Virtual rally today: Desiree Alliance

Image from Desiree Alliance.

~*~

From Renegade Evolution comes news of a virtual rally later today that I will not be able to participate in, due to work. So, decided to cover it now. It involves Philadelphia Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni, who is up for re-election, just to make it interesting.

Deni made national news when she referred to the gang-rape of a prostitute as mere "theft of services":

A judge in Philadelphia has come under fire for a controversial ruling in which she reduced charges so that a man accused of raping a prostitute at gunpoint faced only robbery charges for "theft of services."

Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni earlier this month dismissed rape and sexual assault charges against Dominique Gindraw, who is accused of forcing a prostitute at gunpoint to have sex with him and several other men. Deni left intact charges of armed robbery for theft of services against Gindraw.

Prosecuting Gindraw for rape, the judge said in a subsequent newspaper interview "minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped."

The decision — and Deni's subsequent comments to a local newspaper — prompted about 40 complaints from around the country to the local bar association, said executive director Ken Shear, as well as a campaign by women's groups to encourage people to vote against Deni when she is up for reelection Tuesday

The Philadelphia Bar Association this week took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the ruling.

"I am personally offended by this unforgivable miscarriage of justice," said bar association chancellor Jane Dalton. "The victim has been brutalized twice in this case: first by the assailants, and now by the court."

"A victim is a victim regardless of how they come to be in that position," Dalton told ABC News.

Deni did not immediately return a message for comment left this morning.

Her lawyer, George Bochetto, said Deni "makes decisions based on the evidence presented in a court of law, not newspaper accounts of the story. She finds the chancellor's comments to be regrettable."

The accuser testified that she initially agreed to have sex with Gindraw and a friend of his in exchange for money, but that Gindraw refused to pay her, held a gun to her head and forced her to have sex with several men, according to a transcript of an Oct. 4 court hearing.

"She consented and she didn't get paid. … I thought it was a robbery," Deni told the Philadelphia Daily News.

As stated above, the Philadelphia Bar Association has publicly dissociated from Judge Deni's comments:

MUNICIPAL JUDGE Teresa Carr Deni has invited the wrath of a very unusual source: the Philadelphia Bar Association.

In a rare public reproach, Chancellor Jane Leslie Dalton yesterday denounced Deni for inflicting an "unforgivable miscarriage of justice" on a prostitute who was the victim in a preliminary hearing Deni presided over earlier this month.

"The victim has been brutalized twice in this case: first by the assailants, and now by the court," Dalton said in a scathing rebuke issued in a statement yesterday.

The sex worker had agreed to have protected sex with the defendant and another man for a prearranged fee, but was instead forced - at gunpoint - to have unprotected intercourse with four men.

But Deni dropped the rape and sexual assault charges against the defendant, and held him instead on armed robbery charges for "theft of services" from the prostitute. "She consented and she didn't get paid," Deni explained to me later. "I thought it was a robbery."

In the aftermath of outraged e-mails sent to the bar association, Chancellor Dalton felt compelled to read the transcript of the Oct. 4 proceeding herself.

And she was appalled by it.

Deni's ruling "belies a basic understanding of what constitutes rape in Pennsylvania," Dalton's statement said.

"Judge Deni's belief that because the victim had originally intended to have sex for money and decided not to because she didn't get paid posits that a woman cannot change her mind about having sex, or withdraw her consent to do so, regardless of the circumstances. We cannot imagine any circumstances more violent or coercive than being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint."

The ruling reflects "in my opinion, a clear disregard of the legal definition of rape and the rule of law in this case," Dalton said.

"As Chancellor, a lawyer, and a human being, I am personally offended by this unforgivable miscarriage of justice."

And that's a courageous and dramatic comment for the head of a group that's far more likely to defend a judge than criticize one.

Dalton felt compelled to speak out because Deni is running for retention to a six-year term in next week's election.

And that is why there is a virtual rally today, to GET RID of Deni tomorrow, November 6.

Vote NO on Deni.

For immediate release

Contact: 877-776-2004

info@DesireeAlliance.org

Rape is NOT an Occupational Hazard!

Sex Workers Join Women’s Groups and Sexual Assault Survivors’ Groups to Urge PA Voters to Vote ‘No’ on the Retention of Judge Teresa Carr Deni

Judge Teresa Carr Deni spawned outrage from all directions after ruling on October 4th that a sex worker that was raped at gunpoint by multiple men was NOT sexually assaulted, rather she was just robbed. Deni commented in an Oct. 12th interview that this case “minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.”

Grassroots activists around the country, including nationwide sex worker-led organizations such as the Desiree Alliance and regional advocacy groups from coast to coast responded with anger and disgust for Deni’s disregard of the basic human rights of the rape victim in this case. “Deni’s decision in this case sends a message that sex workers can be targeted for violence with impunity. Rape of sex workers is common, alarmingly under-reported, and rarely taken seriously by authorities,” Kitten Infinite of Sex Workers’ Outreach Project said. “Violence against sex workers is perpetuated by the state through discriminatory laws and judicial rulings such as this.”

Sex workers in the US and abroad are organizing and becoming more vocal about the violence and discrimination that they face. “Because prostitution is criminalized, our human rights and our boundaries are clearly not respected,” Mariko Passion, a board member from the Desiree Alliance commented, she continues, ”…forcing or manipulating sexual intercourse by fraud, fear or coercion is rape.” On Oct 30th, after considerable pressure from sex workers and feminists around the country, the PA Bar Association issued a statement condemning Deni’s action, stating that, “The victim has been brutalized twice in this case: first by the assailants, and now by the court.”

The Desiree Alliance applauds Association Chancellor Jane Dalton’s review of the matter and we find some satisfaction in the fact that the District Attorney’s office has re-filed rape charges against the perpetrator of this despicable crime. However, we still call on voters to vote ‘No’ on retaining Deni in the election on November 6th. The Desiree Alliance will hold a virtual press conference and rally on Monday, November 5th at 5pm Eastern for sex workers and allies to comment publicly about this case and how to prevent further discrimination against sex workers.

Who: Desiree Alliance and Affiliates

What: “Rape is NOT an Occupational Hazard!” Virtual rally

Why: Judge Teresa Carr Deni should not be retained as a Municipal Court Judge in Philadelphia

When: Monday, November 5, 2007, 5pm Eastern, 2pm Pacific

Where: http://www.BoundNotGagged.com

----------------
Listening to: Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
via FoxyTunes

Odds and Sods: Final debate edition

Talented Jill Andrews at Fall for Greenville, last Sunday.









Admittedly, I haven't been writing about the debates, because I find the entire spectacle depressing. (I have been dutifully covering them on the weekly radio show, which of course you have been listening to!) I have a hard time taking these things seriously... all that pacing around the stage during the last debate, made me nostalgic for Johnny Carson, or anybody else who knew how to freaking STAND STILL on a stage and still command the attention of an audience.

Are people now so accustomed to razzle-dazzle, special effects and music videos, that we have to turn somersaults and cartwheels to keep them engaged?

Tonight is the much-heralded "last debate" between the two major candidates. Only TWO candidates allowed, even though there are others. Not included: Green Party candidate Jill Stein (whom I have interviewed on my show), Justice Party nominee Rocky Anderson, Libertarian Party nominee (and former New Mexico governor) Gary Johnson, Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode and Peace and Freedom Party nominee Rosanne Barr. (Biographical aside: Your humble narrator was registered as a member of the Peace and Freedom Party while a resident of California.)

I'm sure there are countless others, but these are the best-known of the 'minor' candidates.

To his credit, Gary Johnson has filed a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, protesting his exclusion:

On Friday, the Libertarian presidential ticket of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former California Superior Court judge Jim Gray filed another lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates to attempt to force their way into the foreign policy debate tonight.

This lawsuit argues that Gary Johnson has met the 15% polling requirement for inclusion in the debates because polls that have included only President Obama and Gov. Johnson have showed Johnson with much more than 15% support. This is because polls that exclude the name of one candidate (Republican nominee Mitt Romney) should be just as valid as polls that exclude the name of another candidate (Johnson).

Good luck with that, Governor... but I think we all know how that is going to shake out.

It should be noted that Jill Stein has also filed a similar lawsuit, after her arrest last week in Hempstead, New York:

Last week Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein was arrested, along with VP candidate Cheri Honkala, attempting to get into the presidential debates in Hempstead, New York. This week her fight continues with a lawsuit filed today against the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), claiming that the CPD, Democratic National Committee, and Republican National Committee, together with the Federal Election Commission and Lynn University, had deprived her of her constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, and free speech, as well as her statutorily protected civil rights.

Free And Equal will be hosting a debate of several 'minor' candidates, tomorrow in Chicago. Ironically, no American networks will be covering this debate, but Al Jazeera and Russia Today will be covering it! (Larry King will be moderating.)

Meanwhile: In this corner, the living fulfillment of the White Horse Prophecy--Mittens Romney!!! And in this corner, the current leader of these great United States (and reigning champ)--Barack Hussein Obama!!!! (((huzzahs, whistles, screams, applause, etc)))

I usually end up watching just to see if someone screws up... I will never forget the hugely-entertaining Rick Perry moment of last November's primary debate. I am heartily wishing for one of those; Romney's humorous "binders of women" came awfully close.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

~*~

Our plucky heroine at the 4th annual Voices Against Violence event, brought to you by the awesome Traci Young Fant and Think2xTwice.org.

Along these lines, I'd like to share this thoughtful piece by Lionel Foster, titled Freeing Young Men from the Trap of Aggression.

An article about the new trend of "gang sweeps": 'New Jim Crow' or Public Safety? Check the comments, too.

~*~

Comment on a recent affirmative action thread at Alas, A Blog, from (someone named) nobody, really:

I recently read an analysis of polling data comparing this [racial] sense of grievance to abortion rights. Popular wisdom says that abortion rights are a controversial issue politically, driving certain white working-class people from the Democratic Party. But polls regularly show that most Americans, most white working class Americans, most white Catholic working-class Americans, etc. … favor abortion rights. Rather, the data suggests that white working class people are driven away from the Democrats by the latent perception that government is intervening to help undeserving OTHERS – others at home, others abroad. This was the core of Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and it remains the core of the Republican faith.

~*~

Paul Ryan withdraws endorsement of State Rep. Roger Rivard:

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker have dropped their endorsements of a Wisconsin lawmaker who said that his father had told him "some girls, they rape so easy" as a way to warn him that women could consent to sex but then later claim they hadn't.

In a further blow to state Rep. Roger Rivard's re-election bid, the operation committed to maintaining a Republican majority in the state Assembly on Thursday ended its financial support for Rivard.

Ryan pulled his support for Rivard, of Rice Lake, just hours after the Journal Sentinel reported on his rape comments Wednesday

Not to worry, Sen. Jim DeMint will likely endorse him.

In a recent piece on Rivard in Feministe, Jill Filipovic wrote an excellent summary of conservative views of gender. An excerpt:

The socially conservative worldview believes that men and women are fundamentally different — not just physically and emotionally and biologically, but in terms of what role they are supposed to fill in society. The conservative worldview sees a society in which these traditional, “natural” roles are filled as the best society. Conservatives believe that men are naturally aggressive and desiring of sex; in the best world, men are heads of households and responsible for action in the public sphere. They care for their families as financial supporters and physical protectors. But they have to be coerced into entering into that family model through a system in which they cannot get sex without marital commitment. Women, on the other hand, could take or leave sex, but they deeply desire monogamy, romantic love, commitment and support. Women are naturally subservient and desiring of stability; in the best world, women are helpmeets to their husbands and responsible for the private sphere — homemaking and caretaking of children and family. They are responsible for civilizing men, partially by withholding sex in order to get the marital commitment they want, and by establishing a nuclear family that is ultimately the best foundation for society.

In that view, sex is essentially a bartering chip. It’s not something that is good in and of itself. It’s good only when it’s used for both parties to get what they want in a socially-sanctioned way. It is something women “give” to men, once men give women what women want.

Sex as something that’s “given” — sex as a commodity — allows for sex to be constructed as something that can be taken.

...

Rape, in the conservative worldview, isn’t about violating consent or forcing sex on someone against their will; rape is about who the victim is and whether or not she plays by right-wing rules. It’s about whether she’s already given up her right to say no.

At the same time, as the conservative female is naturally chaste and subservient and refusing of sex unless she falls from grace, the conservative male ideal is aggressive, animalistic and virtually uncontrollable (except by a good woman, of course). Men, in the right-wing view, are going to tirelessly try to get sex. “We have forgotten that before we began calling this date rape,” says conservative activist and author of The Myth of Male Power Warren Farrell, “we called it exciting.”

~*~

More stuff:

CNBC Host Accuses Obama Of Manipulating Libya Facts To Cut Military Spending (Reality Check)

Three Reasons Why the Race Is So Close; Nine Reasons Why Obama Will Win (Huffington Post)

Voter Intimidation Billboards Will Be Pulled Down In Cleveland (Think Progress)

CNN will be live-blogging the debate tonight (CNN) If you flip channels compulsively, as I do, this is a good way to keep up!

Poll: Who will win the Presidential election? (The Good Men Project) Rates mention for the discussion in comment section.

Americans Way More Interested in Paul Ryan’s Naked, Heaving Chest Than His Budget (Jezebel) I've never doubted it.

And finally... Democracy Now will be EXPANDING THE DEBATE, hosting a debate between the aforementioned candidates Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson in about 2 minutes, at 8:30pm, extending to midnight. (Democracy Now) Yall come!

Female sex offender returns to teaching at all-boys school

Mary Ems, photo by Malinda Hartong of the Cincinnati Enquirer.



Hmm, would they permit a male sex offender to teach at an all-girl Christian school? Well, they might, now that I think of it. (After this long week of nonstop Polanski-defenses, I guess anything is possible.)

What concerns me is that the student was 18, and isn't that legally an adult? But they charged her anyway:

Ems originally was arrested for sexual battery, a felony that requires convicts to register as sex offenders.

But because the student refused to cooperate with officials, prosecutors struck a plea deal to ensure a conviction. They allowed Ems to plead guilty to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor – even though the victim was 18 – in exchange for her surrendering her teaching license. Ems benefited from the plea deal because the misdemeanor conviction means she isn’t a convicted felon and she doesn’t have to register as a sex offender.

Not sure how I feel about that. The following story says "pleaded guilty to sex with a minor"--without properly disclosing that he was in fact 18 years old.

Female sex offender returns to teaching at all-boys school
By Kimball Perry • Cincinnati Enquirer • October 1, 2009

An all-boys Christian school is employing a teacher who was fired from a previous teaching job for having sex with a student and who pleaded guilty last month to a sex crime with a minor.

Mary Ems, 44, of Springfield Township, is working at the Union Christian Post Graduate Academy, an uncertified school for males at least age 17.

[...]

[Hamilton County's] plea deal also required Ems to give up her certificate to teach in Ohio.

Despite that, Ems is working as a teacher at the all-boys school.

"We will certainly bring that to the court's attention at the time of sentencing," said Julie Wilson, spokesman for the Hamilton County Prosecutor.

"We wanted to make sure she didn't have her teaching certificate because of that (conviction)."

The school is not certified by the Ohio Department of Education because it accepts students who are college age and isn't a public high school.

The school identifies itself on its Web site as having "outstanding faculty and staff, prides itself in developing young men into 'Champions in Christ.'"

The Web site doesn't list a street address for the school, noting only that it is "located in suburban Cincinnati."

"The Union Christian Academy staff believes that its primary purpose is to educate each student to the highest possible level of academic achievement by providing a challenging curriculum in a safe, Christian environment," its Web site notes.

It requires each student to have "personal and institutional accountability, which is characterized by honesty, openness, spiritual and shared ethical standards" and that students "will be taught that making sound choices now will positively impact their future."

It appears to be a boarding school where students can go to improve their grades or athletic abilities - perhaps in hope of earning a college athletic scholarship - before attending college. Its tuition is $4,500 from January through May. Its first day of school this year was Sept. 9.

"Union Christian's Postgraduate football program is a very successful option for most young men. Our goal is to send numerous Postgraduate players to the ranks of many college programs every year," its Web site notes.

The school's Web site is registered to Wilson and a company named Ultimate Preps, both in Missouri City, Texas. Wilson also didn't respond to e-mails.

Ems is to be sentenced Oct. 29 before Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Melba Marsh. She faces up to six months in jail but the judge indicated she'd impose probation.

No address on the website? Sounds like one of those boot-camp type boarding schools, where they send boys with "discipline problems" ...we have a parcel of them in the south. In fact, one of my daughter's friends was sent to one.

Or it could be what it sounds like: a prolonged Christian football camp. Should a female sex offender be teaching there?

What do you think?

Girls on Film

Graphic from Radical Women



I attempted to participate in a thread over at Women's Space/Margins, only to have my comments censored. Heart does not tolerate any dissent from any feminists at her site. (Instead of "women's space"--perhaps it should be called "women who agree with Heart's space.") Thus, I will continue here.

Heart, at Margins, writes:

This is the first of a series of posts I plan to do illustrating the intentions of, and reasons for, pornography.

To assume that all pornographers have the same intentions and reasons, is a little silly, doncha think?

If you mean analyze the sexism and misogyny in porn, that's something else again. Interestingly, I saw none of this in your post, just a blanket condemnation of all porn as "rape"--which any 14-year-old kid with internet access knows is simply not accurate.

I get thousands and thousands of spam comments day in, day out, almost all of them advertisements for porn. Right now there are something like 4,000-plus ”comments” — links to pornography, primarily – in my spam queue. Most of it is as vile as can be imagined.

"Vile"--meaning what, exactly? Vile is in the eye of the beholder. Do you mean violent? Say that, then, and be specific. Or is all porn "vile" to you, as I suspect? In which case, you are not in a place to discern which porn is "vile" and which is not.

I’m tired of talking to pro-pornography, pro-prostitution people, male or female, about pornography. I think I’m done with doing that.

When have you had any comprehensive discussion of this kind? I have seen no discussion. TALKING TO, as in, you expect to preach like the fundamentalist you are, and have everyone LISTEN? As you should know, that leads nowhere. People do not appreciate or learn from preaching; they learn from interactive discussion. And this is something I have NEVER seen you engage in.

I am a radical feminist, profoundly skeptical of porn and prostitution, and you even censor me. Therefore, I doubt you've been able to have any kind of civil political discussion with people who are diametrically opposed to you, including women who are currently employed as sex workers.

Thus, when you say "pro-pornography, pro-prostitution"--you actually mean the women employed in these businesses. You have placed yourself above them, and have no interest in discussing the reality of their lives and reasons for their employment with THEM. You prefer to talk over their head, as a preacher discusses the sinners that must be converted.

Their opinion, and whether they WANT to be converted, is of no concern to you.

Discussions with those who are vested in this stuff — who make a living by way of it, who use it all the time, who sell it, who perform in it — remind me of discussions I used to have in my old world with religious fundamentalists who could not be separated from their ideological fixations, obsessions and dogmas by love, money, cogent debate, force, or any combination of the above.

Funny you should say this, since I think you sound exactly like a fundie preacher, and IT'S NO ACCIDENT THE FUNDIES ALL AGREE WITH YOU 100% ABOUT THIS ISSUE.

The fundamentalists are too good to talk to the whores, and you are too. Like them, you simply believe you are smarter and morally superior to the women who actually do this work, and you don't have any reason to listen to anything THEY tell you. When they tell you what THEY believe would make their lives easier, you don't care. You know better than they do. You consider yourself superior in every way.

Otherwise, why not listen? Why not dialog? Why not grant these women the respect you grant the women on your site?

They stood ready to defend their beliefs — and that’s about it.

"Beliefs" are not tantamount to challenging someone's livelihood/job and ability to earn a living. You are the one who counsels sex workers that they should stop earning money this way, yet you propose no solutions for them. And that's about it.

They were pretty much incapable of even considering the possibility that they might have missed something, might not be seeing something, let alone that they might be wrong.

FTR, I think sex work sounds terrible. I would not want to do it, or have my daughter do it. I would also not want to pick grapes or soybeans out in the fields, or work on an assembly line, as my father did. However, I do want the migrant workers and factory employees to have rights and unionization, whether I think they are exploited or not--in fact, PRIMARILY and PRECISELY for this reason--to prevent FURTHER exploitation.

Do you in fact agree that workers need unions and rights? Why are you making an exception for WOMEN, in this case? Why have you bought into the MALE definition of sex work as SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS rather than a business transaction?

It's men who fantasize about the sex-work-scenarios being "real"--surely you realize they are not? They are part of the job, just as a car salesman laughs at our dumb jokes in hopes we will buy one of his cars. But you seem to have a totally different standard for judging women's work, in this instance, and what has historically been men's work. Men's work is respected by you, and women's is not, unless it's sewing, childcare, knitting or canning fruit.

Unless sanctioned by the Church, in other words.

I always find it perplexing, the way the pro-porn side invokes the spectre of fundamentalism in its arguments or diatribes or propaganda. My experience is, if there are fundamentalists in this debate, they are on the pro-porn side.

As I said, I agree with you that the business is nasty and exploitative to women. I agree it perpetrates misogyny. What I don't agree with is how you want to judge and punish women for their own oppression, therefore blaming the victim. You want to deny them all rights, reinforce their marginal legal status and you approve of the system that legally penalizes them.

You won't even listen to a radical feminist who disagrees with you, like me.

Umm, you can easily see why the "spectre of fundamentalism" is invoked, since you agree with the fundamentalists 100% about throwing hookers in the pokey? Don't you?

Aren't you the one who agrees with the fundamentalists that these women do not deserve Social Security benefits, Worker's comp, retirement, health insurance, and the other valuable rights gained by collective bargaining?

Aren't you the one who thinks these women aren't good enough to qualify for these rights, yet you are?

How is that different from a fundamentalist?

The 11 words at the top of the page tell us what pornography is about. It is about men forcing their bodies inside of and onto the bodies of women.

So, the women being paid for this, are in all cases being forced? No.

Again, you prove by this statement that you do not listen to the words of sex workers. You proudly and arrogantly ignore what THEY SAY, and you place yourself above them. You know more than they do, like a good Church elder.

It is about men forcing women to do things they do not want to do.

Even when they are paid and willingly want to enter this business?

Especially, the words communicate the interest men have in watching women being raped.

It isn't actual rape, Heart. It's a fantasy story about rape, that some men enjoy. (There are also porn-fantasies involving the rape of men by women and other men, you realize?) Sex workers make money off of men's fantasies; that is in large part what sex work involves. But their fantasies are not real. Why are you endorsing male definitions of porn as "reality"?

We all know a woman is depicted in the film those 11 words advertise, but she is a dehumanized woman. She has no name; she is a generic “blonde,” a generic “whore.”

Umm, you mean as in your previous paragraph: "those who are vested in this stuff — who make a living by way of it, who use it all the time, who sell it, who perform in it"--I see no names in that sentence, either. You invoke a generic sex worker, a generic whore.

If I am mistaken, how about you name some names of actual women? Or do you even know the names of any real-life sex workers you claim to care so much about?

Didn't think so.

The understanding and agreement between the maker and advertiser and the consumer of pornography is that nobody cares about the names, identities or lives of “blondes” or “whores” or any other woman being raped by men in pornography and nobody wants to know any of that.

And when these sex workers attempt dialog and actually try to comment on your site, you won't allow it. You won't even allow a feminist who disagrees with you, on your site...you don't want to know any of that, either, since it contradicts your world-view.

The agreement is that the porn consumer should be free to order up a constellation of body parts and the pornographer should stand ready to provide them.

Where is this "agreement" you speak of?

The agreement is the pornographer will provide images of rape and violence which humiliate and degrade already-dehumanized women whose names we do not know.

Again, where is this "agreement" you speak of? Certainly, you HAVE seen soft-core porn with kisses, hugs and fervent I-love-you's interspersed with copulation? Why are you saying here that all porn is about humiliation, when anyone can turn on cable TV and see otherwise?

Do you think these disingenuous statements help your argument? How?

The agreement, especially, is that this will be sexually titillating and exciting to the consumer.

Again, where is this "agreement"? What are you talking about?

This is what real men want to see: “blondes” and “whores” being raped. Available for cash, at the click of a link.

Comments, as always will be moderated. Men and women may comment, so long as they are anti-pornography. At some point, as anti-pornography activists, we are going to have to work to provide some sort of public counterbalance to the weight of the pornographic garbage passing for “discussion” and “debate” which we, and millions of others, find suffocating and deadly.

Really? Because I have never seen you do this even once. Gotta link to a real discussion? You are a very influential feminist, and I have found many of your discussions all over the web; I have seen you fulminate, proclaim, preach, huff-and-puff-and-blow-the-house-down, but never DISCUSS in good faith.

In fact, this whole post of yours strikes me as one long MASTURBATORY exercise for you--proving that everyone has various ways of getting off, and this is yours, isn't it?

We won't give pause until the blood is flowing

Photo of the greatest writer and philosopher of the 20th century, JG Ballard, from The Northern Light.







I have been trying to articulate what I dislike about mass-market holidays. In particular, the mass market holiday that Christmas has become.

And I find myself going to my late guru to explain; may his soul rest in peace. I miss him like he was my own father. Maybe he was, in a way.

From V. Vale's quite invaluable J.G. Ballard: Conversations, some excerpts that say it far better than I can:

People use mental formulas that they've learned from TV. Even in ordinary conversation, if you're talking to the mechanic at the garage about whether you need new tires for your car, you and he probably talk in a way that his equivalent thirty years ago would never have done. You use--not catch phrases, but verbal formulas. Suddenly you realize you're hearing echoes of some public-information, accident-prevention commercial. It's uncanny.

[...] What's interesting [about Reality TV shows like Big Brother] is that almost nothing happens. There's a certain amount of bitching and gossip and sitting around the supper table talking in a sort of half-hearted way, but there's no drama. Nonetheless, the audiences are riveted. And they're riveted by very similar programs where TV producers put people on desert islands and see how they survive; a series called Survivor did just that. I think this reflects a tremendous hunger among people for "reality"--for ordinary reality. It's very difficult to find the "real," because the environment is totally manufactured.

Even one's own home is a kind of anthology of advertisers, manufacturers, motifs, and presentation techniques. There's nothing "natural" about one's home these days. The furnishings, the fabrics, the furniture, the appliances, the TV, and all the electronic equipment--we're living inside commercials. I think people realize this, and they're desperate for reality, which partly explains the surge in popularity of "adventure" holidays. People think that by living on some mountainside in a tent and being frozen to death by freezing rain, they're somehow discovering reality, but of course that's just another fiction dreamed up by a TV producer. And there's no escape.

Holidays like Halloween and Christmas are spectacles that people engage in, because they are on TV. Working retail, I consider a certain type of existential-shopping (wherein people don't really know what they are "looking" for) part of this Ballardian phenomenon.

There are so many fabulous quotes in this book, I will be blogging lots of them. For instance, about the disparity between rich and poor:

In England [this conversation was recorded in 2003], we're getting unprecedented disparities of wealth. The people who run our biggest corporations have begun to affect life in London primarily by buying up property, and the old middle class (doctors, civil servants, teachers, salaried professionals) can no longer afford to live in central London. Now there are whole areas of central London given over to the rich. I've often thought that in due course all these very rich financiers are going to leave very large sums of money to their children. Then you'll get a sort of New Leisure Class who never work, but have huge spending power--like the ancien regime in France. Supposedly, the same thing is happening in Manhattan: the middle class has been forced out...

V. Vale replies that the same thing is happening in San Francisco; New York and San Francisco are the two most expensive cities in the USA. I would add that it's even true in lil ole Greenville; the 'centers' of towns/cities are now priced out of range for the actual natives of those towns/cities. Most of the people moving into the new high-priced condos in downtown Greenville, for instance, come from someplace else, often from Europe or the coasts. The rich colonizing the cities and leaving the outlying suburbs to the poor and the rabble, is the exact reverse of what happened in the 60s, when the rich moved to the suburbs and left the inner-cities to rot. Now that they crave authenticity, they have moved back to cities in droves. However, they still aren't getting the authenticity they crave, since the only people who can afford to live in cities are rich, affluent people who are all just like them.

In the cities, a bizarre new class-based uniformity has taken hold, while in my suburban apartment building, every race and age and nationality and economic status is well-represented.

Authenticity has been priced out of the market.

Speaking of which, here is Ballard on the future of sex:

[The] time is going to come when no young woman will regard penetrative penis-and-vagina sex as real sex, because it isn't deviant enough to be considered "real sex." These days, magazines for teenagers sold openly on newsstands have headlines like, "Interested in S&M sex? Junior Cosmo explains all you need to know." And this is a magazine that's going to be bought and read by 14-year-olds. The period of conventional, penetrative, penis/vagina sex will be over by the time you're about 15, and then you'll move into the area of conceptualized sex, S&M, and whatever--and that's what will be regarded as real sex. To me, this seems like a daunting thought.

Ballard on the future of reading:

People don't use libraries as much as they used to. One thing I miss terribly--I don't know if the same thing applied in America, but over here in the Forties and Fifties when I first came to England, what I loved were the second-hand bookshops. Every small town had a second-hand bookshop, which was constantly being stocked up... when someone died, the family took their books to the second-hand bookshop and got sixpence each for them. There were a lot of unserious materials, popular novels and the like...but there were a lot of very serious books. You know, one serious collector in a lifetime could produce enough books to keep a second-hand bookstore open for a year.

I did most of my reading in second-hand bookshops. I remember when I was living in London somewhere I used a local one. Also, serendipity came into it [...] You made accidental discoveries all the time. And this sort of refreshed one. You were constantly being surprised, constantly making discoveries. All this is gone now, of course. There can't be more than a half a dozen used bookshops in the whole of West London, if any.

What we've got now is a new kind of literacy. We've got people who are expert at reading the labels on products, expert at reading instructional manuals that come with a new kind of vacuum cleaner, or a computer or what have you. They're expert at that kind of reading, but not at anything else. Not with a more traditional book.

I don't know if the internet has affected that. I have very high hopes for the internet, which I think could be the sort of--if we're entering a New Dark Age, the internet could help to keep the lights on!

I'll be revisiting these Conversations often, which Ballard would be pleased to know, I found by browsing bookstores in the serendipitous manner he has described so well.

I miss you, man.

~*~

Ballard would have understood this song/video, which is where we get today's blog-post title. Caution, may trigger, may offend, watch out, yada yada.

(Not for the faint of heart or the oversensitive. Really.)

Vicarious - Tool



Note: Well, damn, there is some argument over exactly the lyrics I was going to quote. I always heard:

We all feed on tragedy
It's the virtue of empire

Other listeners report: "It's the virtual vampire," and still others, "like blood to a vampire." (Does anyone know the official lyrics?)

I guess you can still understand the concept, though.

Put another way:

Anti-feminists defend John Edwards, sex machine and role model

Recent John Edwards photo from the Los Angeles Times.





Hey you scandal-mongering folks out there... who among you is currently following the entertaining John Edwards follies?

Here and here are some fairly decent summations of the corruption trial so far. But I have to say, the hands-down BEST commentary came from a proud Men's Rights Marine over at the GendErratic blog, named Dungone -- who explains to us dumb wimmenz that John Edwards is NOT being publicly tried for funneling campaign funds to his mistress and their child (a violation of campaign-finance laws), but instead is being PUNISHED for having a $400 haircut and ROBUST MALE SEXUALITY!!!

Yes, its the feminists again, who made poor John Edwards take Rielle Hunter as his mistress, and in turn made Rielle refrain from birth control and get knocked up. OUR. FAULT.

Got that, bitches?

I can't do any better than to quote some of our exchange, verbatim. Just in case you think I am some crazy feminist exaggerating what this man has said, let me first link the whole thread HERE. And these are his exact quotes.

Dungone:

[Unlike] women, men are actually mocked for caring about their appearance, such as John Edward for his $400 haircut. [links to Wonkette photo of Edwards] If we were sane, we would acknowledge that a good haircut is a common sense investment for anyone who has to appear in front of a national TV audience on a daily basis – but we are not sane because we cannot even acknowledge that man even have an appearance. The fact that it’s even a political snowball in the first place is ridiculous – regular housewives spend as much money as some male celebrities on their physical appearance and no one thinks it’s a big deal. But men are in a double bind – they have to look good but it has to be a bigger secret than Victoria’s Secret or else they’re screwed.

Me:

Dungone, as someone here in Edwards’ neck of the woods, let me clarify… it was all that down-home populism and I-love-the-poor-folks bullshit of his and THEN the $400 haircut –that brought the scorn. There was a context for that… now when the story went national, maybe they just talked about the haircut… but around HERE, it was in the context of his “fightin for the po folks” reputation and alla that.

Dungone:

Please, don’t give me that. It’s straight up bullshit. All the feminists endorsed Hillary Clinton since she supposedly fought for oppressed women. But how much does she pay for a hair cut? Why was that never an issue? Every woman who runs for public office probably spends way more on haircuts than any man, so I guess if expensive haircuts would make a man into a hypocrite then we shouldn’t even consider voting for a woman.

Of course, regular readers know that I did not back Hillary, so already, he is incorrect about "all the feminists"--and our election-year marching orders.

Dungone knowingly continues:

Don’t you think that $400 is reasonable for a haircut when your election campaign which is costing your backers millions of dollars could easily go down the tube over a bad haircut? Opportunists jump on any deviation from masculine perfection in political campaigns. And people, especially women, will in fact vote for the more handsome male candidate. We haven’t had a bald president since hats went out of fashion and women got the vote. Instead, we’ve had presidents who fucked Marilyn Monroe. But I guess you feminists are going to call men hypocrites for getting a decent haircut while you vote to uphold Sarah Palin in the ranks of pro-women women.

Do you know what the biggest irony is? A $400 haircut is money that goes to support a laborer from the working class. And after that “scandal”, Edwards got a $13 haircut at Supercuts. So let’s be clear – under-paying an employee at a big corporate chain = pro labor. Paying good money for good work = hypocrite. Good call, Daisy. You love workers.

Me: [Yes, my Irish was officially up]

And how long did you live in the Carolinas during the 2008 election season? You are now informing me about what local people were talking about? Excuse me, but you do not live here and you do not have a motherfucking clue. My own HUSBAND voted for Edwards and said that, okay?

...

The biggest irony is that you are defending a man who used his ‘status’ as a poor lint-head to con OTHER poor lint-heads into giving him money, then used that money to pay off his mistress for silence. And you are defending this embezzling piece of shit as a decent man. This is why he is on trial TODAY for embezzling and I hope they lock his ass up for it. Yes, I do love the workers, and I don’t like when some shyster politician can’t keep it zipped and then uses the money of the workers that was collected in good faith, to pay off his fucking sex scandals. And yes, I see why you admire such a person. Of course you do.

Are you going to visit him in prison?

Dungone:

Edwards would have seriously helped the working class and I find it deplorable that working class people would call him a hypocrite basically for no other reason than his physical appearance and personality

Me:

Um, he is ON TRIAL RIGHT NOW for his appearance and personality? Are you tripping? Earth to Dungone.

Dungone: [FOR THE WIN!]

He’s on trial for being a male slut and a $400 haircut. He violated campaign rules, which was wrong, but it’s understandable given that men are judged so harshly and unfairly for their sex lives. There are people sitting fat and happy in their mansion who should be on trial for war crimes and you’re talking about daytime talk show crap, including some of the ones that your neck of the woods sent to public office. But god damn, he didn’t “keep it zipped” so it’s over for him any way you slice it. You’re part of the problem, given that you sound exactly like exactly the kind of person who hates it when a man has a sex life. Stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with what he would do for the working class. Kennedy also had a sex life and he was one of our greatest and most beloved presidents. “Keep it zipped,” you say. What a sexist, bigoted thing to say.

Campaign finance rules are supposed to keep powerful millionaires from buying elections. They’re supposed to prevent politicians from covering up real crimes, conflicts of interest, and scandals that are actually relevant to the task of public office. But they do none of those things. They’re used to bring down men who tried to prevent having their sex lives dragged out in front of the public by their political enemies. You can be a truly evil son of a bitch who tortures people all over the world, fails to do a thing about 9/11… but if you get a blowjob or sent a text message, you get impeached. And here we have Daisy Deadhead crying a river over the way female politicians get judged for their looks.

Again, this is why you should not try to talk to Men's Rights Guys. DO. NOT. ENGAGE! This is a Marine, who in other contexts is quite proud of his war-making activities, talking about war crimes. (?) And the accompanying fact that much-lower-paid Andrew Young, Edwards' aide, will be taking the fall if Edwards is found innocent, does not seem to bother Dungone.

Obviously, per Orwell, some men are more equal than others.

Me:

So, let me clarify:

You think that if I gave money to a campaign for a man to run for president, and this politician gives it to his mistress to shut her up and support her in high style, that is “daytime talk show crap”?

Dumbfounded. See, I call that stealing. I know some of the people he stole from.

Amazing.

I hardly know what to say.

....

Do you understand that he was STEALING? Millions of dollars? And trying to pin it on one of his underlings? In all your identifying with Mr Sexpot, what about his employee Andrew Young? Is he just not important enough to identify with?

Ain’t he a man, too?

Dungone, again FOR THE WIN:

I believe that keeping one’s sex life out of the media is a valid use of campaign funds. I believe that our country has gone down the shit-hole because underhanded fundamentalist scumbags keep dragging people’s sex lives out into the open to humiliate them and ruin their careers. If we can’t protect people’s sex lives from public scrutiny then we will never be able to have, let’s say, a president in an open relationship, perhaps even a single president who is dating. You won’t have a gay or a lesbian president, either. Only the most bland, cookie-cutter, dust-web-ridden “family values” liars can survive in our culture’s political climate, and I believe that this is a huge detriment to us all. So I believe that it’s fair use of campaign funds to keep sex lives private.

And I will leave that unbelievable, amoral reply right there, for all to read again and behold for themselves.

Men's Rights Advocate assures us: A politician (in this case, a very RICH politician with a large number of POOR contributors) informing you that your hard-earned campaign contributions will be used for advertising or whatever, and instead using it to pay his mistresses' bills, is perfectly fine. Since nobody (of course!) can be expected to behave morally and honestly, then laws should be changed to allow candidates to use funds to pay off their girlfriends and tell you lies about where your money goes. To do otherwise is to be against MEN and SEX.

And you will notice, I never did get an answer from Dungone about duped fall-guy Andrew Young. Hey, Young is small potatoes, the important thing is that Rich Sexy Senator Who Can't Keep It Zipped can do as he pleases, at taxpayer expense. (PS: why is this "sexist" of me to say? Women do not have zippers now? Huh?)

As soon as I develop any sympathies for the MRAs, I am put in my place by one of them; usually banned from their blogs and/or given some sex-obsessed, thoroughly-entitled, good-old-boy insanity like this as a substitute for logic. Then I remember why I was a feminist in the first place.

So no, I don't believe Edwards should be able to take my friends' money and give it to his girlfriend to live in a pricey mansion, especially since he is a millionaire and can afford to pay her rent himself. Call me old-fashioned.

And yes, my feminism is intact.

I usually need something like this to remind me of how important it is.

Women guilty, but boys will be boys...

I came across these stories on a right-wing British blog. Thus, I won't be linking. They were slut-shaming the women, what-is-the-world-coming-to, British girls used to be raised with proper manners, tsk tsk. (etc)

What is really interesting about these two stories is the fact that the women are charged with various crimes, but the men involved were not charged, or were charged with different crimes:

Briton faces jail for sex on Dubai beach

By Terri Judd and Nikolina Sajn
Thursday, 10 July 2008
UK Independent

A British businesswoman is facing six years in an Arab jail after apparently being caught having drunken sex on a beach in Dubai.

Michelle Palmer, 30, was allegedly found in a compromising position on Jumeirah beach with a British holidaymaker, named only as Vince, whom she had met that morning at a champagne brunch with her work colleagues. A police officer apparently spotted the couple having sex on the beach and cautioned them, only to return later to find they had ignored his warning.

Last night, Ms Palmer's employer, ITP Publishing, confirmed that she had been dismissed after being accused of "a number of serious public order offences", including having sex outside marriage, indecent behaviour in public and assaulting a police officer.

A spokesman said: "ITP... expects its staff to behave in a manner consistent with the moral and cultural values of the society in which we all live and work. To this end the company gives its staff clear guidance regarding what is and what is not acceptable in the United Arab Emirates [UAE] when they join.

"Following an internal review of this incident, the company has dismissed Ms Palmer."

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that consular assistance was being offered to two British nationals who had been arrested on Saturday. He said the case was being investigated by the Dubai authorities but no formal charges had been brought.

In a blog entry she apparently posted last night, Ms Palmer spoke of her fear at what might happen to her. "We have all made silly regretful mistakes in life, of which some pay all too dearly ... The fear I feel each time I close my eyes fills my heart with dread ... Please imagine if it were you, this is punishment enough."

According to The Sun, Ms Palmer was said to have launched a tirade at the police officer who arrested her and threatened him with one of her high heels.

"Because this is known everywhere they're going to make an example of us and we're going to get a higher sentence. We are in so much trouble and my family and everybody are affected," she told the newspaper. "Until someone is in this situation they could never know what it's like. It's bad – it's so, so bad. They are being pushed into a corner to make an example of us. I'm panicking – my mum is on antidepressants."

While the embassy of the UAE in London had no comment to make yesterday, one insider insisted that it was not a "fundamentalist state". "If somebody was doing this in Hyde Park, I wonder what the British police would do? You have to conduct yourself with decorum."

In recent years Dubai has become an increasingly popular tourist destination. Each year about a million UK visitors travel to the UAE, while 100,000 expatriate Brits live there. Sex outside marriage is illegal in the UAE, as is cohabitation, adultery and homosexual behaviour. Visitors are warned that public displays of affection are frowned upon, and there have been several arrests for kissing in public.

In the following incident, the women are charged with outright prostitution, while the men have been charged with "encouraging obscene behaviour"--say what?

Brit Tourists In Sex Game Disgrace

Sky News, 1:03pm UK, Monday July 14, 2008

Nine British women who took part in an oral sex competition while on holiday on the Greek island of Zakynthos are facing charges of prostitution.

Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged over the incident, which took place at Laganas beach in the south of the island.

The women had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

The men were charged with encouraging obscene behaviour.

In recent years, Laganas has established itself as one of Greece's most popular destinations for twenty-something holidaymakers and is known for its alcohol-fuelled nightlife.

Tour operators say the resort offers "non-stop partying" and "wild entertainment well into the night".

Around 15m people - a fifth of them British - visit the eastern Mediterranean country each year, drawn by its soaring summer temperatures, clear waters and sandy beaches.

Zakynthos, also known as Zante, is one of the Greek Ionian islands that is most popular with tourists.

----------------
Listening to: Dinosaur Jr. - Repulsion
via FoxyTunes

Andrea Dworkin on Transgender

Photo from The Boston Phoenix.



There has been a lot of heated discussion among Second-Wave radical feminists, concerning when transphobic theory "took over" the discourse. Women who claim to be of the hard-core Andrea Dworkin school of radical feminism, steadfastly adhere to the concept that trans people are not the gender they say they are and will not use preferred pronouns; some go so far as to edit comments on their blogs and change the pronouns, for example. Many of these Second-Wavers believe it is reactionary to "endorse" (for lack of a better word) the gender identities of trans folks. Much talk about the "gender binary" (male/female, historically constructed as mirror images, opposites, yin and yang) and how transgenderism "upholds" this binary, etc etc etc.

For many of these feminists, the late Andrea Dworkin is something of a patron saint. One well-known radfem uses a quote from Dworkin on her blog, to let it be known she is a "take no prisoners" sorta gal. I have read many, many quotes by Dworkin on Second-Wave radical feminist blogs.

But it is telling that they carefully leave out the quote(s) below, even though they claim to have all of her books.

In conversations with trans feminists, I have continually assured them that many Second-Wave radical feminists were NOT transphobic, and actually empathetic to trans people. However, I've had trouble finding any proof, other than my own memory and a few trans friends of Kate Millett's. Depressingly, the more I searched, I found much more proof that radical feminists were mean and vicious (i.e. Robin Morgan's lynch-mob rhetoric concerning trans women in her book titled Going Too Far). The Janice Raymond/Robin Morgan/Mary Daly faction seems to have "won" the transgender round of radical feminist theory, by default.

And so, it brings me great pleasure, after a very long search, to finally have the following quote IN MY HAND, not just from memory. Thank God for Amazon.com and the used books option, since this is long out of print.

The book is WOMAN HATING, copyright 1974, EP Dutton, New York City, ISBN 0-525-47423-4. The book jacket contains approving blurbs from: Phyllis Chesler, Ellen Frankfort, Florynce Kennedy, Audre Lorde, Kate Millett and Gloria Steinem.

I find it interesting that Morgan did not provide a blurb, since she and Dworkin were good friends. (Was this passage the reason?)

Note: In the 70s, at the time of this writing, the accepted terms were "transsexual" (instead of transgender) and "hermaphrodite" (instead of intersex)--and these are the terms Dworkin uses.

~*~

First, Dworkin believed that the human race is multi-sexual, and to maintain patriarchy, these multiple genders must be "contained" within the two-gender binary. Transgendered people, then, are the people who have fallen through the cracks, so to speak, who do not fit into this rigid system.

These excerpts are all from the suitably Dworkinesque-titled chapter Androgyny: Androgyny, Fucking and Community:

Hormone and chromosome research, attempts to develop new means of human reproduction (life created in, or considerably supported by, the scientist's laboratory), work with transsexuals, and studies of formation of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two discrete biological sexes. That information threatens to transform the traditional biology of sex difference into the radical biology of sex similarity. That is not to say there is one sex, but that there are many. The evidence which is germane here is simple. The words "male" and "female," "man" and "woman," are used only because as yet there are no others.

She discusses the facts that there are intersexed people, hairy women, feminine men, indistinct genitalia, etc.

We can presume then that there is a great deal about human sexuality to be discovered, and that our notion of two discrete biological sexes cannot remain intact. (Note: The following sentence is underlined repeatedly in my used copy.) We can presume then that we will discover cross-sexed phenomena in proportion to our ability to see them.

In addition, we can account for the relative rarity of hermaphrodites in the general population, for the consistency of male-female somatotypes that we do find, and for the relative rarity of cross-sexed characteristics in the general population (though they occur with more frequency than we are now willing to imagine) by recognizing that there is a process of cultural selection which, for people, supersedes natural selection in importance. Cultural selection, as opposed to natural selection, does not necessarily serve to improve the species or to ensure survival. It does necessarily serve to uphold cultural norms and to ensure that deviant somatotypes and cross-sexed characteristics are systematically bred out of the population.

Later in this section, she makes a statement in italics, for emphasis:

We are, clearly, a multi-sexed species which has its sexuality spread along a vast fluid continuum where the elements called male and female are not discrete.

And then, we get to the section titled Transsexuality, which she starts off by quoting "a transsexual friend":

How can I really care if we win "the Revolution"? Either way, any way, there will be no place for me.

Keeping in mind there were far fewer uncloseted transgendered people in the 70s, I find the following paragraphs to be pretty radical and trans-positive stuff:

Transsexuality is currently considered a gender disorder, that is, a person learns a gender role which contradicts his/her visible sex. It is a "disease" with a cure: a sex-change operation will change the person's visible sex and make it consonant with the person's felt identity.

Since we know very little about sex identity, and since psychiatrists are committed to the propagation of the cultural structure as it is, it would be premature and not very intelligent to accept the psychiatric judgement that transsexuality is caused by a faulty socialization. More probably, transsexuality is caused by a faulty society. Transsexuality can be defined as one particular formation of our general multisexuality which is unable to achieve its natural development because of extremely adverse social conditions.

There is no doubt that in the culture of male-female discreteness, transsexuality is a disaster for the individual transsexual. Every transsexual, white, black, man, woman, rich, poor, is in a state of primary emergency as a transsexual. There are 3 crucial points here.

One, every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms. That means every transsexual is entitled to a sex-change operation, and it should be provided by the community as one of its functions. This is an emergency measure for an emergency condition.

Two, by changing our premises about men and women, role-playing and polarity, the social situation of transsexuals will be transformed, and transsexuals will be integrated into community, no longer persecuted and despised.

Three, community built on androgynous identity will mean the end of transsexuality as we know it. Either the transsexual will be able to expand his/her sexuality into a fluid androgyny, or, as roles disppear, the phenomenon of transsexuality will disappear and that energy will be transformed into new modes of sexual identity and behavior.

~*~

I have noticed that many radical feminists latch on to her third point, overlooking the first two. Further, they make the third point prescriptive, rather than descriptive. Dworkin obviously meant that transgenderism will "disappear" after her androgynous feminist revolution, not that we should make actual trans people disappear RIGHT NOW. I think she is very clear on that.

When trans feminists initially read these words in the 70s, it is understandable that they felt welcome in the feminist movement. When they attempted to take their place among us Second-Wavers, they were rejected, trashed, outed, and accused of being "rapists" simply for being trans persons. Feminists who loved what Andrea wrote about pornography (including her legal activism), seemed to overlook what she said about trans people, and/or assume she had the views of Morgan, Daly, Sheila Jeffreys, et. al.

No.

Let the record show, once and for all, that she did not.

~*~

Everyone is welcome to discuss this post, regardless of your views. But the ground rules are: RESPECT FOR EVERYONE, including preferred pronouns. No trans-baiting and yes, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Make Andrea proud, and show some empathy for those people in a primary emergency within patriarchy.

Thank you.

Odds and Sods - primary edition

Left: Senators Lindsey Graham and Trent Lott, yesterday (1/12/08) at Tanner's Big Orange, Greenville, SC.



You'll have to forgive the blurry photo, but I was standing on a chair, in the back.

I was given the mistaken impression by our fearless Greenville News, that Senator John McCain himself, war hero, author and Republican presidential candidate, would be at Tanner's Big Orange yesterday. So, I hightailed it over there, only to discover that NO, he only sent his flunkies, Senators Graham and Lott. Also appearing, McCain backers, Greenville Mayor Knox White and State Senator Mike Fair. These are the heavies, folks. Mitt Romney has obviously been left for dead.

Tanner's Big Orange is as old south as it gets. We were generously given free onion rings (I skipped on the chili dogs, thanks) and orange juice while we waited for the legendary Straight Talk Express, McCain's bus, to pull up. Straight Talk? He isn't even on his bus, he is up in Michigan campaigning for the big numbers. Am I supposed to be impressed with that? And, um, Lindsey? Straight talk? Do we really wanna go there?

The place was jam-packed with southern hawks, diehard military fellas with shirts, buttons and patches letting you know which wars they were in. (One of them politely offered me his seat--yes, southern gentlemen!) This made me sweat a bit, suddenly conscious of my corduroy tie-dye skirt and long hair, but a few of the veterans had that scruffy, long-haired outsider-look Dennis Hopper used to have before he started shilling for Wall Street. These guys are SOLID behind McCain, and totally unapologetic for the Iraq War. They are there to WIN, as Lindsey repeatedly said, to cheers.

Lindsey Graham, to put it very honestly and bluntly, is one of the most charming people in the world. He is sweet, funny and whimsical. He has a million one-liners, delivered in his lilting, gee-whiz-I'm-a-Senator-can-you-dig-it? fashion. This seems like a sharp contrast to his style on the Senate floor, where he doesn't miss a trick. Nonetheless, when he started talking, I was jarred by the juxtaposition of the hard-ass, masculine veterans and sweet, nonmasculine Lindsey, and I am always surprised at how much they like him. Do they see it? If they do, they don't care. Lindsey, as usual, appealed to his military service, which he holds up like a banner in most political discussions of Iraq. And then he tells jokes. He'd be fine with ANY of the good men running for the GOP nomination, he said, except Ron Paul (whose name was met with a round of boos)...but Lindsey says he figures he'll have to worry about that when he is drafted for the NBA (he's short), so he isn't too worried.

About John Edwards (more boos), he says people don't realize that they BOTH were born in Seneca, South Carolina. In fact, Lindsey Graham and John Edwards were born in the same hospital! "I was born in the right wing of that hospital, and he was born in the left wing of that hospital!" The crowd ate it up.

I didn't hang around for Trent Lott, hey, I have my limits, okay? But I will say that in person, his toupee is something to behold. It looks much more toupee-ish than on TV, and you wonder, if he can afford summer homes and the like, can't he find a decent toupee? What's up with that?

On the way out, I spied two Ron Paul boys of college age, busily leafleting windshields. HEY GUYS! "They are trashing Ron Paul in there," I told them. They sneered in the general direction of Tanner's Big Orange. "Not too surprising!" sneered one. "Politics as usual!" sneered the other. Both chuckled that McCain couldn't even be bothered to show up in person.

Maybe, I thought, he doesn't have to. It's obviously between McCain and Huckabee here in the upstate, and judging by the tenor of the Tanner's crowd, I'd give the SC primary to McCain.

~*~

My piece on Spider-Man and Mary Jane, the non-marriage that has rocked the comics-world to its foundations, has been linked on When Fangirls Attack, as well as Anthony McCune's Surfer's Paradise blog carnival! WELCOME EVERYONE, and stick around!

~*~

Left: Graphic from Earthstation1.com.

Check out Ren's post, patiently explaining why pornography (and she makes it, so she knows whereof she speaks) is NOT the same as sex education. And never the twain shall meet:

Well, as I’ve said before, and as I am saying right now, and as I am sure I will have to say in the future, Porn Is Absolutely Shitty Sex Education. It sucks as sex education. It is, quite possibly, the worst excuse/form/whatever of sex education out there. Porn is adult entertainment. Pornographers and porn performers are adult entertainers. Sex Education rarely if ever enters the mind of a lot people in the porn biz, and yeah, they would do themselves a huge favor if they made porn less accessible to minors, but with the internet, file sharing, downloading, free sites, so on, I don’t even really know how much that would help. Either way, it is known that kids, male and female, are looking at porn and taking it as some form of sexual education, and that is not at all what it’s for, and the messages they are getting out of it in regards to sex & sex ed are totally inane, misinformed, and even dangerous.

A great post, really worth reading. ADULTS ONLY please! (Although maybe the teenage boys need to read it, in particular.)

GOOD WORK, REN!

~*~

Also check out Mother Jones' excellent article of last issue, Did I Steal My Daughter?--which is about international adoption.

And that's when it finally sank in: Beatriz hadn't made a "choice" in the liberating way that our post-Roe culture thinks about reproductive options. Like any woman in the developing world placing a child for adoption, she'd buckled under crushing financial or social pressure—perhaps even coercion. I'd considered this before, but had always batted the thought away by telling myself that Flora was going to be adopted, whether it was we who stepped forward or someone else.

These issues are regularly discussed on Marley Greiner's fantastic blog, The Daily Bastardette.

No Dead Air Church today, but enjoy your Sabbath anyway!

----------------
Listening to: The Pretenders - Message of Love
via FoxyTunes

Babies having babies is a BAD THING

When my daughter, Delusional Precious, was a teenager, barely of high school age, she climbed out of her bedroom window in the middle of night. Repeatedly. Only she and God know how many times this occurred. She was off to meet winsome Video Store Guy (herein known as VSG), a cute, popular 21-year-old punk rocker and precocious son of a shrink, with a PUNK ROCK ACADEMY ("where all of the students are diagnosed with ADD") bumper sticker on his car. This went on awhile before I caught on, since they also carried on a semi-respectable, knock-on-the-door (Hi Mr and Mrs Daisy! Hi kitties!), leave-for-the-movie dating relationship, which was pretty smart of them. Anima and animus, I figure.

As the bikers say, I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night, and I emotionally (ha!) interrogated Delusional Precious at length after discovering her absence. If I'd known about water-boarding then, I might have given it a try. I asked her point blank, and she answered, also point-blank. (Ah, the honesty of Aries!)

And so, I made a Ob/Gyn appointment the next day. I may even have attempted to make the appointment at 4 in the morning, right after our conversation, or something unreasonable like that.

Backstory: At this time in my life, I really was trying to be a good Catholic, or as good as I could muster (which okay, probably wasn't so good). But at no time, did I think my religious choices applied to the fertility of Delusional Precious, and certainly, I knew it didn't have any bearing on VSG (also from a Good Catholic Family, or at least as good as a Catholic Shrink family could be). Images of squalling infants dancing in my head, I trotted DP off to the doctor to have her cervix probed and examined, and the coveted Rx for you-know-what, duly given. Whew!

Now, we can breathe, and the extended torture session can begin! (Insert Vincent Price cackle here) Of course, I would never torture a pregnant teenager. I was a good Catholic, after all!

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I am puzzled by commentary like this, in which adults hyperventilate over the kids using birth control. Do they want children to get knocked up? Because, you know, those are the choices, people. DEAL.

Kids cannot be controlled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is simply NOT POSSIBLE.

And who is getting the attention here? Girls. Girls get pregnant, girls take the risk, and girls have babies. Girls will be uneducated single mothers. Girls will be broke. Girls will be on AFDC. Girls, not boys. Therefore, this is all about GIRLS, and PENALIZING GIRLS FOR HAVING SEX. NOT BOYS. (Are we really having this conversation in 2007?)

I understand the desire to penalize one's daughter for having sex... but is it the SEX, really, or is it the disobedience that this symbolizes? I can honestly tell you, the risk upset me far more than the sex itself; the idea of DP having a baby with VSG sent me into a panic far beyond the panic I felt when I discovered her absence and thought she had been abducted by aliens (which would have explained plenty!). Having a baby with VSG: NOT AN OPTION. I didn't even consider this worth discussion. I (rather loudly) INFORMED HER that she would be taking the Pill, as of last month!!!! She shrugged and rolled her eyes, in the taciturn and defiant language of teenagers all over the world, but she DID take the pills when they were given to her. She did NOT have a baby with VSG, which proves that novenas and pharmaceuticals, taken together, are far more powerful than either by themselves.

Why would anyone deny this to their child? The logic escapes me. Do they WANT babies having babies in high school?

Bill O'Reilly, weirdly obsessed with sexuality of all kinds, has made major political hay by attacking the school board in Portland, Maine, for doing the Lord's Work, and making sure girls can finish school and have real lives without being weighed down by children:

The school board in Portland voted 7-2 to make that happen. The rationale is that some kids will have sex and the school must try to reduce pregnancies. Also, parents must sign a waiver allowing their children to receive medical care at the school.

However, that medical care is kept secret from the parents, in the birth control area.

Now giving sixth grade girls the pill is dumb. It doesn't protect them from disease and tacitly says that sex at that young age is understandable.

This is foolish, ridiculous, and irresponsible. But in the secular progressive world. The SP doctrine is to quote, "empower children" and downgrade parental authority because some parents are bad.

Dear Bill: fuck you.

Okay, let's say that I am a bad parent. Should my daughter suffer for that? Should a NEW PERSON be brought into the world, simply because I am?

And this new person who is born, will they be supported by---who? You? Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney? Pro-life Republicans? Ha! I hardly think so. No, a child born to my minor child would obviously be financially supported by ME. Where do you get off telling ME what to do? Because it takes a village, yada yada. You are telling all of us what to do; the school board, the teachers, the parents--by implication. You are saying: suck it up and get ready for grandchildren.

Who do you think you are?

If I write any more about this topic, I will degenerate into more "fuck you's" and that leads nowhere. Suffice to say, Bill O'Reilly (herein known as BO) pisses me the fuck off! He has millions of dollars to support plenty of grandchildren! LET THEM EAT CAKE, huh BO? Can the new grandparents in Maine drop the babies off at your door? I'm sure you have enough money to start several Sisters-of-Mercy style orphanages, all by yourself...so how about it? You are critical of abortion (although you notably and significantly hedge about whether abortion should be illegal), so what exactly are you counseling parents to do? Put leashes on the kids? Put them in maximum security lockdown?

How about you put your money where your arrogant mouth is?

How many babies are you promising to support, as the result of your self-righteous, ignorant meddling?

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Listening to: The View - Superstar Tradesman
via FoxyTunes