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Open Thread with Halloween Chihuahua

tigtog

Boo!  Spooky three-headed chihuahua features for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

Three-Headed Chihuahua!
Three-Headed Chihuahua! by Pets Adviser, on Flickr

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

61 thoughts on Open Thread with Halloween Chihuahua

  4. I have a huge crush on a friend of mine, but I won’t ever admit it to my friend because I’m not ready for relationships or even dating. I constantly feel guilty and ashamed about wanting to be with someone no matter how many times I try to tell myself that I don’t deserve to loathe myself like this. (You could say it’s a butch trans lesbian thing for me.)

    I feel like I’m stupid in the first place for liking someone else because I have a history of getting crushes on people really easily (I’ve only known my crush for about 9 months so far and I don’t hang out with them very often). And also like I’m arrogant to even think that others could like me.

    The good thing is that I don’t think they hate me. Ever since I’ve known them, they’ve been really sweet, one of the nicest trans lesbians of color I’ve met…and one of the cutest, too. I trust them a lot and they’ve been there for me a lot. I wish I could be with them, but with how inexperienced I am in relationships and dating and how little self-esteem I have, I don’t think I’ll ever admit it to them.

    I guess this goes to show that having a self-loathing teenager’s attitudes towards romance and sexuality isn’t something that automatically goes away after turning 20.

    1. I always developed ridiculously strong crushes on people. It’s ok. Just because you crush on someone doesn’t mean you have to pursue the relationship. I think it just helps you figure out what you want in a relationship.

  5. So, Dominos Pizza has a new voice-ordering app. Now you can use your *phone* to *speak* your order to Dominos…

    What will they think of next? -_-;

  6. Toronto mayor race came to a close this week. Amid shootings in the capital, a prime minister completely silent on Islamophobic backlashes, and Jian Ghomeshi sex assault case, this incident is perhaps lower profile… though no less depressing.

    http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/10/30/wheres_the_outrage_over_racist_sexist_olivia_chow_cartoon_honderich.html#

    For those who haven’t been following Toronto news over the past year: Rob Ford ruled Toronto for years with ultra right wing policies and frequent disregard for law. This summer when mayor elections were on the horizon, Olivia Chow, who was a federal MP (similar to a member of congress in the US), quit her federal job to run for local mayor so that the townsfolk can have more of a choice. The week before the mayoral vote, cartoonist from a right-wing newspaper drew her with slanty eyes, a Mao suit, and the coat of her famous late husband in her hands. The link above is the editorial from the president of a rival newspaper condemning the cartoon.

    1. It seems weird that Toronto can host world pride and have such a strong vocal right wing base. Normally, Canada is portrayed as being far more liberal than the US but I wonder if that’s realistic.

  7. So apparently there’s now a Mustache Hall of Fame that’s accepting nominations: http://mustachehall.com

    I think it would be cool if people nominated Frida Kahlo, a woman so accepting of her mustache she included it in her self-portraits.

    1. It does say “Influential Men and Women”…

      Would you say Kalo’s mustache was a “toothbrush” or “pencil thin” type?

  9. Can we talk about the Lena Dunham thing? I recently saw another feminist community I love implode, so I’m okay with a moderator being like “no,” but I’m rather upset about it. I’m guessing this would be reasonably divisive in this community.

    1. I’ve been wanting to bring it up also, but at the same time the discussion has been pretty heated between people on twitter, and I’ve been scared to mention it either there or here. It would be nice to hear what others think, as this week I’ve been mainly thinking I’m a terrible Feminist (which of course might be true, because I have lots of privilege) Sorry to hear about the other community PrettyAmiable; just saw that post myself.

    2. I’m torn on this. From the bits I’ve picked up, some of it is definitely sketchy and has not increased my admiration of Dunham at all.

      But I’m also iffy about slapping labels on kids, be it ‘predator’ or ‘victim’.

      As far as I see it, the one person’s opinion who really matters on this is Grace, Dunham’s sister. If she doesn’t feel like she was victimized, we should respect that.

      Caveat: I don’t know what her take has been on this.. has she spoken at all about the book?

      But at the same time, we need to respect that there are people who have been victimized by what others have brushed off as ‘Childhood curiosity’ and THAT needs to be respected and taken seriously as well.

      So, I don’t know.

      1. She’s made a number of tweets on twitter which have included talking about the policing of the sexualities of young women, queer, and trans people as well as a another one talking about people being able to narrate their own experiences.

        I too had the same feelings as you (Andie), particularly about labeling a seven-year old a child molester, or comparing her to Roman Polanski or the unnamed one! But I also agree with your last point too, and I know that sexual abuse by children does often occur by older children…

        P.S Also I get that there is a lot of anger out there directed at part of the Feminist community that can ignore POC concerns. And that Lena Dunham has not helped in the past at all.

        1. I hear you both on not wantingt to label a kid a child molester, but I wonder how the broad conversation would be different around whether the label was accurate if she were a boy. (Not to get all “what about the boys,” but I actually do think that double standard would hold up pretty well).

      2. I read that she sent a cease and desist to Truth Revolt (I have never heard of it before today, but I think it’s a conservative blog) and has canceled a couple of stops on her book tour. I’m with you on letting people define their own experiences, but that entire passage made me deeply uncomfortable. She describes what she did as predatory-adjacent behavior and is now, in retrospect, trying to normalize it.

        Here’s the thing with Dunham’s work. I haven’t watched Girls, but I’ve been told how it’s the best depiction of a group of women on TV now. A couple of scenes in that show don’t tie up to my life at all (for example, any discussion held with someone you’re not banging in the bathroom while using the bathroom for its typical activities). So maybe it’s me being exceptionally prude-ish, but I haven’t done things like that with my sister who’s 7 years older than me, and if I found out now that she did that before I could remember, I’d be absolutely horrified.

        My problem is this: any time someone does something rape-y to someone who cannot consent, lucks out in not traumatizing someone, and then uses that behavior to make money? Gross.

      3. (TW for sexual abuse)She called herself a predator, so I have no problem slapping that label on her Also, she mentioned reading Anne Sexton while masturbating next to her sister.
        Sexton sexually abused her daughter, so that little reference was done on purpose.

    3. I feel like to have an opinion, I’d have to read the relevant passages from Dunham’s book, and I find her so tedious and irritating that I don’t want to waste any of my life doing so. So I don’t have one, except that regardless of whether or not her childhood/adolescent actions were predatory or not (and I would extend the same benefit of the doubt to an 8-year-old boy), I think that publishing sexual stories about her sister is an asshole thing to do, and that she sounds like a raging narcissist. Which, I suppose, is what is to be expected of someone who makes a TV show supposedly based on their life.

    4. Not much to say other than ‘eww.’

      As I see it, Lena is an entertainer. I learned long ago that there was no particular relationship between how engaging I found an entertainer’s work and what I thought of them as a person. Many great people are horrible entertainers. Some great entertainers are horrible people. A blessed few manage to be great at both. Most people fall somewhere inbetween.

      It certainly appears that Lena has done some things that I would personally label ‘not ok.’ If I were friends with Lena, I might have to do some soul searching. But I’m not and I never will be. I probably won’t buy her book, but then, I probably wouldn’t have bought it anyway.

      Most of the people I see defending Lena are doing so because they really enjoy her work. That’s understandable, but wrong. Even if the worst about Lena is true, Girls loses none of its potency. A work of art has value outside the personality of its creator.

    5. Lena Dunham is trivializing child-on-child sexual abuse (COCSA), a form of CSA that is often not taken seriously or even acknowledged. She has minimally tried to label the abuse as a universal childhood experience and therefore as something completely benign. That erases victims of COCSA who recognize their experiences as abusive, resent the children who abused them and refuse to tell themselves that what they faced was nothing more than the harmless behavior of a curious child.

      I think the main reason she is even getting support is her whiteness. Because white womanhood/girlhood is, relatively speaking, coded as innocent and pure, she gets a free pass. Although it’s conceivable that some people ignore what she said on the grounds that women are fundamentally incapable of abusing others, I don’t think the white feminist shielding she is benefiting from is a result of gendered double standards (and certainly nothing remotely related to the “oppression of men” or whatever).

      So yeah, I deeply hate Lena Dunham. I have nothing else to say about her.

      1. Also, like, as white feminists are defending Dunham because some conservative writers have said misogynistic things about her*, COCSA survivors are left behind and neglected. White feminists, who should be strongly committed to denouncing all sexual abuse, are throwing child survivors under the bus for the sake of protecting a white woman. Have any of these white feminists actually considered the opinions of COCSA survivors, who are hurt by Dunham’s erasure of COCSA? Do COCSA survivors somehow lose their relevance and importance as soon as supporting them means denouncing a white woman that many white feminists admire?

        To me, this whole argument has done nothing more than prove that white feminism is thoroughly flawed and, as usual, is in a serious need of actual change. Shit like this is why I refuse to identify as a feminist at all (and instead as a womanist).

        *I haven’t actually looked into this at all, but it’s at least conceivable that she is facing some misogynistic commentary from conservatives – I mean, that’s pretty common in general.

      2. Yea she abused the sister. I get not wanting to label a young child a sexual abuser but the victim is still a victim. The situation is vastly different than a adult abuser. However, the needs of the victim always come first. Her sharing this information is hurting her sister again.

      3. Agree with everything you say here. Amazing the pass she gets isn’t it? And I have no problem slapping labels on anyone if they’re evil enough,regardless of age.

      4. I cosign everything you said, Aaliyah. I hated her before, and all these excerpts just skeeve me the fuck out. But we’re supposed to think it’s honest, brave, and bold because it also happened to gross out some people at Breitbart Report? Fuck. That.

        And now *F*eminism is just going to double down on defending its crown princess, and they get to act like any criticism of Dunham and her schtick is just a misogynistic attempt to shut women up about their sexual experiences. Ugh.

    6. From the excepts I’ve read, Dunham describes a pattern of sexually predator behavior towards her sister over years, from the time that she is 7 until 17 (her sister is about 6 years younger). And this is just the stuff that she’s written about in her autobiography.

      I’ve personally had the experience of being sexually assaulted by a child when I too was a child, and it was definitely normalized since “he’s just a child”, no big deal right?, but so was I.

      1. I read that article too. Even if you ignore the child molester allegation it makes you wonder why a handful of people are so vigorously defending such a problematic person.

    8. So glad to see so many people agree. That time you’re on the same side as right wing talking heads is jarring, to say the least.

      1. I haven’t read any of the ring winger reviews, the book excerpts are deeply troubling on their own without commentary.

  10. [TW – domestic violence]

    Over the weekend, my friend was shot to death by her estranged boyfriend. I am in shock, and I am grieving. I want to stop this from ever happening to another woman. How do we stop this?

    6. [CN: violent imagery]

      good thoughts going your way, Peggy. My sort-of-sister-in-law was murdered by her husband (not my brother!) almost two years ago now this December, and it still feels like nothing will ever be right again. I wish you comfort, and pray that the press doesn’t get involved.

  11. So I am the only one that stayed up late watching returns?

    Jesus. This may be the most depressing election on record for me. (Well, by straight numbers anyway. I don’t know if anything will ever top Bush-Gore, but that wasn’t exactly an election…) I don’t think a single candidate I voted for won – even on the local school board. I sincerely apologize to everyone I supported – I did not realize I was electoral cancer this year.

  13. Is anyone else having trouble getting through to hoydenabouttown.com?

    I’ve been getting a “Maintenance Mode” page whenever I try the URL for something like a week.

    1. Sorry about that, AMM. I need to shift hoyden and a few other sites to a new server because something’s going fubar with the current one, and the fubaring has coincided with my gallbladder surgery, and I’ve just been letting it sit on the backburner. I plan to sort it out this weekend.

      1. Except I forgot that this weekend I had to go away for a family celebration, so Hoyden is still down, and today I need to catch up on sleep. Sigh.

        1. I’m sorry not to be reading your ever-thoughtful takes on what goes on in the world, not to mention a peek into a part of the world that I don’t hear much about (living in the USA, that describes pretty much everything outside of the USA.)

          Take care of yourself, and I’ll be waiting with bated breath for when your website comes back on line.

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