In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: June 2006

So, What Were You Planning on Doing in the DR With That Viagra, Rush?

So Rush Limbaugh was caught at the Palm Beach airport on the way back from the Dominican Republic with Viagra in his suitcase, for which he did not have a prescription (it was made out by his doctor to another doctor, probably to hide the fact that he’s using it). And while it’s fun to snicker about this little development, here’s something that should give us all pause. From commenter amyc at Tbogg’s place:

The Dominican Republic apparently has a booming sex trade (or rape trade, if you’re like me and don’t believe 13-yr-old girls really consent to be whores for rich tourists). As nightmare-inducing as the answers might be, I think The American People need to ask why an unmarried Christian man would take a suitcase full of dick drugs on a Third-World sex tour. (Although perhaps we shouldn’t rule out missionary work.)

Indeed, the DR is one of the world’s biggest destinations for sex tourism:

“There is always a demand for sex,” said one Dominican prostitute as she lounged at one of the town’s waterfront bars. “Men will always pay for it, especially in here … where they can get anything they want at a discount.”

Indeed, the Dominican Republic is one of the biggest sex tourism destinations in the world, thanks in part to Internet sites that extol the country as a “single man’s paradise.”

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Reading Lolita in Public

Lolita seems to have gone missing (second library book in as many months, which isn’t good). She’d just come home from the hospital. I’ve since finished Breakfast on Pluto and am reading The End of the Affair.

In comments to, I’d Rather Be Lucky Than Smart, Mighty Ponygirl said,

The problem is that you have people like Amanda Marcotte saying that Lolita is one of her favorite books, and you have people like the Derbert saying that Lolita is one of his favorite books. Now, I can say with a good deal of confidence that Amanda doesn’t make this call because she fantasizes about raping underage girls–and I can say with a good deal of confidence that John Derbyshire makes this call because he does.

But honestly? I don’t really want to take the time to figure that out. When someone tells me that Lolita is one of their favorite books, I’m not really interested in finding out which camp they fall into. Are they lit lovers who enjoy the prose, irony, and allegory of the novel? Are they perverts who feel that HH is the person they’d like to be? Are they just dipshit hipsters who grabbed the first book on the indie-cred list and clung to it like a life preserver?

Unless I know the person pretty well, I just don’t care to invest the energy to find out.

I empathize. I read a lot, especially now that I’ve rediscovered the joys of a library card (for example: you only have to pay for the book if you lose it). I’ve been covering some of the classics recently. I also take figure-drawing classes, which puts me in the path of a larger-than-average share of pretentious old farts. This means that they will occasionally comment on The Adventures of Augie March or The Pagan Rabbi. They are impressed that a young whippersnapper like me is carrying around a book, never mind opening and reading it with apparent interest. Their opener is usually something like, “Is that for school?” The interview goes on through, “Have you read this by them? Have you heard of so-and-so? Isn’t she/he (usually he) wonderful!”

No book has gotten me anywhere near as much attention as Lolita, especially from guys like this. I’ve been ashamed to read it in public, even though it’s not a graphic book at all. I’m very conscious of seeming like a young man–a teenager–holding a famous softcore pedophilia masterpiece. It makes my palms sweaty. If I were still presenting as a woman, I’d still be anxious, but in a very different way. It never ceased to amaze me how little men realized that they were being creepy, intrusive, or inappropriate. I know that it wouldn’t occur to them that a woman might be a little uncomfortable about bonding with a middle-aged man over a rhapsodical treatise on child rape.

These men do wax rhapsodic. I want to ask, Aren’t you embarrassed? Doesn’t it seem a little weird to you that you can quote the opening paragraph of this book, when last month you couldn’t remember whether it was Cynthia Ozick or Grace Paley who had written The Shawl (which you called a masterpiece)? Do you ever feel a little, I don’t know, gross? Does Humbert Humbert implicate you in any way? Does Nabokov make you think, or did you just find it funny when HH finally got laid?

And then I want to say, Listen, you smug son of a bitch. I was a woman. I was a little girl. I could have been someone’s little Lo. This isn’t a joke. You aren’t sophisticated. You’re just dense.

Well, yes. And?

Daran over at Creative Destruction argues:

The other category is one of alledged positive benefits, such as enhanced educational and career opportunities. The argument usually goes that systemic racism/sexism tends to exclude women and POCs, whether directly (an equally capable and qualified woman etc., isn’t given the position because she’s discriminated against directly) or indirectly (she never becomes qualified, and/or she doesn’t apply for the job, etc). Therefore there are more places available for white men such as myself.

I accept the premise but not the conclusion. It seems to me that for this argument to be valid, there needs to be another premise – namely that the total available opportunity is fixed, or at least is not significantly diminished by the systemic racism/sexism. This I do not accept. I would argue that giving women and POCs, greater access to the productive economy would create more educational and career opportunities for everybody.

So far, so good. When feminists make this argument, it’s usually a response to the argument that feminists want to hurt men. Then:

If you agree that allowing immigrants etc., (mostly POCs if you so class Hispanics), access to the US productive economy would improve it to the net benefit of American citizens, then it is incoherent to simultaneously argue that allowing women and POCs., who are already citizens greater access to that economy would not benefit white men too. And if you allow that white men will benefit overall, then you abolish the second category of alledged benefit from systemic racism and sexism. These -isms do not give white men men greater educational and career prospects. They just give us a larger share of a much smaller cake.

You could apply this argument to every dominant group up to and including slaveowners in the deep South, although you might have a hard time doing it with as straight a face as Daran manages.

Why this is somehow a logical contradiction, I’m not sure. Daran is just talking about two different kinds of benefit. He’s gone from one example–a man benefitting from sexist hiring practices at his law firm–to another–that man and all other men being disadvantaged by the poor use of women’s talents in a shared economy. If I as your landlord steal your security deposit, I’ve just damaged an economy whose integrity is worth far more to me. That doesn’t mean I’m not ahead several hundred dollars of your money.

Few people argue that institutional discrimination is better than egalitarianism, or that it doesn’t impair that society’s ability to function in any way. Feminism, like any social justice movement, attempts to make people aware beyond the short term, and to impress upon them a moral obligation to discard selfish short-term perspectives. That’s because those limited benefits tend to be what people are most concerned with.

This “disbenefit” business allows Daran to pretend that current benefit is far less important than hypothetical benefit in evaluating relative status. It also allows him to pretend that men have no interest in maintaining the small-cake system, when the truth is that they do have that interest–it’s merely overwhelmed by a larger calculus they aren’t paying any attention to.

World Cup Madness!

I love it, although I found yesterday’s Italy/Australia game really disappointing. Winning on a penalty kick? Eh. I’m running out of work right now to catch the Brazil/Ghana match, which promises to be good. I’ve got my fingers crossed for the eventual triumph of either England or Italy (England because how can you not love them after Joe Cole’s amazing goal the other day, and Italy because I’m working with all Italians and they might kill me if I didn’t cheer for their country). There are some great photos from fans posted on the WC website.

And plus, the players are just so pretty (what can I say? I have a thing for guys with great legs).

Who are you rooting for?

Blame the New York Times

I haven’t been spending too much time in Wingnutteria lately, but it seems the right-wing bloggers are in quite a tizzy over the fact that several national newspapers published some information that the wingers believe is damaging to national security. By reading right-wing blogs and columns, though, you’d be under the impression that only the New York Times published this information, and that they gave the names, home addresses and current locations of U.S. troops.

Naturally, that isn’t exactly the case. These folks are up in arms because newspapers revealed a government surveillance program that monitered the funding of international organizations that may have ties to terrorist groups. Revealing this surveillance program didn’t endanger anyone’s life; it didn’t even shed light on the existence of a particularly effective anti-terrorism program. But it did open up a debate on civil liberties and national security. The editor of the Los Angeles Times has a good response to the whole ordeal, and it’s definitely worth a read.

And as Norbizness points out in the comments, it’s not just that evil liberal media that published this story. The WSJ and the Washington Times printed it, too. And yet those bastions of liberalism aren’t being attacked quite so much.

In the meantime, though, check out the right-wing hyperventilation. The pseudo-libertarian reaction is my personal favorite. And, since it’s not like they’re busy actually fighting the war they love so much, the wingers have made all kinds of retro posters telling the Times to shut the hell up. I was cracking up, but not in the way that the righties would have liked. Case in point:

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Subway Groping

Is nothing new, but I’m glad to see the New York Times writing about it, and the NYPD taking it more seriously.

The article is especially interesting in its detailing of the defense mechanisms that female subway riders use:

Most of the women who reported recent incidents were in their 20’s and younger. But the experience, women said, is so universal, and so scarring, that they continue to feel paranoid and to put on their body armor — the big bag, the bad face — no matter how old they get.

Women know the drill. Just as some men reflexively check to see if they have their wallets on a crowded train, women check their bodies.

Pull in your backside and your front. Wedge a large bag for protection between yourself and the nearest anonymous male rider, who might, just might, be planning something. Put on your fiercest face, and brace yourself for contact that seems too deliberate to be accidental, too prolonged to be random.

Yes, we do know the drill.

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Asking For It, Part 2

Call it ego, machismo or downright delusional behaviour, but men are more likely than women to “oversexualize” conversations and incorrectly assume sexual interest, a new study says.

Researchers from the University of Connecticut and Elon University found that after a brief five-minute first meeting, men were more likely than woman to infer a sexual chemistry, regardless of whether it was there or not.

But she seduced me!

“For men, there is a step back here somewhere, where you have to think about what cues were you are actually getting. Clearly, the first judgment they are making may not necessarily be accurate,” he said. “For women, be aware this may well be a judgment he is making almost regardless of what you’re doing.”

Emphasis mine. Thanks to Miss Pen Name for the link.

Ex-Inmate Says Guard Sex Abuse is on the Rise

Riffing off of Zuzu’s post a few days ago, here’s more about guard sex abuse.

Ashley Turner, an ex-inmate told AP, she has never had sex with guards at the Tallahassee Correctional Institution but other inmates had exchanged sex for money, cell phones and marijuana.

According to the AP more than six guards have been charged and indicted for their involvement in the sex-for-contraband issue.

Turner who served time for bank fraud and released in 2004 says, “That list should probably be three times longer. These are just the ones who hung around long enough to get arrested.”

To make matters worse, other reports have nine former guards at a juvenile facility in Indianapolis are accused of abusing female inmates as young as 13 years old. In addition, there have been numerous other allegations countrywide.

The Justice Department, from the period 2000-2004, looked into 351 individuals accused of sexually abusing federal detainees.

Acting director of the New York-based U.S. Human Rights Watch, Alison Parker commented, “The bottom line is that women in correctional facilities should be guarded by women. Men have been assigned to inappropriate tasks in inappropriate locations, for example: Male corrections officials guarding women where they take showers.”

Dr. Roger Guthrie reported that he was fired from the Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, for bringing up the issue of sex abuse in prisoners: “There is no such thing as consensual sex with an inmate. It’s rape. And it’s still going on.”

I won’t hold my breath to see if any of these guards are actually charged with rape.

Thanks to Dad for the link.