Step away from the computer.

16 thoughts on Step away from the computer.

1. Wait, we’re for banning silicone-based lube? Why doesn’t someone tell me these things so I can get with the program?

2. Five words: ex post facto deportation proceedings.

3. What have we come to, when someone who purports to be a serious political commentator can talk about “cooties”?

   What really kills me is, there are plenty of grounds on which to criticize Hillary Clinton, no matter what your political views. But comments like Sullivan’s keep reminding me of her biggest asset: So many of her opponents are such utter assholes.

4. I got her cooties on me this weekend!

   (as in, I got to meet her. Good speaker. I agree with my partner in that he’s not sure if he wants to vote for her in the primary, but she’ll do a good job, and will have a good shot at winning if she gets the nom. I love being a Dem – we get to pick the best out of a pool of good candidates instead of the least crap out of a pile of crap.)

5. Sorry, I’m English. Can someone tell me WTF “cooties” are?

6. “Cooties” is an American term for an imaginary infestation, akin to small bugs or germs, that little boys believe are borne by little girls. They form the basis for playground taunts: “Get away from me! You have cooties!” In other words, it’s the earliest and mildest form of misogyny.

   When used by alleged adults like Sullivan, “cooties” is shorthand for revulsion at the prospect of sharing power with women or taking them seriously. Expressing it this way is supposed to be disarmingly childlike.

7. Ahhhhhhh thanks. Over here I think they were called “girl germs” – the nastier forms of which were transmitted by kissing.

   Armed with that piece of information I re-read the original post and was left open-mouthed. It’s a while since I’ve seen such a fine example of crass dickheadery.

8. I always thought it could go either way–in my school there were “boy cooties” as well as “girl cooties”.

9. Where I grew up, cooties weren’t associated with sex but with wierdness; some girls said other girls had cooties, and some boys said other boys had cooties. The cross-gender stuff was more likely to be just “ick, girls” or “ick, boys”. I agree that the exchange in question expresses misogyny, but it’s also about perceptions power and, not coincidentally, perceived attractivness. My bet is a woman who acted more conciliatory and submissive than Hillary wouldn’t have cooties.

   So yes, it’s about power-sharing, in the end.

10. I always thought it could go either way–in my school there were “boy cooties” as well as “girl cooties”.

    Mine too, but my bf tells me that as far as he knew, it only applied to girls. We both grew up in downstate New York, but he’s 8 years older. This leads me to wonder whether the usage changed over time, but originated as only applicable to girls.

11. There were “boy germs” and “girl germs” in my Minnesota elementary school days in the 1970s, so it may be a regional thing. Oddly, in my school, the boys seemed to carry on more about the girl germs than the girls did about the boy germs. 😛 It’s *definitely* an extremely juvenile thing to be bringing up in a political type discussion, at any age, and I agree with the misogynist connotations.

    “Cootie”, at least in my neck of the woods, was an old-timey Milton-Bradley game where you assembled an insectoid looking thing in response to throwing a die. Each part had a number associated with it, and you needed to roll, say 6 sixes somewhere along the line to put on all of the legs. Great fun if you were under, say, *8*.

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13. I once game-mastered a Dungeons & Dragons game in which one of the creatures encountered was a grubby child of uncertain gender who would slap the hand of one of the player characters while shouting (according ot the target’s gender) “Boys’ [or Girls’] germs, no returns!” [the standard taunt at my elementary school, except when it was “Burt’s germs”].

    Within minutes, the “contaminated” character began undergoing a magical sex change. Responses to this experience varied widely.

14. Cooties, from my illinois experience were referenced as an imaginary socialized boundary screen, warning others of potential contamination if the possessor of such contamination were touched. Of course, such developed on the wings of boys coming to terms with the differences between them and girls and socializing that difference in acceptable ways, “You let a girl play with us? Eww, girls got cooties, Go Away Girl!”

    Kids hung onto the term in later years ( in my experience and watching my own kids) as a form of isolating certain ‘unacceptables’; nerd kids like I was.

    But definitely, I think the origins and its common beginning usage speak pretty clearly about the way in which boy children begin to internalize and attempt to make some sense out of the mysoginy they have to accept as a part of their existence.

15. I only vaguely remember, but I believe I heard “Ewwww, boys have cooties!” more often than the reverse.

16. In case anyone is still following this, I had a memory flash in the shower last night: when I was growing up (in the south-east of England in the early 70’s), girls had the lurgy. As in “ew don’t let the girls play, you’ll catch lurgy off them”.

    It was particularly applied to girls considered less than attractive. Belated apologies are due to Gillian Sadler.

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