman Anthony Weiner was sexually harassing women by sending them unsolicited pictures of his genitals. It grieves me. But just because I don't want to be true doesn't mean I get to pretend it isn't; and pretending it isn't doesn't make it so.

It matters that he sent unsolicited sexual images to women, because consent matters.

And the lack of consent matters.

To repeat what I said in a comment at Shakesville, this was not Anthony Weiner, random dude who likes to send naughty pictures to women on Twitter. This was Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) sending pictures to women from his professional account. These women all started following and communicating with Mr. Weiner in his capacity as a member of Congress. They did not initiate contact for the purposes of flirting or sending nude pictures, and even if few of them might have found this a pleasant surprise, at least one woman has said she didn't want pictures, that she only wanted to deal with Mr. Weiner in a professional manner. And he sent pictures to her anyway.

That is what's so skeevy about all of this. That is why I will not condone Mr. Weiner's behavior, nor will I defend him to any degree. Women went to him because he was an ally and in turn he used them to get his rocks off, and now I'm supposed to be okay with that because he's a supposed progressive who made a few good speeches about women's rights? No, it doesn't work like that.

[Trigger Warnings like whoa all up in this post. Rape, sexual assault, medical abuse...]

What the fuck is wrong with the world and why does it hate women so goddamned much?

Egyptian general admits 'virginity checks' conducted on protesters

Oh, just you wait, it gets so much "better."

( Again, major Trigger Warnings. )

I linked to Melissa McEwan's "The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck" a little over a year ago when it was first posted to Shakesville, but in light of yesterday's events in my real life, I thought I should re-link it. There's only one person who I'm going to demand read it (and even then, he can say no), and I hope some of it gets relayed to another person. The rest of you I can only hope will take some of this to heart and will pass it on to the other men in your life who you think ought to read this message.

The portion that's relevant to my interests at the moment:

And there is the denial about engaging in misogyny, even when it's evident, even when it's pointed out gently, softly, indulgently, carefully, with goodwill and the presumption that it was not intentional. There is the firm, fixed, unyielding denial—because it is better and easier to imply that I'm stupid or crazy, that I have imagined being insulted by someone about whom I care (just for the fun of it!), than it is to just admit a bloody mistake. Rather I am implied to be a hysteric than to say, simply, I'm sorry.

Not every man does all of these things, or even most of them, and certainly not all the time. But it only takes one, randomly and occasionally, exploding in a shower of cartoon stars like an unexpected punch in the nose, to send me staggering sideways, wondering what just happened.

Well. I certainly didn't see that coming…

These things, they are not the habits of deliberately, connivingly cruel men. They are, in fact, the habits of the men in this world I love quite a lot.

All of whom have given me reason to mistrust them, to use my distrust as a self-protection mechanism, as an essential tool to get through every day, because I never know when I might next get knocked off-kilter with something that puts me in the position, once again, of choosing between my dignity and the serenity of our relationship.

Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon?

It can come out of nowhere, and usually does. Which leaves me mistrustful by both necessity and design. Not fearful; just resigned—and on my guard. More vulnerability than that allows for the possibility of wounds that do not heal. Wounds to our relationship, the sort of irreparable damage that leaves one unable to look in the eye someone that you loved once upon a time.

This, then, is the terrible bargain we have regretfully struck: Men are allowed the easy comfort of their unexamined privilege, but my regard will always be shot through with a steely, anxious bolt of caution.

A shitty bargain all around, really. But there it is.

There are men who will read this post and think, huffily, dismissively, that a person of color could write a post very much like this one about white people, about me. That's absolutely right. So could a lesbian, a gay man, a bisexual, an asexual. So could a trans or intersex person (which hardly makes a comprehensive list). I'm okay with that. I don't feel hated. I feel mistrusted—and I understand it; I respect it. It means, for me, I must be vigilant, must make myself trustworthy. Every day.

I hope those men will hear me when I say, again, I do not hate you. I mistrust you. You can tell yourselves that's a problem with me, some inherent flaw, some evidence that I am fucked up and broken and weird; you can choose to believe that the women in your lives are nothing like me.

Or you can be vigilant, can make yourselves trustworthy. Every day.

Scott Adams is at it again. Fortunately, this time he's not sharing his illuminating theories on how women are children, but he is using a sockpuppet to declare himself a genius.

It started with a thread on link-sharing community MetaFilter about Adams' Wall Street Journal op-ed on how awesome and successful he is even though he didn't get straight-As in school. Some people said mean things about the article, suggesting Scott Adams wrote like someone who has "actually convinced himself… that he's the smartest guy in the room."

That's when "PlannedChaos" weighed in, furiously defending Adams:

As far as Adams' ego goes, maybe you don't understand what a writer does for a living. No one writes unless he believes that what he writes will be interesting to someone. Everyone on this page is talking about him, researching him, and obsessing about him. His job is to be interesting, not loved. As someone mentioned, he has a certified genius I.Q., and that's hard to hide.

Suddenly I'm hearing "Wile E. Coyote, Super genius" in my head.

And I just want to add this in for kicks:

This wasn't Adams' first time pretending to be his own fan. For months, he's been commenting on threads about himself posted to link-sharing site Reddit under the same handle. Sample comment:

If an idiot and a genius disagree, the idiot generally thinks the genius is wrong. He also has lots of idiot reasons to back his idiot belief. That's how the idiot mind is wired.

It's fair to say you disagree with Adams. But you can't rule out the hypothesis that you're too dumb to understand what he's saying.

And he's a certified genius. Just sayin'.

If you'll recall the "You just don't understand my genius!" is the same argument he used when commenting on a feminist blog which dared to take him to task for being a misogynistic douchebag. At least there he used his own name and not a sockpuppet.

Yes, sir, Wile E. Coyote. Suuuuper genius.

Dear Scott Adams,

You said some things recently, things which you have since deleted without realizing that the internet is forever particularly when you make dumb, offensive blog posts. I could sit here and tackle your whole post, but instead I'll focus on the most egregious part of your pile of shit "delightful" essay.

The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.

I have to hand it to you, you've managed to leave me speechless. However, I have to ask, did you think comparing women to children or the "mentally handicapped" was original? Clearly you've never had the distinct pleasure of being called "young lady" while trying to speak to a group of (usually older, white) men. You've never been told you're being "hysterical," or that your anger is the result of hormones run amok in your body. You've never been made to feel that your completely valid arguments are invalidated because you are female and therefore incapable of logical, adult thinking. If you sat and thought about it, you might have to admit that those darn feminist might actually have a point, but that would mean admitting you're wrong which is just too damn hard.

And what, pray tell, are the more important battles? Your right to leave the toilet seat up? To scratch yourself in public? (See, I can do stereotypes too!) Then again, maybe it's world hunger, or war you value more. Maybe you'd like to address violence against women, the movement in this country to deny women bodily autonomy, or the gender gap in math and science.

Oh, wait, forget that last one. Our lady brains aren't equipped to handle math and science, right?

Had I the time, I'd quote more than one paragraph, but I also wanted to address your response to criticism on Feministe.

Is this an entire website dedicated to poor reading comprehension? I don’t think one of you understood the writing. You’re all hopping mad about your own misinterpretations.

That’s the reason the original blog was pulled down. All writing is designed for specific readers. This piece was designed for regular readers of The Scott Adams blog. That group has an unusually high reading comprehension level.

Silly me! I'm incapable of understanding your genius! Clearly words mean whatever you want them to and my poor uneducated lady brains are incapable of comprehending them. But your fans? They understood your humor, and I'm sure every single person who has complained about your post was never a fan of your work, had never even heard of Dilbert (or that your comic also had a short-lived animated series on ABC in which Daniel Stern voiced Dilbert), and just hated you for your sheer genius. Nope, clearly you didn't upset any of your fans.

In this case, the content of the piece inspires so much emotion in some readers that they literally can’t understand it. The same would be true if the topic were about gun ownership or a dozen other topics. As emotion increases, reading comprehension decreases. This would be true of anyone, but regular readers of the Dilbert blog are pretty far along the bell curve toward rational thought, and relatively immune to emotional distortion.

I’ve written on the topic how you can’t mix incendiary images in the same piece without the readers’ brains treating the images as though they were connected, no matter how clearly you explain that they are not. My regular readers understand that I do that intentionally as part of the fun. When quoted out of context, the piece becomes dangerous.

I know it's totally impossible in your narrow world view, but emotion and rational thinking are not mutually exclusive. For example, your words have infuriated me, and yet for all my justifiable anger, I'm able to calmly and rationally explain to you that your head is firmly lodged in your ass.

Also, please, mansplain to me somemore as to how you're just a poor misunderstood satirist and artist. I've never had a man talk down to me before. (That's sarcasm for those of you with poor reading comprehension.)

You've claimed the whole post (now deleted) was satire, that people missed the point. I beg to differ. Good satire doesn't need to be explained. Good satire means the majority of readers recognize it for what it is and don't come away offended and insulted. A good satirist -- hell, a good writer doesn't delete his/her work in cowardice when readers interpret his/her work in a way he/she didn't intend and then whine that they're misunderstood. (Though I must admit that I can't imagine you thought your words would be interpreted any other way, and if you did, perhaps you need to reacquaint yourself with a dictionary. Might I also recommend you read the works of other satirists, (i.e. Johnathan Swift and Mark Twain)?)

You failed, Mr. Adams. You failed plain and simple, and my best advice for you is to shut up and quit hiding behind your so-called genius. Listen to the criticisms being lodged at you, even the ones you feel are "too angry" or "hysterical" (and recognize the latter for the sexist word it is). Realize a fair number of those who are angry with you are angry because they were fans of your work and feel betrayed on some level that you obviously don't value them as human beings.

We're not idiots, Mr. Adams, we know what we're talking about, and you could stand to learn a lesson in male privilege. Our anger doesn't invalidate our words.

Hoping you stop being a douchecanoe soon,

Jade

P.S.: Windows Media Player happened to pick Chevelle's song "I Get It" for this post. It's absolutely a very apt song.

Everyone on my f-list, especially men, go watch this now. [Trigger warnings for sexual assault, misogyny]

A snippet of the transcript, provided by Melissa McEwan at the link:

I can remember speaking to a 12-year-old boy, a football player, and I asked him, I said, "How would you feel if, in front of all the players, your coach told you, you were playing like a girl?" Now, I expected him to say something like, "I'd be sad; I'd be mad; I'd be angry," something like that. No, the boy said to me, the boy said to me, "It would destroy me."

And I said to myself, "God, if it would destroy him to be called a girl, what are we then teaching him about girls?"

You want to know how men can be an ally to women? This is how it's done.

Thanks to a community I lurk watch, I stumbled upon this CNN article about "negotiated infidelity."

First off, "negotiated infidelity" sounds like an oxymoron. If you've discussed opening a relationship and allowing your significant other to take on more sexual partners (and s/he follows the rules you've laid out), then it's not cheating or infidelity. It's an open relationship. Of course, it's still entirely possible to cheat in an open relationship, but not if you're adhering to the mutually agreed upon guidelines.

Hill's memoir, "Sugarbabe" details her yearlong adventure with a series of so-called "sugar daddies." The book sold 24,000 copies in her native Australia, according to her publisher, and has just been released in the United States. Holly Hill is a pen name.

"I thought it was men that would like the book," she says, "But in fact it's women, because what it says to women is that if your man cheats on you, he still loves you, and he's probably running about average."

While it's true a cheating partner/spouse in all likelihood still loves you, s/he doesn't respect you enough to be honest with hir feelings. S/he is also selfish and dishonest, doing something that brings hir pleasure and putting it before your emotional needs. Not to mention putting your health at risk if the cheater doesn't take care of hir sexual health.

Loving your partner isn't enough if you treat hir like garbage, and just because someone loves you doesn't mean s/he is healthy for you.

( More bullshit under here. Lots more. )

jimhines has an excellent post about the problem with the term "gray rape." The comments are (so far, at least) excellent and there's some really great conversation happening.

There's really not much more I can add to what he's said already except to reiterate his final points:

So to everyone worrying about “misunderstandings,” you’ve got a choice. You can choose to make sure your partner enthusiastically consents to what you’re doing, or you can choose not to. Why wouldn’t you make sure? I can think of only two reasons.

1. You’re uncomfortable talking about it. If that’s the case — if you’re not comfortable talking about what you’re doing — then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it?


2. You’re worried they’ll say no. Meaning you’re not sure they want this, and you’d rather risk committing rape than risk asking and being told no.

The absence of the word no does not imply consent, particularly when that enthusiastic "Yes!" is missing too. Silence is not consent. A meek yes after being coerced, pressured, and/or badgered into consenting is not consent.

This is not a difficult concept to grasp, it really, really isn't, but so many people want to whine about "mixed signals" or "misunderstandings." Men, if you are at any point unclear as to whether or not she's enjoying what's going on, the onus is not on her to speak up. The onus is on you not to be a jerk and to ask her if she's fine.

Maybe later I'll open up about something that happened to me that falls under this heading, but for now all I'm asking is for people to read and to think about what's being discussed.

I've always hated the Girls Gone Wild franchise, even before its founder Joe Francis sexually assaulted a reporter for the Los Angeles Times during an interview. Now, I've got even more reason to despise Girls Gone Wild and everything associated with it.

A jury ruled yesterday against a woman who claimed her reputation was damaged after she was featured on a "Girls Gone Wild" video. What makes this case remarkable is that she didn't expose her own breasts - she was assaulted.

STLToday reports that the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, was dancing in at the former Rum Jungle bar in 2004 when someone reached up and pulled her tank top down, exposing her breasts to the "Girls Gone Wild" camera.

[Snip]

...After deliberating for just 90 minutes on Thursday, the St. Louis jury came back with a verdict in favor of the smut peddlers. Patrick O'Brien, the jury foreman, explained later to reporters that they figured if she was willing to dance in front of the photographer, she was probably cool with having her breasts on film. They said she gave implicit consent by being at the bar, and by participating in the filming - though she never signed a consent form, and she can be heard on camera saying "no, no" when asked to show her breasts. [Emphasis mine]

So if I'm at a dance club shaking my tail (humor the introvert, okay?), and there's a camera crew that just happens to be filming the people on the dancefloor, apparently I'm consenting to have my breasts and who knows what other body parts filmed and distributed world wide for other people's pleasure. It doesn't matter if I don't want to share my breasts with the world, nor does it matter if I'm caught on film explicitly telling the other person pulling down my top "No!" By being female and going out in public, my privacy and bodily autonomy are forfeit when it comes to the pleasure of others.

I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. In 2008, an Oklaholma Court of Criminal Appeals declared a sixteen-year-old young woman had no reason to expect privacy while wearing a skirt in public when a thirty-four-year-old man stuck a camera under her skirt.

Consent? What's that?

Dear Girls Above Me whose premise is this:

Two annoying girls moved into the apartment above me.
I'm forced to hear every dumb thing they say.
These are my letters to them.

Let's ignore the fact that these two "girls" are actually fully grown women who have attended college (based on things the author claims they've said), and let's also ignore the fact that he blames being able to hear them have casual conversation on them and, oh I don't know, poor building design. The gist is two hot chicks women moved in above this poor fellow and have normal conversations that he, apparently, can't help but hear.

I've lived in apartments before, and I've had to deal with elephant tamers (well, that's what I imagined they were with all the stomping around), and I've dealt with crying children, dysfunctional family fights, and all the other joys of poor soundproofing. Most people either accept that some sounds are unavoidable or they go to their apartment neighbors and ask politely for them to keep it down. If that doesn't work, there's always speaking to the building owner or, in really severe cases, talking to the cops. Or, permitting he has the funds of course, he could move. But this man has decided to forget any of those options and instead went straight for his fifteen minutes of internet fame. Naturally, I being the humorless feminist I am, have failed to see what's so humorous about this and instead find it creepy and rather disturbing.

( Trigger warnings for allusions to stalking. )

I have now secured my position as a Humorless Feminist(TM). Time for me to go burn some bras. I've got a ways to go if I'm going to make my quota this month!