Precious and Fragile Things

First, go grab a tissue, or two or three. Second, click this link. Third, read/view the images and realize just how important marriage is to many people. Let the not-so-subtle realization dawn on you that these people couldn't legally marry the people they loved, have devoted several decades of their lives to until this past Tuesday.

Feel empowered and cheer for these people and remember that as recently as May, states like North Carolina voted to define marriage as solely being between one man and one woman. For every one of these couples pictured, so many more continue to be denied the right to be with their loved ones in the same way as their heterosexual counterparts. It's a disgrace that in 2012, Americans might be considered equally created, yet they are not treated equally.

We have so much more work to do to make marriage available to all who want to be married, but holy cow, what a way to finally start turning the tide.

I'm not much into comics. I tried when I was younger and a tom boy, but there wasn't much out there for me, you know? Had I been a child when the internet took off, it might have turned out differently since I'd have access to a wider variety of entertainment and more information about how wide and varied comics can be and are.

Because I live under a rock as far as comics are concerned, I was only peripherally aware that DC was shaking things up and doing a huge reboot of its universe. Supposedly they were going to try and finally tap into that female audience they've never quite reached. The results, however, were...well, less than stellar as Andew Wheeler notes in "No More Mutants: 52 Problems."

We’ve known for a while that the cover to the Catwoman reboot has the character lying on her back barefoot with her legs in the air, baring her cleavage and pouring sparkling white droplets over her boobs. It’s very tasteful. It sets the tone. She’s a thief, you see, and that’s what thieves do; at the end of a long day of thieving they lie on a rooftop and throw diamonds away. Erotically.

But if you still haven’t understood what sort of book this is going to be, the first panel of the first page gives the mission statement. It is boobs. Bosoms. Breasts. The first panel is framed not on the protagonist’s face, but on her brassiered chest. Page two ends on a shot of her derriere. It’s an action shot. Men are unloading their guns on her derriere. On the third story page Catwoman smashes through a window with one boob hanging out of her costume. One might note that she also has a cat hanging out of a box, but there is nothing semiotically sordid about that, no sir.

And it only gets better from there.

This article is a must read for feminists, comic fans, and feminist comic fans. Mr. Wheeler nails so many points on the head and is, simply, spot-on about what's wrong with Catwoman.

But it’s the final five pages that cement this book’s place in comic history, as Catwoman aggressively turns a visit from the Batman into a bat-booty-call, thus reducing years of sexual tension into good old drunken Halloween sex.

Now, when it comes to transparent attempts to pander to the sexual fantasies of fanboys, this one looks unusually progressive. The woman is clearly in control of the situation and is using the willing male for her own satisfaction. This must be what nerds think feminism looks like. The scene is dressed up as female empowerment, but it’s not there for female readers.

It's all well and good for a woman to be in charge of her sexuality, and I love seeing a woman who is allowed to be sexual, but this isn't it. And when her being sexually empowered (supposedly) is shown as the only way to be a strong, independent woman, I have huge issues. I especially have issues if she's spending part of the comic with a breast hanging out or constantly flashing panties. Even being a bisexual woman, I know these books were not made for me and are not pandering to me.

Finally, it's the last two paragraphs that say pretty much everything that needs to be said:

But it’s not the sole responsibility of women to somehow get themselves hired so they can write books that their nieces might buy. Men – yes, even straight ones – will have to make an actual effort to establish that diverse landscape in which some of the female characters do wear pants for 20 whole pages. The problem DC has right now is that too many of their creators decided that their book was going to be the one targeted to that all-important horny adolescent boys niche, and someone else could deal with stuff like ‘women’. Somehow the reboot seems to have set DC back about twenty years.

[...]

Diversity doesn’t happen because you think it should. Diversity happens when you make it happen. DC has said several times that one of its aims with the reboot was “to diversify as much as possible”. The question we have to ask is, what stopped you?

All I can say is "Word."

I knew Orson Scott Card was homophobic, that's not really news to anyone who has spent any length of time online. However, what did come as something of a shock was learning he had re-written Hamlet as a novella, which on its own isn't anything to get up in arms about. After all, I'm a huge fan of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but Stoppard only tried to give us a humorous insight into two of the minor characters of Shakespeare's great tragedy. Card turned Hamlet's father into a gay pedophile.

Yeah.

From William Alexander's review of Hamlet's Father:

Here's the punch line: Old King Hamlet was an inadequate king because he was gay, an evil person because he was gay, and, ultimately, a demonic and ghostly father of lies who convinces young Hamlet to exact imaginary revenge on innocent people. The old king was actually murdered by Horatio, in revenge for molesting him as a young boy—along with Laertes, and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, thereby turning all of them gay. We learn that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are now "as fusty and peculiar as an old married couple. I pity the woman who tries to wed her way into that house."

Hamlet is damned for all the needless death he inflicts, and Dead Gay Dad will now do gay things to him for the rest of eternity: "Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be."

And that is just the cherry on this particular shit sundae. Subterranean Press, after receiving a multitude of complaints, released a statement and essentially said, "Well, it's shocking this didn't cause such controversy the first time it was published." To that I say, bullshit. By virtue of gaining a wider audience, it was discovered whereas before it might have slipped under the radar by being part of an anthology, or by being printed for audiences more liable to parrot Card's belief of homosexuality as a Big Evil.

I'm only surprised he used a work of Shakespeare, who many theorize was either gay or bisexual, as his particular foil.

A good round up of links can be found the unfunnybusiness community on Journal Fen, including an article from the Guardian.

P.S.: Free speech arguments stop here. Yes, Card can say whatever the hell he wants, but that doesn't mean he's safe from thousands of people calling him out for being an asshole. He's not being arrested for his statements; he is being taken to task. There's a huge difference and if you can't see it, please spare me and others who read this your cluelessness.

Courtesy of a "I can't hear the point flying over my head" post made in ffrantsrants. In her tirade against supposed homophobia (in which she completely ignored those offended by fetishization of homosexual relationships, or incest, or the use of underaged characters as valid reasons for not liking certain types of slash fanfic), she managed to produce this little gem:

And if you are one, it's high time you either came out of the closet, or realize that your religious beliefs are completely and utterly ridiculous and that any retard can tell you that the Universe was created by the Big Bang and Jesus was probably schizophrenic, and even if he was sane when he preached he preached that everyone should be treated as equals, NOT that Gays are sinful and will burn in hell.

I completely missed the use of retard in my first read-through because my eyes saw the Shizophrenic jab first, but I did produce this less-than-polite response that will probably never be read because I was comment 153 as of this posting:

...Jesus was probably schizophrenic, and even if he was sane when he preached he preached that everyone should be treated as equals, NOT that Gays are sinful and will burn in hell.

It's all well and good to try and bash a religion that's being used by certain people to take away rights/keep everyone from achieving equality (not exactly fair, but whatever), but you don't fucking need to use mental illness as an insult. You insult everyone who has a mental illness and/or anyone who loves someone with a mental illness. You can choose not to be a bigot, you can't choose to change your brain chemistry so your mental illness magically goes away. Fuck your ableism. More to the point, fuck you and this entire shitty missing-the-point post.

Go read up on fetishizing of homosexuality (and yes, that includes femslash too), or realize that a lot of popular slash involves incest (Sam/Dean, Fred/George, etc.), which understandably creeps a lot of people out. Also, some slash fiction centers around characters under the age of consent and even though they're fictional, it's a squick for some readers.

It's too fucking early for this bullshit.

Having mental illness =/= Being a bigoted asshole.

Read this post on bullying. Read it now.

They [Coy dogs] don't actually bite the prey all that much. A nip at the heels, a few ambitious leaps to worry shoulders, haunches, beefy necks. They don't have to. Once the blood starts running, all they have to do is keep the prey moving, moving, moving, until exhaustion and fear do their magic. It doesn't take long. The point will come where the prey doesn't have the strength to fight anymore. The hooves that should kick away, flinty hooves that can crush a skull, if the strength is there, do not have the strength. It's over, the coy dogs have won, and the end of the game is as much surrender as capture -- even fighting to the last, the prey's been run too hard, too long, to win.

That is what bullying is. Pure and simple, what we're seeing is humanity taking on that coy dog aspect. No one person has to do that much -- what's a comment? what's a shove? what's possessions trashed, families threatened, rumors started, video shared? It is the aggregate effect that kills, the preponderance of hate, delivered daily, hourly, inescapably. Animalistic behavior, the basics of human decency abandoned for the thrill of the chase, the toxic exhilaration of pursuit -- and above all, the embrace of the group, the knowledge that you have a place in the pack. You don't have to do so much, really. Take a turn in point position, if you've the stomach for it, but that's not even truly necessary. All you have to do is hiss little comments. Or laugh. Or look away and do nothing.

Someone in the comments argued that bullies "move on" or "get bored" (said comment has been redacted and commenter has apologized and listened to differing view points -- a virtual miracle when it comes to the Internet). The trouble is, as others pointed out, an individual bully might move on and/or get bored, but other bullies are always there to take hir place. To use cbpotts's analogy, once you've been marked/cut, there's no getting the scent of blood off you.

The few times I recall standing up to my tormentors, I was punished in some way. I was told I was rude, I was being unfair, or I was being emotional and there was no need to cry about whatever event set me off. The onus was on me to be nice, to be polite, and ever forgiving (that's what Jesus would do anyway). The one time the school administration did anything (when they pretty much had to or else I was going to file theft charges for money stolen from my wallet), the bullies' friends threatened me and acted like I was in the wrong for having my money stolen. One of those friends was the principal's own daughter.

Adults in my life, particularly my parents, told me they weren't adult issues and I should get over it. I was told, "It won't last forever," and it was hinted that maybe one day I'd look back on all this and laugh. Yes, nearly twelve years out of high school and I'm still waiting for the laughter.

The problem with telling children to wait it out or saying "it gets better" is that it never addresses what's happening right now in that child's life. It gives the bullies a sort of silent permission to continue bullying and tormenting without punishment because, hey, you won't always be a kid forever and we'll all grow up to be adults. Never mind that to a child facing down how ever many years are left of school filled with torture, death seems preferable. Speaking from experience, if you talked to sixteen year-old me, I'd flat-out tell you that my life was hopeless. Truth is, I'm only still here now because one day I couldn't remember the combination to my father's gun safe. I was fifteen years old then, starting my sophomore year of high school. What's even scarier is that I had been contemplating suicide since I was thirteen.

Thirteen. Young teens grappling with suicidal thoughts at thirteen, sixteen, or even eighteen should not be considered a normal part of childhood development. Yet, we almost treat it as such. We treat bullying as a given, that those unable to fight back, unable to keep from succombing to that desire to end it all are weak-willed and maybe deserved to die because they're cowards. And always, always we tell kids to get over it, that it'll get better, but there's very little done to address the bullies and tormentors. They almost always get off scot-free.

Being called a lesbian in a crowded cafeteria during a high school debate meet with students from schools around the state in a very conservative area of the country was terrifying, especially when it wasn't unusual to hear threats against people who were "different" than the norm. I was so scared rumors that I might be gay would fly out around my small town thanks to the jerks from my school. My very homophobic father might have caught wind of it, and if he'd believed it, I'm not sure I can say he would be terribly accepting. (He went to his grave never knowing I'm bisexual, nor does my mother know my sexuality if only because I present as straight given I'm in a heterosexual relationship currently.)

That's the reality for kids facing down bullying. And you don't always get over it as soon as you're out of high school. I'm better than I was, but I'll always bear the scars. I'll never forget being told I was worthless, that I should kill myself, that no one would ever want me or love me. I won't ever forget it because it still shocks me when I hear my boyfriend tell me he loves me. Tell me he cares. When others tell me I mean something to them.

Life did get better, but it took a very long time for that to happen. It's only now, at nearly thirty years old, that I can say things are better, that I'm happy. But just because I eventually turned out okay doesn't mean it's acceptable for children to continue tormenting other children. I didn't escape unscathed and I was one of the luckier ones all things considered.

Bullying is not okay and there needs to be accountability. It's as simple as that.

[TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY FOR THIS ENTIRE POST]

ETA: The rage_free post has more links available on this matter.

First, I'm going to link to the article on Jezebel and quote its title: Cornell Surgeon Used Vibrator to Stimulate 6-Year-Olds

Read it again. No, it's not a hoax or a joke, and no, this is not a report on something from the Victorian Era.

Alice Dreger and Ellen K. Feder from Bioethics Forum have unearthed a 2007 study in which a doctor from Cornell University defends the practice of surgically cutting girls' clitorises. Disturbing, but his follow-up treatment is even worse.

The paper in question appeared several years ago in the Journal of Urology. "Nerve Sparing Ventral Clitoroplasty: Analysis of Clitoral Sensitivity and Viability" by Jennifer Yang, Diane Felsen, and Dix P. Poppas described in dry clinical terms how Poppas believes he has developed a way to remove part of a girl's clitoris without damaging their ability to have sexual sensation. Though the practice sounds a lot like female genital mutilation (and in strictly literal terms, it is) Poppas is not cutting into their genitals to make women less sexually inclined - he's doing it because someone decided that their clitorises were too big. Usually, this someone is a physician. With the parents consent and at the physician's suggestion, Poppas cuts into the shaft of the clitoris and removes a section, without, he hopes, damaging the nerves.

The trouble with big clitorises is that, apparently, there is a link between large clitorises and lesbianism. What, precisely, constitutes a "large" clitoris, I have no idea, but it may very well be that the goal is to prevent young girls from becoming homosexual later in life. We'll conveniently ignore the fact that sexuality exists independent of one's body parts. As Dan Savage points out, there's also seemingly a correlation between larger penises and homosexuality in men; however, no one's yet suggested we shorten men's penises to prevent Teh Gay(TM).

Sickening, huh? Oh, but it gets worse. Way worse. How could it get worse, you ask between colorful metaphors? Like so:

At annual visits after the surgery, while a parent watches, Poppas touches the daughter’s surgically shortened clitoris with a cotton-tip applicator and/or with a “vibratory device,” and the girl is asked to report to Poppas how strongly she feels him touching her clitoris. Using the vibrator, he also touches her on her inner thigh, her labia minora, and the introitus of her vagina, asking her to report, on a scale of 0 (no sensation) to 5 (maximum), how strongly she feels the touch. Yang, Felsen, and Poppas also report a “capillary perfusion testing,” which means a physician or nurse pushes a finger nail on the girl’s clitoris to see if the blood goes away and comes back, a sign of healthy tissue. Poppas has indicated in this article and elsewhere that ideally he seeks to conduct annual exams with these girls. He intends to chart the development of their sexual sensation over time.

Words fail me. I feel so sick reading that, and all I can think is that those poor girls are going to have to struggle to overcome the psychological damage that has been dealt to them for the rest of their lives. Not only that, but they're expected to undergo these humilating "examinations" in front of their parents annually and all because one part of their body didn't fall under someone's definition of "normal" or "natural."

Why does this pervert -- and yes, I am going to call him a pervert -- still have his license? Why is he still allowed to perform these assaults (because that's what they are; not "procedures" or "examinations")? What the fuck were people at Cornell thinking when they allowed this to occur?

It's female genital mutilation and it's sexual abuse. There's no evidence to support the supposition that growing up with a large clitoris will cause a girl psychological harm, but there's plenty of evidence that Poppas's procedures will traumatize these girls.

If some surgeon went around asking if he could shorten the shaft of the penises of young boys, he'd be sent away. Yet, it's perfectly okay by Cornell University of a doctor does that to a girl's sexual organs. So tell me again how we're in a post-feminist era and we're all equal now. I'm waiting.

Hat-tip to ginmar.

I read Portly Dyke's letter to President-Elect Obama and I nearly had to grab a box of tissues. If ever a letter captured why Obama's selection of Rick Warren was such a blow to those who identify as LGBTQ, it's this.

A snippet:

When you hear the invocation that Pastor Warren is allowed to give, please listen with my ears.

I realize that this will be "your day" in many ways, and that you are straight, and Christian. I personally have no problem with you wanting to have a spiritual invocation that reflects your belief system - but if you hear prayers which invoke only "traditional" families, or only Christians, or which lean too heavily on any structure which contributes to institutionalized oppression of any sort -- I implore you to remember that you will be President of every citizen of this country, and to listen with the ears of those whose voices are rarely heard from the bully pulpit.

Go read, and have a tissue handy.

P.S.: According to the comments, she did, in fact, send this letter to the Obama transisition team. If you would like to do the same, you can find the contact info here. I think, if I can tonight, I'm going to work on my own letter.