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

Month: October 2010

RT journalist Natalya Arkhiptseva wasn’t thrilled about some drunk dude’s sexual advances. And got shot as the result.

This is a guest-post. I’d like to thank Jill & Cara for giving me the green light.

This is Natalya Arkhiptseva. She works at Russia Today. In the same building as I do (I work for The Moscow News, which is owned by RIA Novosti, and RT and RIA are neighbours).

On October 9, Natalya decided to meet up with her girlfriends downtown, at Prado Cafe. I’ve never been to Prado, but from what I understand, it’s a fashionable restaurant. “The place has pathos” – as the Russian saying goes.

Natalya was the first of her group to get to Prado. She asked the hostess to take her upstairs. Only one other table upstairs was occupied. Two men and a woman was sitting there. As Natalya passed by the table, one of the men said drunkenly – “Look at that ass walking by.”

I’ve tried to put myself in Natalya’s place, and in doing so, I realize that my reaction to that comment would have been pretty similar.

What Natalya did is that she turned around and asked the man if he was talking to her. “So what?” He slurred. “So what?”

The hostess asked Natalya if she would like security to be called. Natalya replied in the affirmative.

At this point, the other man sitting at the table told Natalya, “bitch, I’ll make you dance,” whipped out a gun, and shot her in the foot.

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There It Is

This is a post by pro-BDSM activist Clarisse Thorn, who blogs at Pro-Sex Outreach, Open-Minded Feminism.

[Sexual abuse trigger warning on this post -ed].

A quotation from Michelle Tea’s Rent Girl, a memoir about her experiences as a sex worker:

Marina [a sex worker] had been abused by her dad when she was a girl, and she’d do coke and tell [a client] about it as he jerked off.

Marina! I gasped. I was astonished. She didn’t really care. It gave me flutters of anxiety, her blasé admission, the idea of the creepy man getting off on the rehashing of a child’s abuse. Maybe the anti-sex industry feminists were right, maybe this was evil work, work that tore the fragile scabbing of every wound a girl ever got, again and again, till pain felt regular, felt like nothing. Maybe we were encouraging the worst of men, helping blur their already schizophrenic line between fantasy and reality, what they’re allowed to have and what they’re not. I knew that some girls thought we were actually preventing rape and incest by giving the men a consensual space to act out their fantasies, and it grossed me out beyond belief to think that I was fucking would-be sex criminals, but I believed them. What I didn’t believe was that any of us, with our cheesy one-hour sex routines, would be enough to keep these men from hurting a female if that’s what they wanted to do. And what I secretly wondered was, were we empowering them sexually to go and do just that. Go and do just anything they wanted.

I love this quotation (I’m loving this whole book and I’m not even done yet). Here’s why: because I can relate. Oh yes, I think it’s full of problematic negative stereotypes about men, so I’ll note that up front. (Though this book sure makes it easy to understand where those stereotypes come from.) And I’ve never done sex work myself, so I don’t want to come across as co-opting Michelle Tea’s experience, or saying things about it that she didn’t mean.

But I believe I recognize those anxieties, because they come up for me sometimes, as a sex-positive feminist woman who can’t stand the idea of actual non-consensual sex. Hell yeah, I get angry about sexual abuse, and it hurts to think about it. Hell yeah, it kills me to think about sex workers who are trafficked or abused or desperate, who don’t get into the industry willingly (unlike so many sex workers I know who freely chose, who enjoy their jobs). And this quotation, its worries about cultural masculinity and sexual power dynamics, most reminds me of the unease I once felt so terribly about my own S&M sexuality. Unease that still surfaces sometimes, somehow, against my will. Surfaces, for example, when I hear about tragic cases like abusive relationships that masquerade as BDSM relationships.

How to reconcile being an S&M submissive?

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Contribute to Dear Sister

The Dear Sister anthology “is an anthology of letters and other works created for survivors of sexual violence from other survivors and allies. It is a collection of hope and strength through words and art.” It is accepting submissions through November 1st, and it sounds like an excellent project, so I hope some readers will contribute. Details are here.

Unreality and the politics of experience

Have you ever been in this situation? You share something that happened to you, something that affected you, something that you can’t get off your mind, and the person you’re telling your story to sits back with a pensive expression. And you start to feel a minor dread. And then… ‘are you sure they meant it like that? It wasn’t a misunderstanding? Are you sure that’s what happened?’ Or, even if they believe you, ‘was it really that bad?’

Well, yes. That is a good portion of my life. And it’s a bizarre experience because the person in the best position to speak about their own experiences and emotions is the person who has them. And, personally, I find the desire to go over horrible experiences with a fine tooth comb, tease them out, decide – retrospectively, calmly, objectively – on an appropriate response, (an appropriate reaction is whatever I judge to be appropriate, thank you very much) to add a whole new sickening layer to what I experienced. And then there are those demands for more details and irrelevant details and painful details, because whoever is “listening” thinks they get to decide what’s important.

I think this starts from the automatic, often subconscious, assumption that the person higher in the social hierarchy is more trustworthy. Marginalised people just can’t be trusted, because they’re probably, uh, biased by their marginalisation so are probably exaggerating. Supposedly the person who has benefited from their privileges has no bias in the matter at all, and all the insights. It’s always this person who gets to wear the objectivity cap – after all, they’re not being unfairly biased by their identity politics agenda and their niche experiences.

Not so much, no.

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Carl Paladino: Totally gay.

David Beckham in underwear
David Beckham in speedo-style underwear. Clearly a terrible, terrible thing.

Or that’s what a New York rabbi thinks, anyway. You should read that whole article because it is hilarious. Basically, Carl Paladino is running for governor of New York, and gave a speech that was partially written by religious leaders in Williamsburg; the speech included a section about homosexuality being disordered. Paladino then went on TV and defended the comments, saying something about men grinding on each other in speedos and that being a terrible thing (which, really, I would rather see men in speedos than Carl Paladino’s Crypt Keeper face, but that’s neither here nor there).

Then people were mad, and so Paladino apologized. Which almost caused Mr. Yehuda Levin to choke to death.

“I was in the middle of eating a kosher pastrami sandwich,” Rabbi Levin said. “While I was eating it, they come running and they say, ‘Paladino became gay!’ I said, ‘What?’ And then they showed me the statement. I almost choked on the kosher salami.”

I’m surprised he didn’t follow up with “…no homo.”

(I also want to point out that there are a lot of jokes to be made about turning gay and choking on kosher salami, but I will hold off. Just know there are some good dick jokes in there.)

Mr. Paladino, of course, had not become gay, but had announced that he wanted to clarify that he embraced gay rights and opposed discrimination. In explaining his views, Mr. Paladino and his aides noted that he had a gay nephew who worked for the campaign.

That seemed to bother Rabbi Levin as well. He accused Mr. Paladino of deciding to apologize because “his gay nephew or his family told him so.”

“He discovered now he has a gay nephew?” the rabbi said. “Mazel tov! We’ll make a coming-out party!”

Sounds fun! I’ll bring Glee if you’ll wear your best meat dress.

A Moment of Silence

Two fair-skinned little girls. One is flipping off the camera with a huge frown, and the other is laughing at the other's gumption. Both look fabulously naughty.
Two fair-skinned little girls. One is flipping off the camera with a huge frown, and the other is laughing at the other's gumption. Both look fabulously naughty.
It’s official, one of the oldest, crankiest feminist blogs is closing its doors, and it’s a shame too. It was a great place for conversation about the place for children, motherhood, and work in feminist movements. Also, how to find a good bra. Also, why to avoid academia unless you really fucking want it. Also, the benefits of pseudonymity. Also, practical approaches to open relationships.* A tip of my latte to Bitch, PhD, who taught me how to be a student and a mom at the same time. But let’s face it: hobby blogging is drying up for us old-timers. Most of the big blogs have business models and steady revenue, and those of us that don’t are, um, struggling. I love blogs, but blogging is hard** and many of us who blog as a hobby are burning out. And as the medium itself changes, the bloggers evolve as well:

Not that we don’t/won’t continue to have things to say on the blog’s topics–feminism, politics, society, recipes, even academia–but we, the various Bitches, have each reached a kind of closure of the parts of our lives that the blog served. Sybil has a job she’s happy with, but it’s not blog-friendly. Ding has switched jobs and found a man, for god’s sake. LeBlanc got MARRIED. Taddy claims he hasn’t changed, but he got cancer, recovered, is returning to his real life and (most importantly of all) has realized, I think, that he is a damn good writer. I’m a housewife, and Pseudonymous Kid is old enough now (10 next week!) that he has started to censor what I write about him, the little shit.

We may not all be living happily ever after, but I think we’re all at transitional stages and ready to move to something new.

Ayup. I’ve been ruminating on this question myself.*** You can reference a past life but you must narrate the new one. After enough time with the adopted persona, and the natural evolutions of living, you must change the venue or the conversation.

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* All conversations I’d like to preserve if B will let me.
** Unless you are Jill and have sold your soul for the ability to time travel and thus conjure five extra hours out of the day.
*** What do you (I) have to say after ten years of living aloud? How do you (I) address an audience that knows you (me) as a young single mother, when today you (I) are (am) actually married, middle class, and on the eve of your thirtieth birthday? Hi.