Updated to add: Tim Worstall informs me that Eric is actually gay, which just makes this jaw-dropping unwillingness to discuss the real world reasons conservatives are considered anti-sex by all thinking people even more pathetic. Eric, in your inquiries, maybe start with the fact that they want to legally discriminate and persecute you for who you like to fuck and move on from there to look at how women are also being persecuted.
Roy always finds the best wingnuttery out there, he really does. One of his latest finds is Eric—at a blog with the name Classical Values, which is just a shade to the right of “family values” in being a code phrase for restoring this country to a Victorian era sensibility—asks one of the most disingenuous questions I’ve yet to read on a right wing blog. For real, it’s that bad.
How the hell did sex get put on the f—ing left?
In case you’re wondering what provoked him to write this question, it was an interview between Susie Bright and Jessica Cutler. Eric can’t understand why Susie Bright is on the left, and his reasoning seems to be that a) all he knows about Susie is she seems to know her way around a cock as do a lot of liberal chicks b) which is really unfair and nice wingnut guys like him deserve a little of the cock-touching action but all the sluts are on the left.* Is it really too much to ask to have a girl and a couple of her bisexual friends tag team you before heading to the polls to vote for a ban on abortion and an end to comprehensive sex education and legal discrimination against those of them who might be leaning on the lesbian side of bisexual? Why on earth do the sex-loving ladies seem to think these things are at odds with each other?
If he actually read up on Susie Bright, he might have learned the answer to his asinine question, which is that sexphobia is generally a right wing thing because it stems from a combination of classism and misogyny, which are both right wing notions that are interconnected through the moral belief that women and the lower classes should be kept down for the good of society, which depends on their under- or unpaid labor. I learned that reading Marxist-influenced pro-pervert Susie Bright. The right wing war on birth control is emblematic of this theory—by banning or strictly controlling contraception, sex education, and abortion, it’s easier for men to dominate women and it’s easier for the upper classes to reserve the pleasures of non-procreative sex for themselves, because they’ll always be able to both afford to get whatever protection they need and be legally shielded through wealth from being held accountable for breaking anti-birth control laws.
Of course, the real world debate over women’s sexual freedom doesn’t even enter into Eric’s radar. He mainly doesn’t get why anyone on the right would want to control ability of men to purchase the opportunity to have a sexual experience involving a woman whose body is routed for his pleasure and not put to use for her own—his entire defense of a right wing view of sexual liberation is the male right to purchase and use pornography and the male right to use prostitutes. I’m serious —right after he gives the entire ownership of sex to the left, he follows it up with a semi-defining statement that made me jaw drop.
How the hell did sex get put on the f—ing left?
Really, since when are centerfolds images of cultural and political leftism?
Sex=centerfolds. I’ve read a lot of sexist oinking pigs define sex in ways that obscure that women have desire, but I’ve never heard one that obscured that women have 3 dimensional bodies. He does extend his defense to prostitution and gay sex, but not gay people—he doesn’t rouse himself to defend gay marriage or fight against discrimination, leaving room for horrible laws affecting gay people while allowing straight-identified people to enjoy same sex couplings, a la Larry Craig or the imaginary bisexual free spirits who hate legal abortion. But not a whiff of one of the most common manifestations of sexphobia in this country outside of homophobia—the anti-choice movement. It’s almost as if women aren’t rights-bearing people worth mentioning, just warm, inviting holes that could be available for purchase if it weren’t for those damn anti-prostitution laws.
So Eric’s real question is not why are righties against sex—the misogynist manifestations of sexphobia appear not to bother him a whit. His question is why do some right wingers want to control male access to one-sided sexual experiences that discount female desire? Which is a good question, actually, and I have an answer. The short answer is: They don’t. They just want to restrict some men from the pleasure of using women’s bodies for non-mutual sexual experiences. The problem with porn and prostitution being legal is that it puts these pleasures in the hands of working class men, and they’d prefer to keep them in the hands of the rich and powerful. Which is why David Vitter doesn’t get in trouble with the very people who’d ban the schmoes from buying a $5 Playboy at the corner store. The capitalist patriarchy is almost as anti-working class men as it is anti-woman. Attempts to find male solidarity in oppressing women across classes tends to fall apart after awhile; smart men realize that they’d be better off seeing women as sisters instead of seeking an unattainable society where women are oppressed for the benefit of all men in an egalitarian-to-men sort of way.
I don’t think it is rational for Republicans to declare war on sex and to appear to embrace erotophobia, because of their traditional “leave people alone” philosophy, but there’s not a damned thing I can do about it except write posts like this.
Because the “leave people alone” philosophy, aka “libertarianism”, is a lie told to sucker stupid people into believing there’s something progressive about a neo-feudalist society. That has been Simple Answers To Stupid Questions You Should Have Asked.
*Or, per the update, his audience. But I imagine that gay Republicans have the same problem of wondering why on earth so many of their potential sex partners are less than eager to sign up for a wholesale loss of basic rights.
112 Responses to “Hey, did anyone notice the right was anti-sex? Who knew?”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
“Sex=centerfolds.”
Actually, I think his assumption–probably empirically well-grounded–is that sex=spanking-the-monkey.
Maybe he should read Susie’s essay, “Dan Quayle’s Dick.”
While I was waiting for that comment to go through, I realized that essay is totally the wrong word. Oh, well…it’s entertaining as hell.
Hmm the author must not go out to the adult section of the newstand because Playboy’s aren’t Five dollars. No magazine these days is. I wish mags were five bucks each.
I wonder when the somethingawfull list of the eight worst minorities is going to be discussed on the internet. The number one worst minority was white Christian males.
“They’ve ruled the world for hundreds of years. They control the great nations, the governments, the money, and the largest businesses. They are the ruling class of mankind…and boy do they bitch. They live in constant fear of becoming a minority, but by the way they complain and carry on it would be easy to assume they were already in shackles and subjugated beneath the oppressive heel of the Black Gay Atheist World Order Government.”
go here http://www.somethingawful.com/d/most-awful/most-awful-minorities.php?page=8 to read the rest and see the seven other worst minorities.
You found me out. I don’t buy Playboy.
I have a weird sense I’m supposed to be ashamed or something, but I’m not.
That’s because women are incapable of true detachment. For women, everything is always so personal. (Hadn’t you heard?) Which is why women will often act in opposition to the interests of the Logical Male, whose watchword is: “I know that once I get her into bed, I can get her to do anything else I want.”*
*This barb is not aimed all men nor at most men…but guys who decorate their sites with images of homoerotic Greek statues backed by arborfuls of blossoming roses and who also like to maunder on about how brothels are cool because they’re in the “classical tradition” aggravate me. They just do. I consider them fair game.
There are no words. What a fucking idiot.
which is really unfair and nice wingnut guys like him deserve a little of the cock-touching action but all the sluts are on the left
I can’t even imagine what kind of sexual fantasies he has.
Fucking cute left-wing hippie bitches perhaps. He is the right-wing daddyo. All they need is a little right-wing cock and shout Praise Jesus!!! as he gives them their most stupendous orgasm ever.
Whatever gets you through the night, asshole.
So, he’s a libertarian? Who wants to restore “classical values”? Like, because everyone was so free to do whatever they wanted in ancient Rome?
…Okay.
Well, classical in the sense that the Victorian era was the classic period for wingnuts—capitalists free to fuck over the rest of us, and even further back, white people free to own black people. Yes, it’s not the normal definition of “liberty”, but if you simply assume that women, non-white people and the working class are not rights-bearing people, it works.
At this point I’m supporting any party, movement, or ideology that would get those damn John Q TV ads off Pandagon . . .
MAJeff,
Is that essay, or whatever, online?
Dan S., you took the words right out of my mouth. Forgive me if this has already been flogged, but what is up with that? If I want to look at huge titted women in ads, I can go to Kos…
I dunno. I can’t even recall which book it’s in, and I moved recently so I don’t even know which shelves to look on for her books.
I’m one of those weird gay men whose sexual politics and ethics were probably shaped more by Susie Bright and Pat(rick) Califia than by gay male liberationists. Yeah, there’s overalp, but my sexuality is heavily influenced by feminism (which I can’t say about tons of men I’ve known and/or encountered).
Wow, that guy needs to look at himself. I mean realllly look at himself. The reason such women are from the left is that sex is feared on the right. There are no sexually-liberated women on the right because they are castigated rather than celebrated if they act like they enjoy sex, want sex, and want to be an equal partner while doing so.
As a very simple example, Hilary Clinton would make a much better lover than Ann Coulter any day or night of any week. Why? For starters she wouldn’t be hung up on whether or not she could get college-age Republicans to believe her bullshit if they found out she enjoyed sex in ways other than dressing up in leather and whipping college-age Republican asses. Plus, she’d be worried that Regnery wouldn’t publish the details unless she had them wear Ted Kennedy masks while penetrating said asses using dildoes shaped like whiskey bottles or convertibles.
Simply put: Smart girls don’t fuck anti-choice boys. Getting naked with a man who openly feels that you should have your bodily integrity owned and exploited by the state for the purposes of male dominance just can’t end well.
But, Amanada! How on Earth are you supposed to figure out what you’re supposed to look like? You’ll have nothing to rely on but movies, billboards, television, other magazines, catalogs, and store-mannequins!
I keep going to the beauty store and asking for an airbrushing machine but they laugh at me.
I made a similar point at Feministe several months ago, and boy did that ever start a flamewar…
Why don’t women want to fuck wingnuts? Someone actually asked that? Good lord, I had no idea it was this bad.
On a related note to the original blog post, this guy should get Frau Coulter’s number. I seem to recall that one of her big complaints about liberals was “joyless sex.” I was surprised, because up to that point I’d thought that female orgasms were pretty cool. Turns out, they’re not. The more you know…
I made a similar point at Feministe several months ago, and boy did that ever start a flamewar…
Well, some people are stubbornly literal. Smart girls can fuck anti-choice boys. You just gotta know that it can’t be serious and when he starts demanding that you produce the babies that you should be making, laugh at him and tell him that you give birth 5 minutes after he comes and drown his tiny babies in the toilet.
Well, there are lots of advantages to keeping women (at least your women) chaste and ignorant. As Florence King points out on page 38 of Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, when she discussed the classic toast to white female virginity, you:
a) get to justify slavery and segregation on the grounds that “We need to keep our girls pure.”
b) get to harrass, torment and rape lower class women, whether they’re African-American, Irish, Chinese, Mexican, etc, because hey, a man’s got to sow his wild oats, and those upper class women are just too cold to understand a man’s needs.
c) keep those same African-American, Irish, Chinese, Mexican, etc. women down (along with their men) because, hey, they slept with you, didn’t they? Whether or not they did so willingly, that automatically proves that they are low class, and gives you the excuse to treat them accordingly.
d) get to make sure when your wild oats are finally sown, you can find an upper class virgin who’s utterly ignorant of sex. Not only will she think you’re the best lover she’s ever had (since you’re the only lover she’s ever had), she’ll believe any fairy tale you want to tell her about that mysterious rash you’ve suddenly developed. (”Oh, honey, I just got that off a public toilet seat.”)
e) get to tell her, if you’re a bad lover, that “good women don’t like sex”, thus make her feel guilty for wanting something better.
f) get a ready made excuse to cheat on her if she’s a bad lover.
g) get the best war going excuse of all time; “We’ve got to protect our women from those (fill in the blank of current threat)!”
I seem to recall that one of her big complaints about liberals was “joyless sex.” I was surprised, because up to that point I’d thought that female orgasms were pretty cool.
Well, if you hate women, you define the joy in sex in the pleasure of seeing the bitch suffer, I suppose. Which is why prostitution=sex. God forbid fucking someone who wants it, and if you get the impression that she’s basically being raped for cash, even better! Liberals really want to take away the pleasures of rape-for-pay. Next they’ll be going after regular old cheap rape for rape.
Amanda,
Yeah, you CAN do that, but in the odd event of birth-control failure, you might suddenly find yourself being sued for control of your uterus. Plus, even if you don’t get pregnant, you have to touch a conservative. *shudder* I’m not going to try to stop anybody, but I’d recommend against it.
Incidentally, have you ever seen the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where it’s opening night of the Producers? Larry is allowed to sleep with someone else as his tenth anniversary present (apparently, a pre-marital agreement made in jest that his wife decided to honor, anyway), and he’d been working on one of his co-stars for a while, and they were just about to do it in her dressing room… until he noticed a picture of Dubya, whereupon he called the whole thing off. I’ve never been prouder of a television character in all my life.
Not only will she think you’re the best lover she’s ever had (since you’re the only lover she’s ever had)
“You’re the best because you’re the only” is such a brilliant and simple idea that I wonder why wingnuts and other powerful incompetents don’t use it more often. You could be your parents’ favorite child if you killed all your siblings. You could be the valedictorian of your high school class if you could stop everyone else from going to school.
Dan S. wrote,
Really? I kinda have fun trying to figure out exactly what is being advertised, without clicking through. What’s the significance of the “TV”? Is it actually a video media site? Is it a review site? Is it the Maxim of the internet? Is it just a porn site, no ifs, ands, or buts? Who knows. Sometimes I get the urge to click and answer the question once an for all, but then the game is over. The underwear around the ankles which rest atop 4 inch heels, together with the “Q” in John Q TV, makes me think it’s a James Bond thing, but that’s reaching.
(I understand the open advertising policy and agree, but the ads are disturbing. I take comfort in the fact that the ads are at least being viewed by a hostile audience, and therefore largely ineffective.)
junk science,
Hey, yeah! Dubya’s may have gotten a better GPA at Yale if it weren’t for all those curve-breaking scholarship kids!
Whatever happened to romance? Love? Is sex just reduced to two pigs rutting in a sty, Larry Flynt style?
If we click does it drive up the cost and make it so that the prices go above “Bullseye’s” rates?
And Eric shows up to compare people providing pleasure to each other to pigs rutting in a sty. No wonder we reject sex with conservatives, when they insist on dehumanizing us. then again, since I’m gay I’m already non-human to his type, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
Sex where only the man gets off=romance.
Sex where both partners are treated like full human beings with feelings and desires, where the sex can reach emotional highs and intimacy can actually be achieved, and people can lay in each others’ arms, fully satisfied and feeling alright with the world=pigs rutting.
Also, day is night and black is white.
That said, I don’t think it’s the same Eric. I’m not sure who this Eric is scolding—we romantics who don’t need a woman to be commodified for it to be “sex” or the porn-and-prostitutes-but-no-abortion-loving wingnuts.
Amanda,
If we click on the nasty-ass Bullseye ads, does it drive up the rates, making you more money and pricing it out of their range? Shit, I can click (even if it’s women) anc close quite well.
This isn’t the sex I learned about from the beer commercials… sounds kinda… gay
Obviously, feminists and other non-misogynists get all their tips on fucking from Larry Flynt.
Our sex is like heroin. Just ask Paul Cameron.
Jealous yet?
Jeff,
Maybe next summer I’ll take a vacation in San Francisco to indulge in, and subsequently renounce, all that homosinuality has to offer. *hat tip Mr. Show*
#
At this point I’m supporting any party, movement, or ideology that would get those damn John Q TV ads off Pandagon . . .
By the way, Amanda, did you know Google thinks your archives might install badware on our computers?
Damn, my trip to SF just involved walking around a looking at the beauty of the city. Maybe I’ll have to indulge myself the next time I go there (as long as it doesn’t involve going to a sex club where multiple people will see me naked).
I’m going to keep saying this:
Women’s sexual freedom cannot be found in pro-feminist men or in birth control and reproductive rights. Women’s sexual freedom is in our own hands!
Until women feel free to masturbate and discuss masturbation, they’re not sexually free. Until women truly, completely love ourselves, LOVE OURSELVES, we don’t have freedom.
To all women:
Get a hand mirror and check out your body. Buy a vibrator and have some fun. Feel confident that it’s totally normal and healthy. And if you need more info, check out Betty Dodson.
Seriously, if we’re going to criticize the conservatives for being such prudes, why the hell are we such prudes that NONE of the major feminist blogs regularly address female masturbation?
“I understand the open advertising policy and agree, but the ads are disturbing.”
There are very simple things you can do that block the vast majority of ads from appearing in your browser. Google is your friend.
why the hell are we such prudes that NONE of the major feminist blogs regularly address female masturbation?
Aren’t blogs kind of pro-wanking by definition?
The John Q thing is just a youtube or other internet media streaming service. Just tv shows you have seen before. The reason for the scantily clad females is they want drunk horny college aged or less males clicking on the ad. It’s a red herring.
Elaine Vigneault,
While I agree that every woman should own and use a vibrator, and be capable of taking care of herself (and, in fact, I’ve gifted vibrators to nearly every female friend I’ve had who a) I’ve been close enough to, b) I knew didn’t have one already, and c) I knew would not be offended*), but masturbation definitely isn’t the whole story. Giving up on partner-sex seriously restricts the possible range of sexual experience you can have, to say nothing** of the limited opportunities personal intimacy afforded by nonsexual relationships.
* Yes, really knew. Asking helps.
** To explain a bit: a lot of people are looking for sex in their intimate relationships. Anyone who isn’t is going to have a rocky time, since they’re going to keep finding people looking for partner-sex.
Maybe the assumption is we already know how to masturbate, Elaine? Maybe the Feminism 101 site should have the How To?
Well, it looks like he has been pretty thoroughly spanked in his own comments section. And he didn’t even have to pay for it!
Elaine: How old are you? I think a lot of younger women have masturbation pretty much covered, and don’t feel bad talking about it either. I don’t know that it’s quite the defining issue you’re making it out to be.
Or maybe the assumption was that we didn’t need someone to give us permission?
Samanatha, Eileen, and hbsweet,
I think you might have a bit of a blind spot, here. Just because you and your social groups are very open and accepting of masturbation doesn’t mean that a lot of women aren’t coming from places where it’s nearly unthinkable. I don’t think there’s any dereliction of duty in failing to talk about it wherever it might be tangentially related, but since somebody thought it was important and brought it up, I don’t think it’s appropriate to ridicule her about it. It is a legitimate concern. Of course, the regular commenters here are likely to know all about it, but we don’t necessarily know who the wider lurking audience is… maybe there’s a curious housewife in rural mississippi reading right now, surprised to hear women speaking as if they actually have their own real orgasms. For her, maybe it’s a good idea to give masturbation at least a nod.
Elaine, that’s true as far as it goes, but I like having a partner sometimes. And when it comes to partner sex, it’s important to have birth control, reproductive rights, and a partner who considers you a complete human being. Or any freedom you have won loving your own body is take back away from you.
You found me out. I don’t buy Playboy.
That’s the last time I put you up on a pedestal. The disappointment, the disappointment…
I have to get a birthday present for a much younger friend who keeps laying her sexual problems on me. I’m not really terribly interested in which of her (many) boyfriends is better in bed, or her internal debate on whether to bring a vibrator to work for the boring parts. I think she’s telling me this in the hopes of getting a rise out of me (possibly literally).
So I’m going to get her a copy of The Perfumed Garden to remind her that sex wasn’t invented by Generation Y.
“Seriously, if we’re going to criticize the conservatives for being such prudes, why the hell are we such prudes that NONE of the major feminist blogs regularly address female masturbation?”
I’m not a huge fan of beads.
There. Look what you made me do.
Until women feel free to masturbate and discuss masturbation, they’re not sexually free. Until women truly, completely love ourselves, LOVE OURSELVES, we don’t have freedom.
[Raises an eyebrow] And the male propensity to choke the chicken makes us free?
You may be correct in that it is a necessary condition, but it certainly is not sufficient. Intimacy with another person - emotional intimacy - is more important sexually than a detailed knowledge of your own anatomy.
IMHO. YMMV.
Elaine,
I’ve been assuming everyone knows about this site, but if not:
http://myvag.net/masturbation/
It’s just a couple pages on the subject, but if people didn’t know about this site, perhaps they will find it overall as nice a piece of honest openness as I did.
The point being–if all else fails, you could start your own site, or partner with sites like this.
To be fair, I’ve never heard of any other site like this one.
We had this in the UK when Thatcher declared the Conservative to be the party of ‘Victorian values’. This allowed many of us to point out that Victorian values included child labour, workhouses, indentured servitude, a limited voting franchise and child marriage. The Victorians gave us the word ‘Dickensian’. It also allowed us to crow at the string of sex scandals and sleaze perpetrated by Conservative ‘New Victorians’.
One thing many conservatives forget was that the Victorian era was also a period of extended low inflation (See David Hackett Fischer’s ‘The Great Wave’), that by the Edwardian era had created greater wealth in the lower classes to the point where many modern concepts, such as consumerism and the mass pursuit of leisure, were possible. That’s hard to compare with the modern era where inflation, unprogressive taxation and other economic forces are draining the middling classes of their wealth and preventing the working classes from lifting themselves up.
A little surprised no one has mentioned this yet. Or don’t you know? Eric is gay.
Lee, I suspect either you’ve greatly oversimplifed Fischer’s argument or Fischer made a simplistic and misleading one, if he tried to show that low inflation, in and of itself, is the foundation of greater working class wealth. By itself, inflation can bring benefits to some groups while harming others, and who gains and who loses depends on many other factors, mainly clustered around general political and bargaining power.
An extremely high rate of inflation, which generally brings complete financial collapse in its wake, is bad, but then again such things generally happen when a particular society is tottering anyway. People often recall the ruinous inflation in Germany after WWI, but they often seem hazy on just when it happened–not many years after the end of the war, when Germany was still at least partially occupied, and the Versailles Treaty powers (not the USA–we’d pulled out of that by then and negotiated a separate treaty) were still excercising a punitive regime. People often seem to mix it up with Hitler’s rise to power, which came much later during the Depression when inflation was not a problem in Germany and hadn’t been for nearly a decade.
But generally speaking, inflation hurts creditors and helps debtors. Ironically, in view of the hollow joke Bush’s “Ownership Society” is in the modern context (more of an Orwellian truism, actually), until the 20th Century American working people were largely farmers, and generally property owners on varying, mostly small, scales–and small-scale businessmen tend to be debtors. Indeed if you look at US populist rhetoric any time between 1776 and the Depression you’ll find ranting against big capital, and if you look at reactionary writing you’ll find fear of the democratic mob disrespecting the “rights” of big capital, even though the “mob” were generally property-owners, if small ones–but in net, debtors.
But by the end of the 19th century political and general social power had already been consolidated in the hands of rich creditors, and I don’t know about Britain, but the period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of WWI in this country was one of actual deflation and this hit the US rural farmers very hard, as they were getting less cash to pay fixed debts.
Again in the 1970s, inflation had a mixed impact on American working people; as workers could generally then get their wages to rise at rates that generally tracked the inflation rate they could keep pace with rising costs, and their debts, in that era before Reagan-era “reforms” removed restrictions on interest rates, were easier to pay off. It was the rich who were most alarmed and desperate to do something quick and effective to rein it in, which is where we got said “reforms” leading to usury on a massive scale, the vogue for “supply side” economics that meant basically leave the rich alone and tax the poor instead, Volcker and later GreenspanMan
http://www.salon.com/april97/comics/comics1970421.html
running the Fed, and the Reagan recession–which is what stopped inflation, by throwing millions out of work.
I’m very suspicious therefore of any argument that relies on controlling inflation as the be-all and end-all. I have Fischer’s book on Paul Revere, which is a good piece of historical work. His conservatism does color the book, however, probably to the benefit of understanding the times 200 years ago, but I hardly trust him in the contemporary context. Still, I imagine he made a more nuanced argument than your quick citation suggests.
I suspect that working-class prosperity in the late Victorian period (because they were quite miserable indeed in the early years of her reign) was despite deflation, not at all because of it.
Oh, great. Another Uncle Mary to avoid.
Eric is gay.
Like, we should give a shit?
Women’s sexual freedom cannot be found in pro-feminist men or in birth control and reproductive rights. Women’s sexual freedom is in our own hands!
Wait, I thought last week women’s freedom came when we could get men to take control of birth control.
I find your promotion of masturbation over partnered sex homophobic.
Seriously, if we’re going to criticize the conservatives for being such prudes, why the hell are we such prudes that NONE of the major feminist blogs regularly address female masturbation?
Mostly because we think that our audience is not stone cold stupid. It’s worth noting that every major feminist blog I’ve read has addressed masturbation, regularly, especially in our coverage of legislative attempts to ban it by banning sex toys in states such as Texas. Which sort of disproves that NONE of yours. But while masturbation is fun, you can pretty much guess I won’t be insulting anyone’s intelligence by writing pissy blog posts demanding that good feminists give up on partnered sex or whatever the weird demand on ideological purity is this week.
Just because I masturbate doesn’t mean I’m ready to hand over my birth control pills to the government so Elaine feels better about not taking them herself. Sorry.
“He does extend his defense to prostitution and gay sex, but not gay people—”
Care? Well, it does at least make that line somewhat amusing, doesn’t it?
Well, he was trying to dance around conservative attempts to ban gay marriage, as well as abortion, contraception and sex education. I’m not sure what his feelings are on the issue, but it’s clear that he’s trying not to step on any toes.
But the point is, he completely and utterly avoids the REAL reasons that conservatism is anti-sex. Doesn’t address a single real world, immediate issue. Gay men who join forces with those who want to discriminate against them get no more of a pass with me than women who do it. Have you seen me let IWF off the hook? Conservative tokenism only changes the core of the message for the slow-witted.
But thanks for bringing it up, Tim. I thought I felt sorry more for Eric because he read like a pissy straight man who can’t get laid because his politics are repugnant. No, he’s a pissy conservative gay man, so roughly the same AND selling out to people who hate him. No wonder he can’t think his way out of a paper bag.
He’d rather get on his knees and beg for conservative cock, even if they beat him for it, than stand up for gay folks. Sounds like most Uncle Marys.
MAJeff:
Is “Uncle Mary” the gay version of an “Uncle Tom”? And, while we’re at it, do you use the phrase “Uncle Tom” when referring to black conservatives?
The right is essentially pro-hypocrisy. They know that the pieties they profess are both hateful and unliveable. The point is never really to actually achieve a world without gay sex, or abortions, or anal sex, or whatever–it is to keep and use a big guilt/shame stick to keep the lower orders in line. One characteristic of a “middle class” in the social hierarchy is that they tend to be the suckers who try and be True Believers in the nonsenscical official lines; the upper classes know they have privilege to do as they like and not get held accountable for it while the low classes are beneath effective prohibition; they are presumed guilty and so can be treated high-handedly. Hypocrisy as “the tribute vice pays to virtue” comes home to roost mainly on the middle classes, who are social climbing on a flimsy rope ladder above the alligator pit of the lower classes and vying to be serviceable to those above them, to gain favor.
For good or ill, I had a hard time processing the double meanings as a kid–say one thing, do another, don’t get caught out of line–and tried to be one of those True Believers, knowing something was wrong somewhere.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/09/05/the-take-home-message#comment-1048
That kind of insecurity is grist for the totalitarian mill. Either one accepts that it’s all about power and privilege within the system, and thus becomes a rightist–or one turns left, to try and find a way to live where principles and real actions can be consistent.
If they’re people like Ward Connerly, more interested in kissing up to the white power structure and even gonig so far as to make commmon cause with the Klan, hell yes!
I think some people are misreading Elaine’s comment. I didn’t read anything that suggested we should give up sexual partners and masturbate instead. I read that women will not be sexually free without having intimate knowledge of how our bodies work, and what we like, and what makes US feel good (not what someone else says is a good thing to do sexually).
I think to characterize women who aren’t comfortable with/familiar with/experienced with masturbation as “stone cold stupid” and to characterize Elaine as an old woman who’s just out of touch with today’s empowerfulled, sexually free, masturbating women is not only nasty, it’s ignorant.
Do those of you who made snarky replies to Elaine really think every single woman who reads feminist blogs is fully aware of, comfortable with, and experienced with how her body best achieves orgasm? Have you missed the commenter after commenter who talked about being raped, molested, and otherwise sexually assaulted? Do you think that might affect how a woman feels about her body and her sexuality?
Elaine’s advice was good, even if you have personal issues with her (birth control? huh?).
Also, Phoenician, you don’t GET to come to a feminist blog and instruct women on how to best achieve sexual and intimate fulfillment.
Tinfoil, my antagonism to Elaine is a) that she lied and said “NONE”, which is openly untrue b) in service of her long-standing attempt to convince the major feminist bloggers that the fight for the right to use female-controlled birth control is a waste of time because she can’t use it . She’s insinuated I’m a spokesperson for Big Pharma because I defend the right to use female-controlled birth control. Her comment about masturbation comes in the long-standing context of her hostility to women who have unfettered sex with men through the use of hormonal contraception, and as such, I feel it’s reasonable (especially since it’s off-topic) to take her comment as another potshot implying that we owe it to her to give up our free-and-easy sex lives with men that are possible due to the birth control pill.
I’m not going to write a paean to masturbation. Even if I wanted to before, I’m now burned on it because I don’t want anyone like Elaine running with it as an excuse to give up the fight for female-controlled birth control methods like hormones or abortion. What makes her complaint something that insinuates my audience is stupid is that she thinks the feminist blog readers can’t cobble together a pro-masturbation angle from vibrator jokes, strong defenses of vibrators, endorsements of companies that sell female-oriented sex toys and just a general comfort with the issue. I’m sorry, but I do think my readers are smarter than that, whatever their hang-ups might be from the past (and we all have them). I’m not going to spend my time insulting everyone’s intelligence with hand-holding.
And why the demands that I write a hand-holding paean to female masturbation and not one to cunnilingus? Hey, it works and you don’t have to use female-controlled birth control to do it.
I found Elaine’s comment both misleading (feminist blogs do talk about masturbation on a regular basis and she was wrong to say that they don’t) and stupid (in that there are numerous resources on the web to learn the mechanics of masturbation that would frankly be better than a blog).
It was either misinformed or an intentional attempt to derail the thread.
Feminism is not going to magically solve all of a woman’s self-issues. It is a tool towards that end, but a journay that a woman has to make for herself.
Hell, if I wrote such a thing, I’d probably get nasty potshots about recommendations on how to do it. You need to be more explicit that no animals were harmed in the making of your masturbatory fantasies!
The comments here display a dichotomy that doesn’t exist: Partner sex versus solo sex.
I never said I favored masturbation over partner sex or that we ought to give more attention to self pleasure than to partnered pleasure. And all the comments claiming I have done so suggest we’ve still got a long way to go before we consider solo sex a true form of sex.
The right is anti-sex. PERIOD. They are anti partner sex and anti solo sex. And we ought to recognize that. And when we’re talking about safe sex, let’s also talk about the safest sex. When we’re talking about virginity pledges and how they don’t work, let’s recognize how fundamentally they fail, at a very, basic level. When we talk about how abstinence-only programs are bullshit, let’s talk about how they ignore the safest sex and give kids NO options.
Yes, there is some coverage of anti-vibrator and sex toy laws and whatnot, but search the feminist bogs for the word “masturbation” and you’ll see that the results are few and far between. We feminists really don’t talk about it enough.
Amanda wrote:
Where the hell did I ask you to do that?
My criticisms are designed to spark a deeper analysis. You can dig in and get defensive and go on the attack, but this isn’t personal and there’s no reason for you to attack me like this.
I am pro-birth control. I am pro-repro rights. I am pro-masturbation. I am pro-partner sex. I choose not to use birth control myself. I reject your anti-population growth reasons for shaming me into binding my fertility. I will do with my body what I like. I am a feminist. I am pro-science. I am anti-unregulated capitalism and anti-Big Pharma. I like your blog. I like your writing & sense of humor. I often agree with you. But when I disagree, I’m going to be vocal about it because silence = complicity. You can continue to characterize me as a nutball wannabe fundie, but that’s simply not true.
THESE THINGS ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE:
solo sex & partner sex
promoting repro-rights & personally abstaining from BC
pro-science & critical of Big Pharma
When I criticize you for neglecting an issue that I feel is important I am NOT telling you silence discussions of other issues. And I’m certainly not asking you to hand over your pills to the government or anyone else.
First this post from PostSecret.
The right has ’sex’ but it’s more of a controlled and purposeful act than it is for ‘leftists’.
My wife and I were talking, post ‘nasty’, about how sex, or more specifically ‘the sex act’ slashes across so many levels.
It can be ‘cold’, it can be angry, controlling, releasing, other worldly, embarrassing, joyful, playful, invigorating and many other things…
The right ‘has sex’, but it’s more of a ‘function’ then an ‘experience’ I believe. Those poor people…
Also, someone wrote a book or an editorial or something recently about how bawdy the ‘chast Victorian age’ really was. It certainly wasn’t as virginal as the ‘religist/cultists’ think it was.
Yes, the Victorian age was a time of a divided social system that had the pee-ers and the pee-ons. Ahh it must have been great to be a pee-er…
“Yes, the Victorian age was a time of a divided social system that had the pee-ers and the pee-ons. Ahh it must have been great to be a pee-er…”
It would have been great to be a “pee-er” only if you have no soul…
…okay, maybe that does accurately describe many on the Reichwing of the political spectrum…
That goes without saying…
Don’t you have to surrender your ability to use logic and nuance as well as your soul and sense of incredulity when you join the Reichwing?
Elaine, I have an idea. If you want to read a certain kind of blog post, write it. Threadjacking and making shit up about how NO feminist bloggers address masturbation isn’t going to get you the warm reaction you want.
No one suggested that solo sex and partner sex were mutually exclusive. But your bizarre insinuations that you smell an anti-masturbation bent to major feminist blogs was so much like your paranoid rants about how I’m shoving BC down your throat by promoting my right to use it.
Amanda, I don’t and didn’t know anything about the antagonism between you and Elaine. Her statement that women need to be comfortable with their bodies to be sexually free was a sensible one. I was responding to the comment she made.
And while I don’t disagree that “feminist blog readers can’t cobble together a pro-masturbation angle from vibrator jokes, strong defenses of vibrators, endorsements of companies that sell female-oriented sex toys and just a general comfort with the issue,” I hardly think that’s the same thing as a healthy, frank discussion about the female body and masturbation.
Are you “required” to write about it? No. And nowhere did I imply you are. What I said was that Elaine’s comment about women gaining sexual freedom through exploration of their bodies is a point well taken, and that (absent context I had no previous knowledge of) the responses from some commenters to her were rather rude. And she didn’t mention birth control in her comment, and neither did I.
You turned her comment into an opportunity to bash her for things she and you have apparently been arguing about before this. How would I have any knowledge of that? I don’t read all the Pandagon comments to every single post. I don’t even read the comments to most posts. I was commenting on the comment she made today, on this blog post. You were not.
Women’s sexual freedom cannot be found in pro-feminist men or in birth control and reproductive rights. Women’s sexual freedom is in our own hands!
When she finds the anti-masturbation quote from me or anyone—or any suggestion that we have said that you should wait around for a man to teach you to orgasm—then she has a point in scolding us for prudery.
She didn’t, you say?
Seriously, if we’re going to criticize the conservatives for being such prudes, why the hell are we such prudes that NONE of the major feminist blogs regularly address female masturbation?
Indeed, part of the anti-masturbation conspiracy we are. We not only refuse to write about masturbation (except when we do), we’re doing it because we’re horrible prudes who secretly want women’s orgasms to belong to men.
I’ll wait for that quote, along with the requested ones from her where I demanded that everyone take the pill whether their circumstances dictate it or not.
Granted, her comment could be read as simple ideological slogan-spouting, but her not-thinly-veiled accusations are part and parcel of her schtick of implying that feminist bloggers are secretly oppressing women on behalf of men. My role is to make sure that men shirk their contraceptive duties by standing up for women’s right to control their own fertility. Or whatever her complaint is this week.
Sorry, tinfoil, and I’m aware you don’t know the history. Elaine has a habit of dropping thinly or not-thinly veiled accusations that major feminist bloggers are a bunch of dimbulbs who are so beholden to some imaginary liberal male dictators that it never occurs to us that men should have responsibility or that women should have their own pleasures. I highly resent that bit of unpolished bullshit, especially in a post where I rail against the view of female sexuality as belonging to men.
Amanda, I’m a feminist blogger, too.
(I’m more a blogger who is a feminist, because I’m a diarist more than a journalist, but I’m a feminist blogger nonetheless. Please read my blog for confirmation.)
I don’t think feminist blogs are oppressing women. I’ve never said any such thing. Please don’t accuse me of doing things I haven’t done.
By the way, there is a good post and comments regarding masturbation at Feministe.
I never said any such thing.
I love feminist blogs and I wish there were more. I think you’re doing a good thing. I don’t think you’re beholden to anyone. I’m not demanding anything of you.
My specific complaints & criticisms of the major feminist blogs that I read (Feministing, Feministe, Pandagon, I Blame the Patriarchy, Bitch PhD) are:
- Lack of a discussion of the link between animal rights and feminism
- Lack of frank discussion of sexuality
- Excess of pro Big Pharma & pro capitalism discussion
- Excess of anti-women & anti-feminist ads
- Excess of discussion regarding & outbound links to non-progressives & their websites
- Lack of intro level/ basic information for newbies (Feminism 101 can only do so much)
- Seemingly greedy and elitist behavior
- Lack of adequate video descriptions and other website accessibility issues to bridge the digital divide
Those also happen to be the same criticisms I have of most liberal and progressive blogs, too, so it’s not reserved just for feminists. And I know my own blog doesn’t live up to my ideal, either.
Tinfoil,
Do you really find *nothing* inaccurate in the sentence you quote?
Women’s sexual freedom is in OUR OWN hands? Bull fucking shit. Does she mean perhaps that ONE ASPECT of MANY women’s sexual freedom is in OUR OWN hands? Maybe. Maybe she means that.
But it ain’t what she said.
Birth control and reproductive rights are aspects of women’s sexual freedom which cannot be ignored or subsumed — and yes, Elaine implied that they could when she said that our sexual freedom was not in X, but was in Y, which pits the two against each other. As a married woman who likes heterosexual PIV sex, I need access to birth control and to reproductive justice in order to enjoy my sexual freedom. As a woman who may not be able to safely carry a pregnancy, I need access to birth control and reproductive justice is order to enjoy my sexual freedom. Fuck, as a woman who has a medical disorder best treated by b/c pills (OH NOES!), I need access to birth control and reproductive justice in order to enjoy my sexual freedom.
My clit & I are on good masturbatory terms. Yay for us. But those terms do NOT equal my sexual freedom. Elaine’s sentence implies that my willingness to vibrate myself to happy land indicates that I have obtained sexual freedom, but this is not a necessary and sufficient condition. Other parameters apply.
Also, implying that sexual freedom is in “women’s hands” suggest that any external barriers to masturbatory nirvana are conquerable by women, as the power lies in their own hands. This is not true for anorgasmic women, or for god’s sake, the majority of women who’ve undergone female genital surgeries.
Basically, like most of Elaine’s arguments, this one too is bunk.
OK, I took the plunge into this JohnQ TV so the rest of you don’t have to. It appears to be some kind of paid-subscription internet TV service requiring a special browser plugin. It markets primarily to men, and Playboy and Maxim are among the channels offered; but it is not primarily dedicated to erotica. ESPN, Spike, and EmptyV are also offered.
I do agree that the scantily-clad women are antithetical to the aims of this blog. What’s more, some of them are not even that attractive. They’re undernourished and their boobs are fake. That’s not attractive to me, that’s what modern show business is trying to sell me.
Mandolin, that’s not what I meant. And I think you know that. Stop building strawElaines.
To clarify my statement:
I was talking about women capable of sexual pleasure. When I talk about sexual freedom, I mean freedom of sexual pleasure and expression.
I do not mean the freedom to do with your body and organs as you please. I would call that bodily autonomy or just basic freedom. This type of freedom is a necessary foundation for all other types of freedoms.
Most reproductive rights, to me, fall under the basic bodily autonomy umbrella. They are basic rights to control one’s own body. They are essential and necessary.
When we move on to discuss sexual freedoms (such as the freedom to choose consenting adult partners or no partner, the right to marry the person you love, the right to express your affection in public (kissing), the freedom to be ‘out’ with your kinks, the right to engage in private acts or own toys…) we should include a discussion of masturbation.
So, that’s what I meant. Pro-feminist men are good. Birth control is good. But it’s not enough.
I’m just astonished that my response here that we should talk about masturbation in the comments to a post about a return to Victorian era sexual repression (when masturbation was BIG FAT no-no), erotica writer Susie Bright (who’s words many people masturbate to), the fundies’ insane sexphobia (their belief that women should only experience sexual pleasure during procreation) and pornography (often a masturbatory tool) is called a “threadjack” and “scolding”.
I know it’s purely because I used my real name for this comment and it’s not really the content of my comment. It’s because Amanda and some others have put me on their shitlists since we disagree on other issues. Oh well.
Elaine, you’ve now made the conversation about your pet issue of the day. Congratulations on your stellar trolling abilities. How many threads a week do you turn into threads about how the feminist bloggers you read don’t write about your issues or your point of view? It’s my fault for feeding you, I suppose. This week I need to write more about how hormonal BC is the devil and next I’m getting called a prude because I don’t write about masturbation when you demanded it now to have been finished yesterday. Whatever.
If you’re so eager to write a paean to masturbation, no one is stopping you. But if I ever had the urge, thinking about your trolling has probably scared me off permanently. You don’t just show up, tell me that I’m as much a prude as the wingnuts because I didn’t write what you expected me to write at some point in the past, and expect a good reaction. Or tell me that my defense of women’s rights makes me a shill for Big Pharma. Or whatever accusation you’re going to level to get attention to your extremely random spouting.
Re-read her comment. She did not say that if only women knew how to masturbate, we’d all be sexually free. And I didn’t say that either.
My point is that all the super cool feminist men and birth control in the world won’t make us sexually “free.” You’re being disingenuous if you’re saying my belief that women’s sexual freedom can’t be had without knowing our own bodies and being comfortable with them is the same as my saying women have all the sexual freedom we want and need.
Straw, straw, straw.
I’m just astonished that my response here that we should talk about masturbation in the comments to a post about a return to Victorian era sexual repression (when masturbation was BIG FAT no-no), erotica writer Susie Bright (who’s words many people masturbate to), the fundies’ insane sexphobia (their belief that women should only experience sexual pleasure during procreation) and pornography (often a masturbatory tool) is called a “threadjack” and “scolding”.
Elaine, I’m going to take you at your word here, and assume that you really don’t understand the poor reaction. Let’s see if I can explain it to you.
You said:
I was talking about women capable of sexual pleasure. When I talk about sexual freedom, I mean freedom of sexual pleasure and expression.
[…]
I do not mean the freedom to do with your body and organs as you please. I would call that bodily autonomy or just basic freedom.
By responding to someone who misunderstood you with statements like “oh, that’s not what I mean by that particular term”, you tried to redefine the terms used in the conversation. In the middle of an ongoing thread–where the definition can be understand from the context–this is usually considered an attempt at steering the conversation off track.
When we move on to discuss sexual freedoms (such as the freedom to choose consenting adult partners or no partner, the right to marry the person you love, the right to express your affection in public (kissing), the freedom to be ‘out’ with your kinks, the right to engage in private acts or own toys…)
Note you said “when” not “if”, another indication of trying to steer the conversation. And again, you re-defined the terms used in an ongoing conversation to suit your particular issues.
we should include a discussion of masturbation.
my response here that we should talk about masturbation in the comments to a post about a return to Victorian era sexual repression
“We should discuss” or “we must talk about” are bright red blinking warning signs that someone is trying to hijack the conversation.
So that’s where the “threadjack” complaint came from.
As for the “scold” complaint, you opened with
why the hell are we such prudes that NONE of the major feminist blogs regularly address female masturbation?
From a reader’s perspective, you entered the conversation
annoyed and/or frustrated (”why the hell”) because your particular standard (”regularly addressing masturbation”) wasn’t being met by any of the feminist blogs, and you assumed that the problem was that all feminist bloggers are “prudes”.
Is the “scolding tone” in that first post a little clearer, now?
If you want to introduce masturbation on-topic and non-chiding, you might try something like
— I think the conservative war on masturbation is a large part of their anti-sex strategy, and I don’t think that gets enough attention in the feminist blogosphere. How much of the anti-sex-ed movement is actually trying to stamp out masturbation?
or
— And let’s not forget the conservative war on masturbation in general and female masturbation in particular!
or
— Do you see the conservative attempts to ban sex toys as targeting masturbation specifically or just sexual pleasure in general?
I have:
Masturbation is a feminist issue
15 Benefits of Masturbation
Masturbation Liberation
You don’t read my blog, yet you act like you know me. Stop playing therapist, Amanda. You don’t have a clue.
Good for you. Now you’ve demonstrated what you already believed to your satisfaction and no one else’s—you’re so much the better, holier person than all those other bloggers. I await eagerly for your next off-topic threadjack so you can point out that you blog about subject X more than someone else does, making you morally superior to her.
Maybe it was my joking dig at Playboy that made Elaine single me out as a particularly odious member of the secret anti-masturbation conspiracy?
I dunno, Amanda. Personally, I only buy Playboy when an artist friend of mine has illos in it. They’re usually as asexual as it gets, but since he’s kind of “edgy,” they pay him for art. And good for him. I could do without the nekkid women, and I occasionally like to look at nekkid women. That said, I couldn’t tell you how much a new issue is, either.
I can’t imagine how anyone managed to live that long (i.e. into adulthood) without realising that the right is anti-sex (and the left has all the good graphic designers to boot).
Also, Phoenician, you don’t GET to come to a feminist blog and instruct women on how to best achieve sexual and intimate fulfillment.
Which part of “IMHO. YMMV.” did you not understand?
Cf this comment from way, way back.
As a white person, I don’t really think black people are as important as me.
IMHO. YMMV. I don’t have privilege.
Phoenician, seriously? You came in, declared that men don’t have a special privilage (which directly flies in the face of the women who see that you do) and then said that knowing your anatomy and masturbation isn’t as important as partnered sex. Which is very well and good for a man who doesn’t have a complicated sexual system hidden inside of his body and an entire culture calling his man-bits dirty and implying his sexual desire makes him bad, but doesn’t really work on a feminist blog.
You came in, declared that men don’t have a special privilage (which directly flies in the face of the women who see that you do) and then said that knowing your anatomy and masturbation isn’t as important as partnered sex.
Not quite. I declared that, from a male perspective, masturbation did not set us free; being familiar with our anatomy was necessary but by no means sufficient, which would apply to both male and female.
I did not state that it was “a privilege” (I mean, honestly, how on earth can you be “privileged” in whether you are afraid to touch yourself down there or not, male or female?), and I did not state that knowing your anatomy and masturbation wasn’t as important as partnered sex. I stated that it was not as important to sexuality as emotional intimacy (in the sense that the latter is often far more difficult IMHO).
Or at least that was my intention. It could have been worded better.
Which is very well and good for a man who doesn’t have a complicated sexual system hidden inside of his body and an entire culture calling his man-bits dirty
Oh, brother. I’m not even going to go there, save to point out that “doesn’t have a complicated sexual system” overlooks a whole staggering psychiatric hospital full of problems men have with Mr Happy.
All I know is this is getting interesting…
There is a link? Where? I thought the huge item was that deranged talk of ‘man on dog’ action if gay mariage was permitted. Now feminists do animal stuff to?!?!
Really? Between messages of masturbation and dildos and vibrators I hadn’t noticed…
Who? When? I remember a thread, I think was here, about the dangers of big-pharma and their love of the Bushies. I could be wrong.
Ads for AAA and Amazon are ‘anti-women’ and ‘anti-feminist’?
Like who? When? I have noticed a large number of links to fox.com and billoreailly.com specifically and that nutty freeper site. NOT!
Is there a ‘Feminist 101 FAQ’ somewhere that I’ve missed? Damn, I miss all the good stuff… Must be all the links to ‘non-progressives’ and that masturbation.
I’ve gotten the ‘Pandagon Rolled Newspaper ™ on the nose a few times. Usually it’s because I try to write a post that trieds to hard to prove a point and I get called for proving the otherside so very well…
Like what? Videos on how to be a good feminist? How to acheive that perfect orgasm masturbating while reading Hannity’s website? Or what, jacking off to Bill Donahue’s fomenting and foaming at the mouth?
I love a site that actually uses the ramblings of the reichwing fuckups against them. They are so damn funny after all…
Lighten up, OK. Stop trying so hard for the ‘feminist of the year’ award and join in the fight for our future…
Try shoving your finger up a straight man’s (and a lot of gay men’s) asshole and attempting to massage his prostate some time. See how it goes over.
I’m not gonna say there aren’t different issues, but sexual pleasure for men isn’t exclusively external, and dealing with the internal bits for men is highly problematic. Yes, a large part of that is related to misogyny and the notion that men don’t get penetrated, but let’s not oversimplify male sexuality and male anatomy.
Hey, I had a gay urologist. He said ‘there may be a little burning’.
HELLO!!! 5-Alarm FIRE!!!
I got a good exam but YIKES!!!
- Lack of a discussion of the link between animal rights and feminism
- Lack of frank discussion of sexuality
- Excess of pro Big Pharma & pro capitalism discussion
- Excess of anti-women & anti-feminist ads
- Excess of discussion regarding & outbound links to non-progressives & their websites
- Lack of intro level/ basic information for newbies (Feminism 101 can only do so much)
- Seemingly greedy and elitist behavior
- Lack of adequate video descriptions and other website accessibility issues to bridge the digital divide
Not to mention:
- Lack of shiny objects to dangle in front of one’s face
- Lack of tips on how to improve one’s golf swing
- Excess of people yammering on about things I don’t care about
- Lack of information on how to break into the screenwriting business
- Lack of heated swimming pools and gated parking lots
I could go on.
I myself have thought many of times that if women had to grab the primary sexual organ to urinate, our society wouldn’t have as many sexual hang ups as it does.
I myself have thought many of times that if women had to grab the primary sexual organ to urinate, our society wouldn’t have as many sexual hang ups as it does.
Possibly. I’m so jealous of fish sometimes - unless sticklebacks ever spend time worrying why their dorsal fin won’t stand up…
Maybe the sticklebacks need to speak with their fishie doctors about a Rx for “Sealis”…
JenLovesPonies: Phoenician, seriously? You came in, declared that men don’t have a special privilage (which directly flies in the face of the women who see that you do) and then said that knowing your anatomy and masturbation isn’t as important as partnered sex.
PiaToR is a rape apologist troll.
Maybe the sticklebacks need to speak with their fishie doctors about a Rx for “Sealis”…
They’ve probably been turned female by hormones in the water anyway. Such is life among the piscines.
PiaToR is a rape apologist troll.
Thank you, Pinocchio. The wingnuts at Common Sense still laugh about you, you know.
Maybe the sticklebacks need to speak with their fishie doctors about a Rx for “Sealis”…
They’ve probably been turned female by hormones in the water anyway. Such is life among the piscines.
PiaToR is a rape apologist troll.
Thank you, Pinocchio. The wingnuts at Common Sense still laugh about you, you know.
Let’s go, sluts! Keep up the good work!
For myself, if i realize i am giving head to a right wing nut, i stop immediately
PiaToR: The wingnuts at Common Sense still laugh about you, you know.
And I’m happy to know that there you found a blog where the regular posters are at the same intellectual, moral and emotional level as you are.
Ah, so wimmin aren’t just emasculating the males of their own species, they’re doing it to ALL species!
Good to know.
PiaToR is a rape apologist troll.
And as if that weren’t bad enough, he keeps repeating “Pinocchio” as if he ripped it off Jon Stewart.
Seriously, man. At least try.
did no one else get the sense that Eric was looking back to those “classical” as in Greek days rather than Victorian?
For myself, if i realize i am giving head to a right wing nut, i stop immediately
Just tell them that right wing politics makes your teeth grind…
Seriously, man. At least try.
Not worth the effort, JS, not worth the effort.
Ah, so wimmin aren’t just emasculating the males of their own species, they’re doing it to ALL species!
Mmm? If this is about the sticklebacks, check this out:
“The Danish Environment Minister subsequently launched a detailed analysis of the causes. The main conclusions of the report, which was published in 2002, is that feminization of fish is probably caused by natural female hormones. Oestrogens derived from human urine are excreted with domestic wastewater and hence may be discharged into the aquatic environment. A less significant source is synthetic hormones derived from contraceptive pills.”
So it’s not just EvilContraceptiveUsing wimmin - it’s all women! You’re a pox on the natural environment by your very existence! Stop peeing, dammit!
And paper mills and plastics - but never mind about that - there’s a gender to bash!
We will note with interest that, in the hysteria about EvilWomenHormoneIckies, nobody has asked the question about what testosterone does to fish - turning a significiant proportion of fish male sounds a lot more dangerous than turning them female. Or, for that matter, whether this is worse than poisoning them with heavy metals in the Sacred Cause of GDP.
Thanks for reminding me; forgot to take it this morning. Will chase it with an exta-large coffee!!
Seriously, though- living up here in Maine, the paper mill issues you raised are legit. But every time one shuts down, even temporarily with a layoff, it devastates the local economies and families- I seriously doubt, in light of that and how unfriendly an enviroment Maine is for business, that the paper industry will ever be forced to take responsibility and clean up their act. Financially, too many local people depend on them.
Rumford, home of one of the larger mills in western ME, has the highest cancer rate in the nation. The local baseball field is in the lee of the buildings and the air is horrendous- can you imagine letting your kids grow up in that town, let alone play directly under it?
I can name off of the top of my head some other towns with similar air quality issues: Jay (20 miles from Rumford), Westbrook (next-door to Portland, our largest city), Orono (where UMO is located), and “Stinkin’ Lincoln”, up past Bangor. Maine as a state had a few years ago the 3rd highest cancer rate in the NATION- Delaware was number one. Yet these issues aren’t being worked upon by our governor- he’s too worried about school district consolidation, county prison system consolidation, and forcing every Mainer into his pet project- Dirigo health insurance.
The problem, as I see it is in the U.S. sexuality has always been pushed to the side. Granted TV and openly speaking of sex has changed much from 20 years ago but just speaking on the subject is still taboo.
People have been brainwashed for some time that sex is dirty. From religious fanatics to politicians. In the end what happens? We have priests dicking little boys along with the politicians.
Amanda said:
No. The reason I brought masturbation up in this thread is that masturbation promotion does a few things well:
1. It shows how fundamentally anti-sex the right wing is. They aren’t just against partner-sex, they’re against ALL sex.
2. It helps focus sexuality as pleasure based rather than partner based. It’s an inclusive sexuality, not a divisive one.
3. It helps women find sexual pleasure without the need of pro-feminist men or contraceptives. In even the most oppressive environments, women can find sexual satisfaction through masturbation. Trouble is, in most oppressive environments, masturbation is a dirty word.
4. Masturbation is a tool feminists (and others) can use to deconstruct their own sexuality and “find themselves” or reprogram themselves outside of social constraints.
Why is #2 good?
Because it doesn’t make normative assumptions. If Amanda had focussed her essay on the title, how the right is anti-sex, instead of applying a heteronormative filter to a homosexual’s words, her point would have been better made.