Support Obama? No candy for you!

Okay, seriously?



What is wrong with people? It's Halloween. You're going to turn kids away from your door because their parents support the other guy? Really? That's some kind of ass-hattery. Little kids are little kids, and there's no way of knowing whether they'll swing towards or away from their parents politics as they grow. And I think it's pretty low to campaign through children, anyway--if you're giving out candy on Halloween, give it out. Don't try to push your politics on kids coming to your door. Disgusting.

Not a credible threat?

So, this is news.

I'm curious about several things.

First of all:

However, federal sources have said that the incident may have had more to do with drugs than with a plot to assassinate Mr Obama, despite local police claims.

The federal officials said that the verbal threats against Mr Obama were made during one of the arrests, but were not considered credible. "It could turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads, meth heads," a US government source has claimed.

They're caught with a spotting scope, two high-powered rifles with scopes, walkie talkies, and a bulletproof vest. What, exactly, does it take to be considered a credible threat?

Second of all: Who in the hell jumps out of a sixth story window and thinks that they're getting away from the police that way? For gods' sakes, I don't like to jump from six feet. Six stories? That's just stupid.

Craziness.

At this point, I guess I'm just glad that they're bad drivers and got their dumb asses pulled over before they could put the plan into action.

And that one of them jumped from a sixth floor window to try to get away.

Because it makes me happy when bad people do really really dumb things in the process of getting captured.

Wait... you mean belching *detracts* from your "hot" factor?

Oh, wait, no.
It only matters if you're a woman, I forgot.

I know I shouldn't be surprised about an article like this. I mean, it's on men.style.com. What can you really expect there?

And there's so much obviously wrong with the article. I mean, really?

It would be one thing if these female Shreks were cut from the same cloth as Roseanne Barr or Rosie O'Donnell. But the trouble is they're all smoking hot. It's their job to primp and preen and push stuff up to look sexy—what's the point of putting in all that effort if you're only going to undermine the whole operation with gruesome behavior?

Really?

Weirdly enough, I think that some of us have come to the bizarre conclusion- and bear with me, because I know that this is really advanced thinking here- that women have roles, desires, and purposes that extend beyond and sometimes don't even include "being hot for men".

Woooaah. Hold on, I think I'm getting dizzy. It's such radical thought, my mind might be blown.

I'm just tired of seeing the same old "women's purpose in life is get all hotified for men. Unless you're fat or ugly. Then it's okay for you to be vulgar."

And it's such a blatant double-standard. It's cool for men to be vulgar and obnoxious because it's funny. But women? No, no, no. They've got to be prim and proper and sexed up.

I have to say, I'm also tired of total dolts like this guy being seen as the voice of Manhood. I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way, either. How many times do we need some idiot half-brain telling us what we should and shouldn't find hot? How many times do we need some magazine puppet telling us that we should only find women like Model X attractive, and that women like Model Y? Well, there's clearly something wrong with you if you find that hot.

If you think that you're ever going to find a partner who never burps or farts, I think you're really in for a rude awakening at some point. But thanks, John, for reminding me (as if I needed it) some of the things I really dislike about typical "men's" magazines.

The only really good thing about the page is the comments section. As of right now, there are 17 comments, and it looks like most of them are actually calling the guy on his stupid article. Maybe there's some hope.

And I thought McCain's "I'm like Teddy" comments were bad...

h/t Latoya at Racialicious

So, let's play a game...

One of these things is not like the others.

Joe Francis is making my blood boil again, this time from the pages of a GQ men.style.com feature. How is it that, even from fucking prison, this jackass just can't shut up? The good news is that this article makes it even clearer, if that's possible, just how completely relentless his assholery is.

There's a particularly amusing bit where he's talking about his time in jail, and how it's not what he expected. He talks about how he's "a god" on the inside- that he's revered like a rock star because of his association with Girls Gone Wild. But, he continues: "The one thing I fear is one of these fucking people showing up at my house. I’m a different class. They’re dumb. They’re the people you see on Cops. Those are the people you see in jail."

Hey, Francis, speaking of "dumb"?

You're in jail, too.

Twit.

Still, that passage is really significant, in my mind. Not just because it's quickly followed by his making an incredibly inappropriate remark towards a female guard (who, according to the author, "gives him that disapproving-but-flattered half frown."), but because I think it's a strong message about how we treat and view people like Francis. Here's a man who has made a name for himself by being a violent, abusive maniac. Oh, yes, Girls Gone Wild is what started it all, but it's not GGW that made him a public figure- there are thousands of pornographers who never gain a fraction of the notoriety that Francis has.

Why?

Because Francis goes out of his way to abuse, humiliate, and intimidate everyone he comes in contact with. The Times article was the first time I really started to learn about who this guy was, and every interview he gives, every appearence he makes just further cements the perosna he's cultivated. Even the GQ article mentions it a few times- he's portrayed and plays up this image of being "a 15-year-old boy who just can't help himself". He's the very image of "boys will be boys", grown up.

If ever there was somebody who more purely embodied that ideal, and just how dangerous it is, it's Francis. Even the GQ article, which seems at times weirdly sympathetic towards Francis, makes note of how manic the guy is, and how it'd probably be good for society if jail broke him a little bit. We ought not tolerate a 15-year-old acting like Francis does. The lack of self control would be enough to get most of us in trouble at that age. And Francis isn't 15. He's over twice that.

But Francis's personal douchebaggery is only part of the problem... and not even the biggest part. That Francis is an asshole is a personal failing, and it should be enough to get him ostracized, and has clearly been enough to get him in trouble with the law. But the sad fact is that it's also made him a celeb. As he points out, he's "a god" in prison. These are people he despises- he calls them idiots, and does everything he can to avoid them, but they still treat him like a rock star?

Latoya quotes the most impressive display of clueless assholery from Francis over at Racialicious, and I think it's worth repeating. It comes on page four, when Francis begins talking about the people he considers enemies:

His enemies list has grown as he sits in jail, and it was recently expanded to include Access Hollywood reporter Maria Menounos, who did an interview Francis didn’t like. “She called me the ‘ever defiant Joe Francis,’ ” he howls. “Fuck yeah, I’m defiant! It’s like that defiant Rosa Parks won’t give up her seat. Fuck you, Maria. The ever defiant Nelson Mandela just can’t stand apartheid. The ever defiant Martin Luther King. The ever defiant Jesus Christ. You fucking stupid whore. If I saw Maria Menounos, I’d punch her in the face.”

As the tirade ends, he quietly starts repairing the phone he busted by banging it against the glass. “I’m not comparing myself to Rosa Parks or Jesus Christ. I’m comparing myself to someone standing up for their rights,” he says. “I’m just saying you can have an unpopular person who is criminalized and demonized. Jesus Christ was crucified by Pontius Pilate at my age. He was not a popular guy.”

1. When you attempt to point out a similarity between yourself or your situation, and someone like Rosa Parks or Jesus Christ and their situations, you are, in fact, comparing yourself to them. When you suggest that your legal troubles and the fight you've picked are somehow similar to Martin Luther King Jr.'s fight, you are, in fact, comparing yourself to him.
And you, sir, are no Martin Luther King Jr.
2. You're an unpopular person because you're an asshole, a liar, a rapist, and a violent maniac. There's a very significant difference between being an unpopular person because you're challenging the status quo in the pursuit of equal rights, and being an unpopular person because you're a violent rapist asshole who cheated on his taxes. Oddly enough, I find myself seriously lacking in sympathy for the second.

The article is disturbing, and I think that the author misses the mark when he tries to claim that Francis's "real passion is dominating other men." It may be true that he has a passion for that, as well, but his disregard and hatred of women is so thick, you'd need a machete to get through it.

And, seriously? He spent a year in a detention center that let him order pizza?!
*sigh*

Yeah, that's justice.

Why I hate David and Goliath...

I know I'm behind.

Aside from the fact that the owner of David and Goliath T-shirts is a thieving bastard *ahem* alledgedly inappropriately appropriated another artist's achievements, they've got a ton of sexist, homophobic, and racist shirts on their site. Woo, trifecta.

At least they got their banner right "We make stupid stuff so you don't have to".

Yes. Yes you do.

Let's see, there's the Miso Hor Ni and "Chinese" secret shirts. Or maybe you like fruit? Some conflating of cross-dressing with homosexuality, as well as reinforcing the same tired cliches about gay men on their your boyfriend is gay shirt. The statuatory rape is funny shirt. And pedophilia is twice as funny. Oh, and prison rape, too. Nothing like a little black stereotyping to get a laugh. That and domestic assault. Fat shaming. Mocking and endorsing eating disorders.

The list goes on and on.
And their response to the furor over the shirt just reinforces their classy image

Question Time: Enjoying art despite the artist...

Bobby Fischer is dead.

For a lot of people, the name Bobby Fischer probably doesn't mean a whole lot. But, if you're a big chess fan, you probably have some feelings about the man. Bobby Fischer was an American chess prodigy at a time when Americans weren't seen as "real" chess players. He reached the rank of Grand Master- the highest title you can get in chess- at only 15. In '72 he became the first American to win the World Chess Championship. He wasn't just an amazing player, he was one of the greatest players of all time, and- when I was growing up and learning the game- was a huge inspiration.

He was also, as it turns out, a huge antisemite. He denied the holocaust, and said, in radio interviews, that he was the victim of an "international Jewish conspiracy" and that the United States was "a farce controlled by dirty, hook-nosed, circumcised Jew bastards."

When I was growing up, studying Fischer's endgames, and learning about his theories, these aspects of his personality were completely unknown to me. Bobby Fischer was the greatest. Now, as an adult, I'm forced to reconcile my love for the man's talant on the board with what a horrible person he was off the board. How do you do that, though?

And it's not like it's just Bobby Fischer, either. I love H.P. Lovecraft. I think that his contributions to horror writing are remarkable- the man was a genius. Also a huge racist and antisemite. Ian Flemming's writings are filled with blatant sexism and racism.

I've been sitting here thinking about whether I can still respect someone like Fischer, now that I know more about him. Can I enjoy and respect the work, knowing where it comes from? I think that I can still recognize the great things that Fischer did for the game and his genius on the board while recognizing that he was a horrible person in a lot of other ways.

I think that with Fischer it's a little easier, though, because the game doesn't reflect his views in the way that, say, a movie or a song might. I can't watch Falling Down because of the troubling racism it's filled with, but you can't see antisemitism on a chess board. Then again, James Bond books are, as I noted, filled with racist and sexist imagery, but my reaction to them isn't the same as my reaction to something like Grand Theft Auto.

So, what do you do when that happens? What do you do when a person that you love or respect for some talant they have or some contribution they've made to a field you're interested in turns out to be... well... an asshole? And not just a run-of-the-mill "I'm a jerk" asshole, but a racist/sexist/homophobic asshole? Can you seperate the contribution from the contributor, or are they forever linked? Or maybe it depends on the circumstances?

Commercials make me laugh and cry...

I've been watching more television since I moved a few months back (the curse of having cable television again is that my love of crime drama and cartoons can be fed more regularly. Curse you CSI, and your intriguing characters and stylistic who-done-its!). One of the drawbacks of watching of television over movies is that, well... there are commercials. Most commercials are just stupid or annoying, and a few are kind of funny or interesting.

One commercial that I've seen a number of times, now, that's been really getting on my nerves is the commercial for Mirena. You can watch the ad there, too. Mirena is an IUD, is 99.9% effective, and lasts for up to 5 years. It's also, apparently, for women who "have had a child" and "are in a stable relationship". When you click on the "Who can use Mirena?" under their FAQ, it tells you:

Mirena is appropriate for women who:

Have had at least one child

Are looking for an effective, reversible form of birth control that's easy to use

Are in a mutually monogamous relationship

Now, my initial reaction was to be annoyed by this. It's the same problem that women who want to get surgically sterlized face- they're basically being told that, if you don't have kids yet, you're not the right person for longterm or permanent birth control. Still, I thought, there might be a reason... after all, pregnancy does alter your body, so maybe there was a reason?

So, I checked the World Health Organization's Medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use: Intrauterine devices page. A little research, and I learned that Mirena is classified as LNG-IUD. So, we take a look at the Parity section- that is, have you had children or not- and what do we find? If you're parous, you're rated at 1. That's good. It means that you are very eligible. If you're nulliparous- have not had children- you're rated a 2. Which is still very good, especially when you read the evidence note:

Evidence: There are conflicting data regarding whether IUD use is associated with infertility among nulliparous women, although recent, well-conducted studies suggest no increased risk.

(Also: They have a section for Romacing the Bedroom? Ugh)

So, yeah, I still find it annoying. But, I'm willing to admit that I'm coming to this with limited understanding of all of the medical stuff. Is there legitimate reason why a woman having multiple partners shouldn't use an IUD?

Moving on: Burger King has a new ad where they show what happened when they had one of their locations stop serving the Whopper. To quote the commercial- people freaked. It was "Whopper Freakout". Which is fine, if stupid. After all, if McDonalds stopped serving the Big Mac or Happy Meals, you'd likely get a lot of people saying things like "This is stupid. That's crazy." etc.

Near the end of the video, they give people the wrong burgers and act like it's the customer's fault. Which, of course, pisses them off. They see this as evidence that people just have to have the Whopper. I see it as evidence that customers don't like to be treated like idiots and want to receive the things that they paid for. I suspect if I went to McDonalds and served a Whopper instead of a Big Mac, people would get pissed, too. But, whatever.

You can see the part that really has me annoyed and confused at 4:30.

"If Burger King doesn't have the Whopper, they might as well call themselves Burger Queen."

I mean... what does that even really mean? Burger Queen? Like, what, if Dairy Queen started serving a shitty burger covered in Thousand Island dressing they'd become Dairy King, but since they don't, they're just a Queen? It's obviously meant as an insult, but I just don't understand what the insult is supposed to imply- Whoppers are manly and if you don't have them you're a girl?

I guess it's convenient that I think Burger King is shite anyway.

A commercial I did like, though, was the Mr. T spot for World of Warcraft. No feminist analysis, it's just him talking about his Night Elf's mowhawk or something like that. And when the devs try to tell him that there aren't mowhawks, Mr. T yells at them. I bet he pities the fools. It made me laugh. *shrug*

Mangina? Is that supposed to be clever?

I just wanted to share some of the ol' mailbag. On my post about the anti-Semites beating someone up for saying "Happy Hanukkah" an anonymous poster replied:

hey Mr Mangina, so what was it that made you become such a misandrist? don't blame all men for uncle bob making you touch his wee wee all those times.

I've deleted the comment, but I wanted to share. I deleted the comment because:
1. It was completely off topic. The topic of the post was about religious intolerence and Christmas.
2. It was nothing but a personal insult.

If you've got something on-topic and of substance to say, by all means, tell me what you disagree with me about. But, if your only intent is to personally insult me, do it on your own space, not mine. I don't blame all men for anything. I do blame assholes for being assholes, though.

Ho, ho, ho! Santa just keeps on laughing...

Since I mentioned it in my last post (in an edit posted this morning), I thought I'd go ahead and make a post about it.

I'm sure that most of us read the stories coming out last month about how Santas in Australia have been banned from saying "ho ho ho", right? And, of course, this was seen by many as being a huge sign of the PC monster. Look around the web and you'll see tons of websites, forums, and blogs decrying the move as just one more example of how PC people are ruining it for everyone.

Of course, you'll see very few people who actually admit that they were wrong, and that the entire story was bunk/a hoax/sour grapes from a fired Santa.

Anyway, I know that I've complained about it before, but, seriously, I'm so very tired of seeing people whine and complain about the horrors of "political correctness". Particularly when most of the examples seem to be fabrications or, at the very least, serious misrepresentations of the facts.

I'm thinking I should start compiling lists of all the things that are supposedly PC garbage that's ruining people's fun, to see how many of them actually stand up to scrutiny, or how many of them are total bunk. Anybody care to contribute their favorite/least favorite example of someone shouting "you're just being PC!" about something?

Go Fish: It's called "Shut up" with a capital "S"

Let the record show: I love Christmas.

I love Christmas for all kinds of reasons. I think it's fun. I love giving and getting gifts. I love decorating the tree and seeing it lit up with pretty lights and ornaments. I love wrapping presents for people that I care about. I love having a big feast with my family, and silly specials on television, and baking cookies and all that stuff. I love that there's this celebration of happiness and giving that happens every year during what is otherwise the darkest, coldest, grayest part of the year in Michigan. I love that it's a holiday about a magical fat man in a red suit who goes around the world in a sleigh pulled by flying deer, giving away toys to children. I love all the sappy and funny and happy holiday songs.

Except this one.

Well, there are actually quite a few holiday songs that I hate, but this is the newest addition to the list, and it's certainly the most egregiously bad. The band "Go Fish" released this, and it's called, for those of you who can't see YouTube, "It's Called Christmas, With a Capital C".

If there's one thing that I hate about this time of year, this song exemplifies it. Every freakin' year they come crawling out of the woodwork. Those people who are obsessed with making sure that Christmas stays sacred. They're the people who rant about how "Jesus is the reason for the season!" They're the people who get angry that someone says "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". In fact, that stupid song starts off and has clips from some "comedian" (and I use the term loosely) going off on just such a rant:

I remember when people used to say things like "Merry Christmas" to each other. Everybody said "Merry Christmas"! "Hey, Merry Christmas to you Mr. Longstein" You know why? Cause it wasn't about your religion, it was about something as a culture we thought was so valuable that we'd all do it together, even if I disagreed with the religion behind it, because it was good for all of us instead of just me. But what do people say now? "Happy Holidays". "See, I just say 'Happy Holidays' because I don't want to say Christmas because you don't believe in Christmas because I don't want to offend you" *blabbering noise"... ...Oh yes, we want to say "Happy Holidays" because we don't want to leave anybody out. Really? How come there's a ton of holidays in February, nobody every says "Happy Holidays" in February, do they? They say what it is, "Happy Valentine's... oooh, do you believe in love?" But nobody wants to say Christmas! Everything else but Christmas. Why? I know why. You do too. It's because it's got Christ in it, and after 2,000 years, he's still intimidating people. You see, when a religious person says "I am the way", people don't want to hear it! They don't! I say you've got to say Merry Christmas, because it is! You don't believe in it? Fine! But I,I,I have a flash for you: Christianity happens to be the religious heritage of my country whether you like it or not... ...So if you're not a Christian, or you don't like it, and you don't want Christmas celebrated, God bless you! But let me tell you something, if you think you're going to stop me from saying it because it offends you, hey I've got a flash for you: put a helmet on! It's my country too!

The lyrics to the song aren't any better. The chorus pretty much sums it up:

It’s called Christmas, what more can I say?
It’s about the birth of Christ
and you can’t take that away.
You can call it something else,
but that’s not what it will be.
It’s called Christmas with a capital "C."

Where to start?

Well, first of all, who are these people that they're talking about? Every bloody year, I hear a certain kind of Christian crying about how "they're trying to take the Christ out of Christmas!" Who in the hell is this all powerful "they" that these Christians are talking about? Where is this huge movement to get rid of Christmas? Because, honestly, I've never seen it. I've never seen some subversive atheist/secular movement to get rid of Santa Claus at the mall. I've never heard of mobs of angry Jews gathering at public tree lighting events to protest. I've never heard of legions of agnostics sitting on public fences decrying a store that exhibits Christmas decorations or has clerks that say "Merry Christmas". So, what "they" is out there trying to take Christmas away and pushing this mythical "Happy Holidays" movement?

Second of all, screw you Go Fish. If you're going to write a song about a made up movement to abolish Christmas, let's get a few facts straight first, okay? Because, as it stands, you, and whatever comedian it is that you've got soundbites of, sound like a bunch of morons. Let's start with, as noted above, NOBODY IS TAKING CHRISTMAS AWAY FROM YOU.

Ignoring the reality that not everyone is Christian, and, you know, not everyone celebrates Christmas- either of which is actually a fine reason to prefer "Happy holidays" over "Merry Christmas"- there's the little issue of what, exactly, Christmas is about. Nobody gives a rat's ass if you celebrate Christmas because of Christ. Bully for you if you do. That's great. But, I've got a "flash" for you:

"Christmas" is older than Jesus.

You can call it Christmas,
but that’s not what it will be.
It’s called Saturnalia/Festivus/Dies Natalis Solis Invicti/ with a capital... okay, well, that part doesn't work so well, does it? The point is the same, though: what Christians have renamed "Christmas" is really an amalgamation of a number of other pagan celebrations. The Church renamed the festivities in an effort to win converts- it's easier to get people to adopt your faith if you can tell them "Hey, you get to keep the same parties!"

It's not people like me who are trying to kill Christmas, it's idiots like the comedian this band pulled clips from. Most non-Christians don't care either way if you want to celebrate Christmas. Why should they? If you want to go around wishing people a Merry Christmas, power to you. But, this kind of obnoxious belligerence really pisses people off. As a culture, we're in no danger of not celebrating Christmas, okay? Seriously, the decorations were out in stores before Halloween this year. The bell ringers are still out in force. I see tons of houses with lights and tree farms all over the place. Every time I turn on the tv, there's another Christmas special on. Christmas hasn't gone anywhere.

But to hear songs like this, or people like them, you'd think that there were armies of angry non-believers marching around just looking for people saying "Merry Christmas" so they could gag them. Has someone gone up to him and told him "Hey, you can't say Merry Christmas anymore!"? No? Then what the hell is he complaining about?

It's a totally manufactured outrage.

Oh, and the bit about our religious heritage... That's fucking rich. You know what? The founding fathers weren't Christians in any way recognizable by today's standards, for the most part. They were deists, and they'd have probably found modern Christmas celebrations offensive and obnoxious. Most of our nation's founding members would have fainted at the sight of what a gaudy commercial affair Christmas has become. Do these jackasses really think that puritans or the Quakers would be cool with all of the hoopla surrounding Christmas these days? I'd bet a dollar that these flakes are Catholic, and I can promise you that our nation is not a Catholic nation, so you don't get to claim our nation's "heritage" like that.

Most of this is probably incoherent, but that song just made me so angry, that I wanted to spit. It's assholes like these guys that ruin Christmas for the rest of us. They're the main reason why people end up not liking Christmas. Well, that, and the whole commercialized, crammed down your throats starting in October aspect of it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to good Christmas music, and wrap presents.

Edited: Thursday, Dec13th, 8:50 AM

I'm number one! Kidding. Sort of. If you're looking for the lyrics, I linked to them above. They're not very good, though. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that they didn't complain about "X-Mas" (which has been common since the sixteenth century) or repeat the claim that stores prohibited the use of Christmas by employees or continue to spread the rumor about Santas being prohibited from saying 'Ho ho ho!'

Also: The song still sucks.

This headline pisses me off... -or- Porn stars are people, too.

So, I was browsing the local paper, and I came across this headline: Missing college student led a double life as online porn star. The story is about Emily Sander, a woman who went missing last weekend, and is, at this point, assumed dead. Police are searching for a man named Israel Mireles, since he was the last person seen with her. They searched his hotel, and found "a large quantity of blood".

Now, read the first line of that article: "A missing Kansas college student believed to be the victim of foul play apparently led a double life as an Internet porn star by the name of Zoey Zane."

What, exactly, does this have to do with anything?

At this point? Nothing. The police are looking into it, but so far there's no reason to believe that her posting pictures on the internet had anything to do with whatever happened to her. According to a close friend of the missing woman, Sander had just recently signed a contract for the work, and had told her parents, but didn't want people to know. So what does ABC news do?

Oh, they go and ask her grandparents about it. Nice.

Ultimately, this sort of thing pisses me off. It's not enough that this woman is missing and presumed dead, or that the primary suspect is likely making a run for the border with his pregnant 16 year-old girlfriend? They have to publicize her private activities? They have to confront her grandmother with this?

And the comments are worse. The very first comment to the article? "So where are the photo's Freep?" Lovely. Because, yeah, that's classy- this woman is probably dead, and you want to ogle her naked pictures. Ass. Over on this story the comments aren't any better:

"Missing Student May Have Been Porn Star"...That headline is taken from an abcnews.com headline...Does anyone know if it is true? If it is true, it would represent and sad and disgusting turn in this case. Therefore, we may all have been wrong thinking that this missing person story was as tragic as the other stories listed the ABC news site because there is no evidence they engaged in reckless and dangerous activities.

I know that other blogs have covered this before, in relation to judges treating sex-workers like shit, but, Christ on a cracker, this woman is missing and presumed dead, and the fact that she posted some pornographic pictures on the web represents a sad and disgusting turn in the case? Really? It wasn't sad and disgusting when it was thought that a random guy murdered her? And the story is less tragic because she may have done porn? Posting pictures of herself was a reckless and dangerous activity? Fuck you.

It doesn't matter what her professional occupation was- she's still a human being, and still deserving of respect and sympathy. Why does the fact that she's done some internet porn matter one iota? Why should it be less tragic? That she did internet porn doesn't make her more deserving of violence. That she did internet porn doesn't make the fact that she's missing and presumed dead less painful to her family and friends. If it turns out that she has been murdered, it doesn't make the murderer less sick, or the crime less heinous and deplorable.

The attitude that women who work in porn are less valuable as human beings or that terrible things that happen to them aren't as bad as if they happened to someone else is what is really disgusting here. I left a comment to that article saying as much. It's not enough to be angry and say these things on my own space, where the asshole who made the statement isn't likely to see it.

Character Assassin's Creed... More Misogyny in Gaming

I really want to post something good about gaming.

I really do.

Instead, I'm forced to keep pointing out the failings of games and gaming culture. The problem is that, despite my love for games, gaming culture remains a pretty awful place in a lot of ways. It's bad enough that gaming itself is treated like male hobby, despite the many, many, many examples to the contrary. But, when I read a story like this one, from feministe, it's enough to make me scream.

I admit that I might be late on this one- much of my online time is spent at work, and I don't read much gaming news (if they've even touched this story), but for those even more behind than I am: Jade Raymond is a producer for Ubisoft, and her latest game, Assassin's Creed, came out recently. By most counts, it's supposed to be a pretty awesome game. You'd think this is good news, right?

Not so much.

See, there are two problems.
1. Raymond has a vagina.
2. Raymond works in a field that is seen as male territory. She makes products typically made by and for men.

Now, really, neither of these are actually the problem. The real problem is that there are some assholes out there who see the fact that they find her attractive or that she's a woman in a "male field" to be justification for treating her like shit.

It started with comments about hot she is on sites like Kotaku and in other gaming publications. Who cares that she's working on one of the hottest games of the year, a title that people have been clamoring for since the first video trailers were shown, a title that's graced magazine covers and had gamers drooling for months and months now... she's hot, and that's all that matters. It's much more important to hear about how fuckable she is, or how much people wish they could meet her or find a "girl" as hot as her.

And the really sad thing is that these sorts of comments? They barely register anymore. They're so common in the gaming world- the constant objectification of women associated with gaming- that they're easy to miss. They don't even appear as blips on the radar to most people. It'd almost be more noteworthy if the forums and boards weren't filled with sexist bile. I can't speak for my fellow bloggers, but on the rare occasions that I do go onto a non-feminist gaming site looking for news or information, I know that I can't stay too long or pay too much attention, because the level of sexism and misogyny tends towards "extreme".

If it had stopped with mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers lamenting how they wish they could touch her and how hawt she is, most nongamers probably wouldn't be reading about Raymond, because... well... that's status quo. We're at a state right now where about the best you can expect is that any woman associated with gaming is going to be put on display and talked about like she's a piece of meat. Gamer forums are going to be filled with disgusting posts about her body. If woman plays or makes games, she's seen as public property on gaming forums, and they'll endlessly debate how hot she is.

And the fact that I've come to expect that level of misogyny makes me beyond sad.

But, of course, it didn't stop there. It didn't stop with those types of comments and it didn't stop with hoax postings about her posing for Maxim. Instead, World Class Asshole and All Around Class Act Dave Cheung decided to up the ante and created a pornographic comic depicticting Raymond as a bikini-wearing idiot who services fan-boys.

*sigh*

Nevermind that this is one of the major creative forces behind Assassin's Creed. Nevermind her degree in computer science. Nevermind all the hard work she's put in. Because a bunch of gamers have decided she's the hotness, she's depicted as a fan-servicing moron who can't even pronounce "creative".

As Holly points out, the typical sexist apologism has already started and is in full swing:

People can say whatever they want because of free speech! (Wow, congratulations on being lucky enough to have rights. Now stop using them to be an asshole, why don’t you.) It’s all Ubisoft’s fault for exploiting her as a poster girl! (Which is why it’s OK to treat her, personally, that way? Also, it’s part of her job.) Who does she think she is, wearing a cute top like that and standing in front of the other Assassin’s Creed developers? (Serious shades of Sweatergate right there.) It’s not her game and I bet she didn’t even do any of the real development!

Raymond and Ubisoft have been fighting back- a cease and desist letter was sent to Something Awful, and while I fully support her fighting to get the comic removed, I recognize how hard that's going to be- these things tend to become viral very quickly, and it's going to be hard, if not impossible, to find all of the comics and remove them. And, of course, even as she fights to assert her rights, she's demonized for it. The creator of the comic is taking her fighting back as a sign of "victory" of a sort- he's put a "Made Jade Cry" notice on his site. Classy, right?

This is exactly the sort of thing that I'm going to be talking about at WAM!

This is just one of many reasons why women end up feeling threatened and intimidated by traditional "male" careers and industries. You read stories like this, or the Kathy Sierra story, and you have to ask yourself, "if I knew going into my career that people were going to try to humiliate me and harass me and post disgusting, potentially threatening comments about the things they'd like to do to me, just because of my gonads, would I still want to get involved in that career?"

I wouldn't.

And if you show even an ounce of compassion, prepare to hear at least a few people comment about how she deserved it in some way:

Poor taste, but then Ubisoft must be fairly naive if they think they can capitalise on a hot woman in front of a bunch of undersexed geeks and get away with it. - fire&wings

The same stupid argument has been trotted out over in the thread on feministe, too. How dare Ubisoft present the producer of the game as the public face for inteviews! It's simply outragious! And obviously unheard of!

Because, clearly, nobody else gives interviews about the games they're making, right? Certainly, there are no men who capitalize on fame within the gaming industry. Miyamoto who? Hideo Kojima? Never heard of him. American McWhosit? Civ Meier? Williams somebody? Will right? Tommy "I'm a Huge Tool Who Reinforces Everything Bad About Gaming" Tallarico? Nope, clearly, Raymond is the only person who has been presented as a public face for gaming. Nobody else has ever been as much or more in the spotlight than the games they were involved in making.

And, really, I want to know how, exactly, Ubisoft was exploiting her to market the game. I've seen dozens of ads and videos for this game, and until yesterday I had no idea what Raymond looked like, at all. The ads have largely focused on the gameworld and the innovative control scheme (I haven't played it, but that's what the marketing has been about). Interviews? I knew she was giving them- but, again, that's her job- I expect the producer of a game to give interviews- particularly on a game as highly anticipated as Assassin's Creed was.

The interest in Raymond came from sites like Kotaku and from game forums and blogs and the rumor mill. It came from people completely unassociated with Ubisoft who were more interested, or at least as interested, in talking about Raymond's body than in talking about Assassin's Creed. The blame for Raymond being the focus of some sites coverage of AC doesn't lie with her or with Ubisoft, but with the sites themselves. Ubisoft can't force Kotaku to publish intelligent articles. That's up to the writers there.

Apparently, the creator of the comic released this statement:

Hoo boy. Who’d have thought 2 hours of messing around in Photoshop due to random boredom one night could result in so much DRAMA! Actually, it was probably inevetiable since the internet is full of morons who think they know everything (myself included).

So, to dispel some misunderstandings caused by up-their-own-arse moralistic faggots, here’s a “Buy Jade’s Game” MORAL-O-FAQ!

Q: Did you Buy Jade’s Game?
A: As a matter of fact, I did. I’ve had it pre-orderded since before I knew of poor Jade’s existence, since it looked quite nifty. Sadly, despite being promising in many areas, it gets very boring rather quickly, and has the most ridiculous plot since Star Ocean 3 (This is Jade’s game… with a Sci-fi/Horror twist). Oh well.

Q: Why do you hate Jade? Leave Jade alone!
A: Personally, I have nothing against her. I just found the entire situation of HER being more heavily marketed and gaining more “press” (and I use the term loosely) coverage, than THE GAME to be somewhat amusing. In fact, fair do’s to her working her way to a cushy position like “Executive Producer”, it really is the ideal job; since all you do is sit around doing nothing and get paid for it. RESULT!
But I digress, this has nothing to do the matter at hand.

Q: What statement are you trying to make with the Jade Comic?
A: If you would take some time to read the links I originally posted along with the comic, you see that the primary reason for it’s existence is the “Jade Hype” on videogame forums, blogs and “news” sites like Kotaku (lolz). Although Ubi-Soft UNDOUBTEDLY whored Jade out to an extent, it really wasn’t any more than how say, Cliffy B whore’s HIMSELF out. The difference is, forum nerds, bloggers and Kotaku (lolz) got rather more hot and bothered for Jade than they would for old Cliffy.
So, I suppose Jade could be classed as “Collateral Damage”, which may not be very fair, but honestly, if you really care about something as trivial as a comic, you’re a collossal faggot (that goes for you ladies too). A joke is a joke, and is only as harmful to you as you let it be.
When someone makes a joke about you, it is YOU who chooses whether or not it becomes EPIC BUTTHURT, not the other way around.

Q: What if Ubi-Soft sue you?
A: They won’t, because they don’t have a case. As obviously tastless and unsubtle as the comic may be, it is no different to (for example) Dave Chappele dressing up as R.Kelly and pretending to pee in someone’s mouth or cartoons in newspapers showing George Bush as the devil. It is merely bullying tactics, and would reflect more badly on them than anyone else.

Q: What is a “moralfag”?
A: A moralfag is a person who’s principals are so far wedged up their own backside that they believe that any any remotely derogatory commentary made on anyone else is unnaceptable, unfounded, sexist, racist and, possibly, EVIL. That is, of course, unless they are the ones doing it. Moralfags are also utterly convinced that their view of morality is the ONLY view, and anyone who disagrees can GTFOTHX!
In summary, a moralfag is 99% of DeviantArt users. OH SHIT!

Q: Are you a moralfag?
A: No, I’m just a self-satisfied cunt.

Have fun flaming, arse-lickers!

Well, there you have it.
These are the words of a person who considers himself a "liberally minded person".

And that is what we're up against. Even the guy who made the comic admits that the bulk of Raymond's publicity came from blogs and forums, not from any official source, and that she's "Collateral Damage", but, hey, it's fine, because, you know, it's just a joke!.

Har. Har.

At this point, I almost worry that I'm becoming a broken record. How many times do we have to point out "It doesn't matter what she looks like"? "It doesn't matter if you think she's hot- her attractiveness doesn't have anything to do with what she's doing"? "Judge her actions, not her appearence"? If the game is good (and it's been getting generally positive reviews, not that that means much), who cares whether the producer is attractive or not? It's still a good game. And, if the game sucks, why would it matter whether the producer was hot or not? Whatever she looks like doesn't change how good or bad the game is.

So, how do we get that across? How do we fight this kind of thing?

For me, one of the things that I do is, when I hear about a story like this, I make sure that I talk about it with as many of my gaming friends as I can, and I explain why I'm outraged and I explain why this is a problem. My hope is that I get across how important events like this are- how much it hurts women, how much it reinforces stupid stereotypes about gamers, and how bad it makes gaming culture look. My hope is that they'll talk to their friends about it, too, and that it'll spread over time.

That, and I post long, angry diatribes about how pissed off and sickened I am by things like this.

-edited: 2:11 PM EST-

More thoughts that I forgot to include...

I love how Ubisoft is getting slammed for "using Jade" to push the game (again, despite the fact that it's the producer's job to give interviews and raise interest), but these same people have been strangely silent about, say, the use of Playboy to push a game. Last time I heard, Kane & Lynch still wasn't about Playmates, so, there still isn't any reason for Playboy to be the major advertising push.

Anybody want to bet that these are the same people that complain that we're too sensitive about things like the Resident Evil controversy?

And yet, these people are apparently outraged, outraged that Ubisoft would let Raymond give interviews. I know, I know, none of that actually proves anything. Maybe I'm wrong, and these people are equally outraged about the Playboy thing, but, still...

You know, about one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. The only games that I can think of that might have more anticipation were Halo 3 and Bioshock. So, you know, this game was kind of a big deal.

Anyway, I also meant to mention that Luke, over at Shrub has a post up about this, too, and it's well worth reading.

Other related posts:
The Angry Pixel says "We Heart Jade Raymond".
Broken Toys nails it with "Clearly We Do Not Deserve Nice Things And/Or People.
Game Girl Advance reminds that Jade Raymond is for Real.
Shameless: For Girls Who Get It explain why you should care, even if you're not a gamer.
Rabid Space Dog laments that we have such a long way to go.
Elaine over at Confutatis.org explains the problem with the "It's Ubisoft's fault!" arguments

Monday Quick Hits: Comics and Christmas...

Good morning readers! It's the Monday before Thanksgiving (in the United States), and I just got back from a great trip to Boston. The weather there was beautiful, and Walden Pond was peaceful and relaxing. Now, unlike the Pirates Who Can't Do Anything, I can't say that I've never been to Boston in the fall. (Yes, that was, in fact, a Veggie Tales reference. I can't help it- that particular song tickles my funny bone every time. I'd say that I'm sorry, but... well... I'm kinda not. It's funny stuff!)

Anyway, it's amazing how, after a perfectly lovely weekend, fate the internet can conspire to ruin a good mood. To wit: this comic (the Oct. 1st issue of They'll Do It Every Time). I shouldn't be surprised, really. This type of comic- the "take a stupid stereotype and reinforce it for laughs" type- is depressingly common. This isn't exactly brilliant material- it's the print equivalent of telling an "Airplane food, am I right?" joke. And yet, this thing has been running for eight decades, and is in distribution in 100 papers today?

The entire joke is "your wife is an annoying nag who'll dish out unwanted advice inappropriately, but won't take your advice when she should!" Hell, her name is Annoyia. I glanced through the other strips, and they're not much better in terms of humor (Why is it that the neighbor who can cook well brings over tiny bits to sample, but the one that can't cook at all always brings over gallons? Did you ever notice that grandparents bring over gifts that need to be assembled, and leave dad to put them together?), but this one took the cake in the sexism department. I guess I should consider myself lucky that this thing doesn't run in my local paper. Ugh.

(For more regular analysis of sexism and stereotypes in comics, check out Feminist Allies- it's a regular feature over there)

And, of course, nothing brings out the gender essentialism quite like Christmas, right? Girls want Barbie, but boys go high-tech? Really? Let's look at the number one toy on each list. Girls... Barbie. Boys... Transformers.

In other words, the top toy for each sex? Dolls.

Look, I love Transformers. I really do. I still have a bunch, sitting on a shelf at home. They're great. But, well, aside from the fact that they turn into cars, they're not that different from any other doll/action figure. They're just highly gendered dolls.

There are a number of things that I found annoying about this article (even beyond the failure to capitalize "Autobots"- it's a proper noun, Reuters! A proper noun!), but the main thing is how misleading it is. If all you read was page one and the headline, you get the impression that boys are going high-tech, while girls are just asking for dolls. And yet, when you look at the actual lists, you find that, shock of shocks, girls want video games too! Coming in at number 7, we find that girls want Nintendo Wii, and at 8, they want Webkinz- which are an online "pet". Also known as... *drum roll* a video game.

So, sure, there are more tech toys on the boys' lists than the girls', but it's not like all girls are asking for are Barbie dolls and My Little Pony or all the boys want are tech toys- hell, if you count remote control cars as "high tech", the boys' lists only include 4 tech toys to girls 2. Of course, besides the misleading headline, there are other problems. We don't know a damn thing about how the survey was done, or to what age group. Were people given limited choices? How old were the children in question? How many of each sex were polled?

And, really, some of the things listed are so generic that it's impossible to know what they're really asking for. The girls' list has "Hannah Montana" on it. The cd? The video? Are there dolls? The game? If they're asking for a game or a video, does that count as high-tech? Same thing with Dora the Explorer- there are dozens of video games and learning modules for computer systems out under the Dora brand. How do we know?

And, ultimately, there's absolutely no analysis here- Reuters just says "hey, boys like tech stuff, girls like dolls" as though that's the whole story. There's no attempt to understand why girls' lists include the things they do, or why it might be that the lists are so very gendered (the only cross-over are the Wii and Elmo). I guess I shouldn't expect much of that kind of analysis from Reuters, but, really, without any analysis, what's the point?

The intersection of Racism, Sexism, and Commerce...

Lauren, of Faux Real Tho, had an... interesting experience at a gas station recently. This post reminded me of some of my own experiences living and working in a college town.

I used to work retail at one of the largest bookstore chains in the United States. No, I won't mention names on here. *cough, cough* Excuse, me. Anyway, over the course of my time working at the bookstore, and living near two major colleges, I found myself in situations not entirely unlike the one Lauren describes.

It's interesting to me, because the attendant was treating Lauren the way that I expect most sexist asshole clerks treat other men. This is how it usually went for me: I'm standing in line waiting to make a purchase, and the woman in front of me catches the clerk's attention. He watches her as she leaves, and I'm waiting to make my purchase. Clerk takes my purchase and rings it through and starts talking to me like we're old friends- "Daaamn, she was hot. (insert comment about her chest or ass). I'd totally hit that in a heartbeat, right?" The exact words change, but the idea remains the same- the clerk thinks that the customer is hot, and wants to make it clear to me. And, of course, because I'm a guy, he expects that I'll agree with and appreciate the remark.

I suspect that a lot of other men have been there.

Of course, it's not just register jockeys that make grossly inappropriate, sexist, racist remarks. When I was working at the bookstore, the customers would frequently make horrible comments to me, both about other customers and about my fellow employees. Even if you take the blatantly creepy people out of the equation- the guy who would position himself so that he could see up women's skirts when they rode the escalator, the guy who'd take pornography into the children's section and leave it there, etc- there were plenty of people who were just huge assholes.

Two incidents stick out at me. The first was a group of teenage boys who were hanging out in our store all day. They were annoying, but not really doing anything particularly troublesome, until they discovered that they could look down women's shirts if they leaned over the railing looking down into the middle of the store (where the escalators were). I realized this is what they were doing when they began making very loud comments about a woman's chest and cat-calling her.

In the middle of my store.
At 4:30 in the afternoon.
On a weekend.

Before I could get to them, another employee (Hi, Nat!) dressed them down and, I believe, kicked them out. But, this is a busy store at one of the busiest times of the week, and these guys didn't think they were doing anything wrong by sexually harassing our customers. That's a big problem.

The other incident was a case of racism. I was covering the music department for a break, and we were listening to something- Shivaree, maybe? I don't remember now- but something like that. A customer came back, and asked what cd was in, and I figured he was thinking about buying it (whatever it was, I thought it was listenable), so I told him and started to tell him what I knew about whatever group it was. He cut me off with something like "well, it's really terrible. It's just awful. The worst thing you've ever played in here, hands down." Then he walked away.

Ten minutes or so later, another employee came back and we were going over a display chart, when this same guy comes back over. "I just wanted to let you know again, this is the worst thing you've played in here" he says. I look at him and tell him that I'll let my manager know, and before I can say anything else, and to my shock, he says "It sounds like one of those Jap groups or something. They'd play them when I was over in Vietnam last year, and they all sound the same- singing in Japanese or Chinese or whatever crazy language they speak over there."

It went downhill from there.

I got lucky, and a manager was nearby, so I called her over and told her she needed to deal with him, because if I had to listen to him anymore, I was going to say something that would get me fired, and she ended up asking him to leave.

Moments like that leave me feeling both dirty and confused. I feel like there's something really wrong when people can say and do things like that without hesitation. It's bad enough that they're sexist, racist assholes, but that they don't even feel like there's anything wrong with what they're doing is just mind-blowing. Is there so little social sanction against these things that someone feels completely comfortable saying and doing these things in a busy retail establishment?

The other problem is, of course, how to respond. It's a question I've asked about other things, too- how do you respond to someone who says or does something like that. Particularly, if you're the employee in the situation, what do you do? If you're the customer, you can tell the clerk where to shove it, and take your business away, or get a manager and complain. As an employee, though, you're more limited (unless you don't care about losing your job, of course).

Anyone else want to share a weird/creepy/troubling experience they had, and how they handled it?

Hit the road, Jack...

Drinking and rape...
Almost any time you talk about rape, the drinking thing comes up. I think, next to criticizing the way that women dress, the fact that people like to drink is about the issue most often brought up. You see it in the news. You see it in the comments on posts about rape.

Despite the best attempts to clarify that a victim's choice to drink or not drink doesn't cause that person to get raped, but rapists choose whether or not to rape, the argument rages on.

In this case, I want to talk about and respond to some of Jack's comments from Cara's thread. Jack's comments are near the end of the thread, and his first question was about rape apologism:

Now, firstly, please elaborate on rape apologism. I read through the ‘no cookie’ guy’s page and I think it’s bullshit. People who believe the oppressed shouldn’t point our their problems to the oppressor are living in cloud cuckoo land. The vast majority of people do not just happen upon the best way of doing things. They wait until someone is so pissed off with them that they have to listen. So, please go on.

I think that this is really important, because it means that either Jack is seriously misreading/misunderstanding the point or that the point has been poorly explained. When we (or, at least, I) talk about rape apologism, it's about people who make excuses for and try to diminish the seriousness of rape and sexual assaults. It's not about whether rape victims should or shouldn't point out or take action against their attackers, it's about the ways that society dismisses and ignores the victims of these crimes. It's about the ways that victims of rape are constantly accused of lying, or how they're told that the crime is, to varying degress, their own fault because they: shouldn't have been alone with that person/shouldn't have had so much to drink/shouldn't have worn that outfit/had consented to sex with that person in the past/etc, etc, etc.

My impression is that Jack is actually responding to the post about whether feminists have an obligation to hand-hold people new to the movement or interested in the movement. I stated that, no, I don't think that women have an obligation to teach men what is or is not acceptable behavior, just as I don't think that people of color have an obligation to teach whites what is and is not acceptable behavior. I stand behind that: it's not the responsibility of the oppressed to point out opression to the oppressors.

Now, the difference between what I said, and how Jack read it is, admittedly, somewhat subtle, but it's an important distinction, none-the-less. I said that the oppressed don't have an obligation to teach the oppressors. The responsibility for not being an asshole lies with the person acting. Each of us is responsible for our own actions, and we each have an obligation to not treat other people poorly. That's not the same as saying that the oppressed shouldn't mention their oppression.

In reality, there are tons of people working to point out and fight oppression from within oppressed groups. There's no shortage of people writing about their experiences with bigotry or oppression every day. So, it's not for lack of resources that a person is ignorant about oppression. The original point was more about any particular person. I can't walk up to any particular POC and expect that person to treat me with kid gloves- to teach me about what it means to be a POC, and in what ways that person experiences bigotry and racism. That person doesn't have an obligation to act as my mentor and teacher.

That's why I went on to point out that it's my responsibility to seek out information and to learn. No particular person is obligated to help me- but that's not the same as saying that people shouldn't help me. If someone feels inclined to help- andy many people do- that's awesome.

I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that the part that pissed Cara off the most was when Jack gets into discussing the connection between rape and clothing:

However, there are some things that you MUST realise, not just for the sake of this argument, but because it is indicative of human behaviour, drunk or sober, man or woman, rapist or anyone else. When someone gets pissed up at a club or bar and dresses in skimpy clothing, they are saying, “Hey, I want easy sex, for one night only.” That IS what that means. This is a matter of social relationships and these are norms that have been around for a long, long, long time and it applies to men just as much as women. If you don’t want easy sex, you dress down. Most people are turned on by the sight of a bit of extra skin on the right person. If we were all nudists, that would be different, but we are not.

This is the sort of comment that makes a lot of us say that we live in a society of rape apologists. The suggestion that this attitude is indicative of human behavior betrays a really low opinion of mankind, and is, to put it mildly, misguided.

First of all, a person's choice to get drunk and dress in a certain way doesn't tell you a damn thing about what that person is looking for. It most certainly does not mean "Hey, I want easy sex, for one night only." It could mean myriad different things: "Hey, I want easy sex tonight", "Hey, check out this hot new dress I bought that I think really flatters me", "Hey, I'm out partying with my friends", "Hey, I've had a rough week and I wanted to get dressed up and have some drinks and have a nice time, but I'm not looking for sex", etc. So, yeah, sometimes it means that you're looking for sex when you wear a skimpy outfit and go out clubbing and drinking, but the mere fact that you're wearing an outfit that you think is hot doesn't say anything to other people about what you're actually thinking. The fact that some people think that a person's choice in clothing tells them what she IS thinking, is a big problem.

Another issue here is this: Even if a person is looking for easy sex, it doesn't excuse or justify rape. If a woman, for example, decides that she's looking for a one night stand, and chooses to wear something low-cut and short, and goes to a bar and drinks a lot... so what? Just because she's at a bar looking to pick up a guy doesn't mean that she's looking for every guy or any particular guy. The fact that she's wearing something skimpy and drinking doesn't excuse another person assaulting her. Even if she's looking to get laid, she still has the right to say "no" to any particular request.

The fact that some particular person is turned on by that woman's clothing choice doesn't create an obligation on her part to fulfill that person's desire anymore than the fact that some woman or man might think that I'm hot creates an obligation on my part to please that person. Do I realize that if I get dressed up and go out to a club that it's possible that another person might think I'm hot and be turned on by me? Absolutely. That fact doesn't matter, though- it doesn't justify or excuse a sexual assault on my person.

If you think that a person's choice of clothing tells you more about what that person is thinking, feeling, or desiring than that person's actual words, you're treating that person as an object. You're not fighting rape culture, you're reinforcing it. If you're turned on by someone and they don't return the sentiment, it doesn't matter what that person is wearing or how much that person has had to drink.

Jack doesn't do himself any favors when he continues, though:

There are plenty of people (the majority, would you believe it?), who do not see skimpy clothing and drunkenness as a ticket to rape. You make it sound like this is not the case. That is why I find (pending your reply), the rape apologist idea a little OTT. Seeing a load of scantily clad ladies drinking and laughing gives me urges. But I refrain from raping them because that would be utterly abhorrent in itself, not because it’s OK to be a rape apologist, but actual rape is just, you know, not for me… Do you see? Sorry, that was rather a clumsy phrasing.

I think we can all agree, that is rather clumsy phrasing. Sure, I'll agree that probably most people, if asked, agree "rape is wrong". That's not the whole story, though. There are some people who think that rape is wrong, but that if a person is dressed a certain way, or has been drinking, or is a sex worker, etc, etc, that it's not rape. Even if those people are the minority, they're still out there, and they're still a problem. Jack's own comments hint at rape apology. Even if you say "rape is bad", when you follow it up with "but, it's understandable that it happens to people who dress a certain way. They should know that dressing a certain way turns people on", you're treading in apologist territory.

Mostly, though, that paragraph is sort of troubling because of the statement "rape is just, you know, not for me..." Rape is a sexual assault- it's a crime because you're attacking another person. I mean, imagine saying the following: "Actual murder is just, you know, not for me..." People don't talk like that. That's the sort of thing we say about a type of cola or a movie genre: "Coke is just, you know, not for me" or "Crime dramas are just, you know, not for me".

The way it's worded creates the feeling that rape is, somehow, just a matter of personal preference. I doubt that Jack actually feels that way, but that's how the paragraph sort of reads to me, and I imagine it didn't help his case much. Rape is a serious assault, and it's wrong, not because it's "not for me" but because it's a serious violation of another person's personal autonomy.

The interesting thing is that Jack's own analysis of his relationship to rape victims ought to be indicative of the problems that we face. They should reveil to him just how screwed up the situation is. When he notes that, statistically speaking, he probably knows a number of victims of rape, but that he'll probably never know which ones, and that they aren't willing to "put down a dismissive comment about rape in public", that should suggest to him that the ways we view and treat rape victims is problematic. The ways that our society treats rape victims doesn't make it easy for them to talk about their experiences. He almost gets there, I think, when he talks about his own dismissiveness towards rape during his teenage years, but I'm not sure he completely understands the social implications, even as he repeatedly notices and mentions the difficulties that rape victims face:

...it IS the responsibility of the oppressed to speak out. Most men (because let’s face it gents, it’s so overwhelmingly men who commit rape), will never commit rape, but that does not make them devoid of responsibility - because they have neither the personal fear/experience, nor the second-hand emotional information from vocal rape victims, to make a concrete socio-political stand on it, it just might be that many men find it more acceptable or that they are pretty ambivalent about it. This cannot be allowed to continue, but I find it difficult to see how the situation can be improved when women are so divided by personal feelings of shame, or helplessness, or just not wanting to bring it up, that they are not combating ignorance of this issue.

I'm not completely sure what to make of this. I don't know of any feminist who thinks that men are devoid of responsibility when it comes to rape. Ultimately, most of us suggest that it's rapists responsibilities not to rape, but, given how that's not happening, we need to create a society that takes rape more seriously, and doesn't treat rape like a joke, or blame the victims, or excuse rape because the attacker "couldn't help it" or whatever. Many people believe that men have a responsibility to stand up to rape and to confront other men on the issue when they make light of it or excuse rape.

I'm also confused because it's not like no women speak out. It's true that many victims- male and female- of rape feel shamed or frightened about speaking out about their attack, but it's not the case that no victims speak out. We certainly need to make it easier for victims of sexual assault to be heard, but it doesn't make sense to suggest that nobody is trying to raise awareness about rape. Telling the victims of a serious assault "You ought to be doing more" doesn't help- it's just piling more guilt on top of what, for many, is an already tremendously difficult time.

It's true that it's difficult to raise awareness about an issue when the victims are often silenced- but Jack comes to the wrong conclusion. This is exactly an area where he could be making a difference, rather than standing around complaining about how victims don't do enough. Instead, he could be doing advocacy work. He could be, himself, pointing out the problems that victims of sexual assault face, and trying to help people understand the realities of rape. Instead, he says:

The responsibility to improve on the numbers of women subject to rape, on the care victims receive afterwards AND on the conviction rate lies with women and most specifically with rape victims not out of some moral high-ground kind of thing, but because men in general, through thoughtlessness, common stupidity, gender socialisation and because nobody has bothered or been able to tell them, simply don’t know what they are talking about. That’s the crux of the matter and you even said it in one of your posts. If you just get annoyed with people who don’t get it, you can’t wait until they’re interested. Why would they be? They don’t know anyone who has been raped, or rather, nobody they know has let on that they’ve been raped.

The responsibility to improve on the sexual assault rate and the resources available to the victims of assault doesn't sit at the feet of the victims or at the feet of women- it's all of our responsibilities. That some people- even most- are ignorant or thoughtless or even stupid doesn't excuse the rest of us from working on it. If some, even most, men are stupid about it, it just means that the men who do get it have a tough battle to try to help those men "get it". Jack claims to be gender egalitarian, but shoving the responsibility at the feet of women after pointing out that rape is a problem that disproportionately affects women doesn't make sense. If you really think that men are the biggest source of rape, and that women are the biggest set of victims, why would you throw your hands up and suggest that it's women's responsibility to fix the problem?

Ultimately, Jack ended up getting banned after suggesting that Cara- who was, it should be noted, doing a lot of things that Jack wanted women to do (talking about rape, raising awareness, etc)- "part of the problem." You see, her attitude is "essentially the same as the ones which have kept women in the kitchen and the bedroom institutionally for hundreds/thousands of years."

Jack: If you want women to help you understand feminist concerns and issues, I don't think that arguing that women dressing in skimpy clothing is a good start. And after you've annoyed and upset someone on their own blog, telling them to "Grow up" and telling them that they're "pathetic" aren't going to help your case, either.

Sexism in Games? Craziness!

Shamus, over at Twenty Sided is involved in a bit of controversy, it seems. I found Twenty Sided through a friend, and I've been a fan of the site. Shamus, as his site suggests, writes about geek culture- games, movies, books, computers, etc. He had a huge hit with his screen-cap comic DM of the Rings, based on the Lord of the Rings movies.

I haven't checked out his newest project- Chainmail Bikini. My understanding is that the title is intended to be a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that most of the women in fantasy settings are depicted in armor that more closely resembles swimwear than protective clothing.

Full disclosure: I haven't been able to see the comic, yet. The site is blocked here, but I'll take a look when I get home. My comments are more about the aftermath than the comic, anyway, but I feel like it's important to note.

The comic in question apparently features two male gamers, one playing a woman, the other a man. The male character gropes the female character ("It was, if we must ruin the joke by being explicit, a bit of boobie-grabbing" - Shamus), that is apparently ambiguous enough that multiple readers have interpretted the event as rape ("It could have been seen as a simple groping joke but the last line about 'Improved Stamina' seemed to me to cross the line and imply something much more intimidate." - nilus [I assume he means 'intimidating' or 'intimate', but I can't be sure]). The gamer playing the female character then physically attacks the gamer that groped his character.

The thing that I think is interesting is the reaction that is happening. Shamus is pretty upset by the whole thing, and says that he doesn't see what the problem is. His argument here is this:

1. It wasn't rape, it was a groping.
2. The assault isn't presented as okay, it's presented as a situation that is patently not okay. It's what players shouldn't do, not what they should.
3. The asshat player endured actual harm for his pretend actions.
4. The event played out between two males who were pretending to be a male and a female.

And finally, in his own words:
"the next time you think a webcomic is telling you its okay to rape people you should tell the people running the insane asylum you're living in that you need more medicine."

Quite frankly, I'm surprised by this reaction. If you had asked me yesterday, I'd have guessed that Shamus was sort of aware of the complicated nature of message and meaning that media like comics or video games can have in regards to things like this. In the past, he's talked about the morality of video games in such a way that suggested to me that he takes the idea that games have some kind of effect on our behaviors or on our view of morality... that the messages that a media presents can have an impact on the ways we view the world.

But now, Shamus seems quite opposed to the idea that something like a webcomic can encourage a sexist view of women or that it could, in some way, endorse rape. Part of me still wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, and think that maybe there's a disconnect happening in what we mean. I think it's true that most webcomics (or comics in general) don't explicitly endorse rape. You're not going to see many examples of a comic saying "Hey, you know what's a lot of fun? Rape!" When someone talks about a comic/videogame/movie endorsing rape, I don't think that we're suggesting that. I think what is really being suggested is that the thing in question presents rape in a way that minimizes the harm that rape actually does, and makes it seem "okay" by failing to show any of the harmful aspects, or by making light of rape. Presenting rape as mostly harmless, or as a crime of passion- as a case of seduction gone too far, for example- can make rape seem less bad than it actually is, and, I think is what people usually mean when they say something endorses rape.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. At 18, Shamus responds to a comment where someone pointed out that her problem was that the player thought it would be fun to grope a woman, and none of the other players confonted that player and criticized his actions:

Looks like she’s not coming back, bu this is pretty revealing about where the “OMG RAPE” arguments are coming from. This misses the point by a million miles. This has nothing to do with “groping women”. If you read this and think Chuck would really like to grope a woman, I can’t really help you. I don’t even know where to begin. If you’re going to look at one guy humiliating another guy and call it sexism, and then ascribe that sexism to me… wow.

This is, I think, not an uncommon sentiment amongst male gamers. I know that I've run into it before. The problem is that Shamus is arguing that sexism can only happen if a guy is saying or doing something harmful directly to a woman, when that's not actually the case. What's happening here is the gender version of calling another player a fag. It's the same as calling players "girls" or "pussies." The behavior that's happening is simple: it's humiliating a male player by turning him into a woman. Or, at least, by doing to and calling him names that emasculate him and make him into a girl.

In other words, the most humiliating thing you can do to a man is make him feel like a woman in some way.

In that regard, the groping is only a symptom of the larger problem- men that think that being feminine is a bad thing. That's why "sissy" is an insult. That's why men who complain are told to "grow some balls". The suggestion is that being a woman is bad, but being a man is good. That's where the sexism comes in. That's why it doesn't matter if it's two men having the interaction- the sexism is in the "why" not just in the "who".

I'm glad to see that a number of Shamus' readers have tried to explain why the joke offended some people. Laura, who left the comment that Shamus responded to, was the one who pointed out that the player thought groping a woman was okay, and that she was bothered that none of the other players criticized him for it.

Punning Pundit, at 6, gave a couple of reasons:

I think part of my issue is that you let the offending player make semi-reasoned arguments about why his actions were ok, and the only rebuttal was “die fatbeard”.

Also: dude, you made a rape joke. You didn’t make a joke at the expense of the rapist, but rather made a joke of the process. The fact that this happens not infrequently is not a defense– it’s the reason there are so few women gamers.

And Jeff, at 23, points out:

I agree that this was Not Cool. You had a character [roleplay] a sexual assault an give the standard rape-apologist lines in response. This, while squicky, could be fodder for a good strip (and not necessarily in a "morality play" style). But then you had to go and dismiss the whole damn thing by making the punchline about [live action role play]ing. Because we all know that the real problem is all those uppity victims who get upset about being groped

Jhianna, at 27, explains further:

Been forcibly groped by someone physically stronger than you? The comic pushes all sorts of buttons for anybody who has experienced that or worse in real life. I’ll tell you what I’ve told the countless guys I’ve gamed with: I play RPGs to escape the crap in the real world. I don’t play to be reminded that I’m physically weaker, considerably less powerful than those in charge, and subject to the whims of the cretin sitting next to me. Sure, I can try to prosecute the real life stuff after the fact, but can a guy going to jail scrub out the memories from my brain? Last time I checked, that wasn’t an option.

And seriously? He gives the excuse “Besides you have to admit she liked it a little bit” and you didn’t expect to get flamed into next year?

But, of course, there's the rallying cry: Why are you people so hypersensitive?! You're just being PC! Why are you trying censor him?! It's all pretend! And the ever popular: GET OVER YOURSELVES!

If there's a gap that can't be bridged, I'd have to guess that the knee-jerk responses to criticisms that something might have sexist overtones is certainly a factor. Most of the criticisms have been "I didn't think it was funny, and it smacked a little too strongly of sexism." Most people (at least, in that thread) aren't saying "Shamus is pro-rape! He hates all women! He's an evil, evil bastard!" And yet, many of Shamus' supporters are reacting like that's what people are saying. Shamus asked why people were upset and people responded by explaining. By and large, the people who are unhappy with Shamus have been more polite and more reasonable than the people who are supporting him.

I didn't see any of the people who are unhappy with the strip telling people to "piss off". They aren't telling people to "GET. OVER. YOUR. SELVES." They're saying "Look, I didn't think that this was cool, and here's why." In the face of blatant hostility, the people who are concerned by the comic have been remarkably even tempered and polite.

I'm also sort of surprised by Shamus' reaction, and the reaction of some of his readers, because these criticisms aren't really that different from some of Shamus' own criticisms of other works. When Shamus was playing Prey, he had this to say:

In working my way through Prey, I came upon a scene where a kid was killed. One little girl turned into a ghost of some sort, and killed a little boy by impaling him on some alien equipment. This is about the worst thing I’ve seen in a videogame in a long time.
…
Later that ghostly little girl showed up again and I was obliged to fight her. I’ll give the designers credit: It was indeed shocking, but man, what were they thinking? Yes, she was a ghost, but shooting guns at kid-shaped targets wasn’t what I signed up for here. I found it revolting.

and: "I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t be ALLOWED to make games like this. I’m just saying it’s repulsive and a bad move on the part of the developers."

Now, really, how is that any different from what his own critics are saying?

They read his comic, and came across a scene where it appeared that one player was having his character rape another character because the player was annoyed at the other. It was about the worst thing they'd seen in one of Shamus' comics. Sure, it was shocking, but what was he thinking? Yeah, they were fictional characters role-playing in a fictional universe, but raping another player's character in a fit of sexist misogyny wasn't what they signed up for on one of Shamus' projects. They found it revolting. They're not suggesting that he shouldn't be ALLOWED to make a comic like this. They're just saying that it's repulsive and a bad move on his part.

Shamus responded to people who told him that he could just not play the game, too:

Of course! I hadn’t thought of that! Thats for pointing out the blindingly obvious and irrelevant fact.

When I said, “I was obliged to kill them” eveyone else was able to figure out what the hell I was sating: I was obliged to kill them IN ORDER TO PROCEED THROUGH THE GAME.

I’ll decide when I’ve had enough and put the game aside. In the meantime, I may or may not complain about parts I don’t like. Cope with it.

I'm not going to go through and reword that, I think it's pretty clear how that same comment can be applied in this case. People reacted to Shamus' strip, and some of them were bothered by it. Nobody that I've seen is calling for the strip to end- they voiced their displeasure, and levied some criticism. Some have even said that they're not going to read anymore. The way this is playing out is pretty disappointing, though.

Ah! And it just happened. I was refreshing the page, and it happened. I should have known that it was only a matter of time before someone trotted out that tired horse: blame things on the feminazis!

Way down at 93, Deoxy goes into a diatribe about what rape is and is not about, ending with a tirade about "the feminazi koolaid". Lovely.

Generally, I really like the Twenty Sided site. There are a number of times in his posts and in his comments to some of the DMotR stuff that Shamus has shown an awareness for the troubling ways that women are treated within the gaming community. But that post, and the comments in it, are really disheartening. It's times like this that I remember how incredibly hostile the gaming community can be towards women and homosexuals.

Let's Have a Wake; Chivalry is Dead!

Apparently, I miss all the fun stuff when I go off the grid on weekends (and every other Monday). The target, this time, was an article from the Daily Trojan- Feminism to blame for the death of chivalry, by Josh Bass.

Oh, hooray! It's yet another article that takes opportunity to blame feminists for the downfall of something or other. In this case, it's the often reported death of chivalry. To which I say "Ding dong, the witch is dead!"

Bass, though? He's not so sure that this is a good thing. See, one of his friends had a bad date and spat out "Chivalry is dead" and it made him realize just how terrible the loss of chivalry has been for women. See, it's the evils of women's liberation and feminism that have led to the cesspool of immorality that makes it so hard for women to get respect in the world today. If only women hadn't fought for equality almost two hundred years ago, they'd be better off today.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm forced to wonder what, exactly, Bass thinks he's talking about when he goes on and on about chivalry. Chivalry is one of those concepts that you hear people talk about, but nobody seems to want to elaborate on. There's this notion that times were so much better when men were Men and women were Women, and there was chivalry all around us. I think that most of us think of chivalry as being a product of the times of knights and kings and men riding around on horseback doing all sorts of Good Deeds. Given the inclusion of a knight's helmet as an illustration to the article, I think we can assume that Bass subscribes to this idea.

Which, of course, makes me wonder how he's coming to some of his conclusions. He suggests that marriages arranged for wealth rather than love is a product of the death of Chivalry. Because marriage in the Middle Ages was a product of love, clearly. Certainly, nobody arranged marriages for the benefit of families. Right?
Right?

Sure, if you ignore the rather unpleasant realities and look to Disney as your source of information, you might think that marriage used to be all about love, although I'm not sure how you'd come to the conclusion that now we marry for money, but, whatever. In reality, marriages in the Middle Ages were arranged by men for the benefit of the families involved. Women were married young to men they barely knew who were frequently a decade (or more) older than them. Weddings were arranged by fathers, and were largely treated like a transfer of property. If you were part of the noble class- the class most associated with chivalry- your marriage would likely have been arranged before you were even 10 years old, and you wouldn't meet your future husband until the day of your wedding. At which you'd be expected to perform your "wifely duties." Contrary to what Bass might wish to believe, it wasn't all flowers and hearts and loving embraces between couples who loved each other deeply. It was about uniting families and acquiring wealth. It was about property.

When people like Bass talk about chivalry, what they think they're talking about is "treating women with respect." They think that chivalry is about holding doors and carrying books and walking on the outside of the street. They think that it's about treating women like they belong on a pedestal, and that they're the "fairer sex."

And, of course, if chivalry of that sort is dead, it's because women killed it. And I say, why the hell wouldn't they? That kind of chivalry isn't a good thing. That kind of faux concern for the well being of other people isn't helpful. Concern based out of the feeling that women are inferior to men and in need of protection doesn't actually help women. And the sense of entitlement that so often accompanies that kind of chivalry is patently dangerous. Men who harbor that kind of chivalry don't think of women as people, they think of them as props in some grand play that they've created, starring themselves as the knight in shining armor.

And Bass almost certainly thinks of himself as a modern Lancelot. Look at Bass' article, and you'll see it steeped with the kind of cynicism and patronizing sarcasm that is so common in anti-feminist tirades. From his affected concern for the well-being of women, to the cracks about "warrior princesses affectionately referred to as Feminazis", to the labeling of women as "harlots"- Bass pulls out all the stops. He thinks he's got the answers to save women from themselves. I'd be surprised if he doesn't wonder why you're not already lining up to thank him for his helpful hints.

So, let's talk about real chivalry, shall we? Chivalry is the code of honor that knights were sworn to uphold. Chivalry, as a concept, you may be surprised to learn, isn't gendered. Nor does it involve treating women in some way differently than men. Chivalry is a sort of moral code that knights swore to uphold. It's a code of conduct.

There are a number of different Principles of Chivalry, but most of them bear a number of things in common. Essentially, chivalry is about five things:
1. It's about accomplishing the duties of your station- doing your job and doing it well and fully.
2. It's about being honest- not lying or cheating, or helping others lie or cheat.
3. It's about upholding that which is right- acting in a moral fashion.
4. It's about helping those in need and protecting those who cannot protect themselves- lending a helping hand, offering charity, and fighting against oppression.
5. It's about fulfilling your obligations- doing what you say you will do.

Given that chivalry comes from a time steeped in sexism and blatant misogyny, it's not surprising that many examples of chivalry are of a questionable nature. They involve protecting women and saving them from danger because those were the stories being told, because our cinema loves to glorify the damsel in distress. But, despite this, chivalry, as a concept, is alive and well. It's not feminists who are killing chivalry- it's people like Bass.

See, one of the important aspects of chivalry is that you do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. You're not supposed to save the princess because you think that she'll fuck you when you're done. You're supposed to save her because she's in danger and has been unable to help herself. You'd be just as obligated to save the prince if he found himself in that situation, or a bunch of children, or the king.

Modern chivalry still exists- it's the people who stop to help you if you've dropped your packages on the sidewalk. It's the people who hold a door open for the people behind them. It's the guy in New York who took a moment to ask me if I needed directions or anything because he thought I looked lost. It's the person who offers a quarter when you're 22 cents short in line at the store.

Bass doesn't want chivalry back, he wants a return to the days when men could make demands on a woman's body by virtue of having given her some service or some token bit of "respect." He wants a return to the day when not treating a woman like shit meant that you could demand a roll in the hay. What other explanation is there for the idea that women who have and enjoy sex without strings are harlots responsible for making men not respect women, but men who have sex without strings are just doing what is natural? Oddly, Bass makes no demands on his fellow men. He doesn't feel the need to label them for their behaviors. No, they're just taking one option.

At least Bass gets one thing right. Chivalry can be resuscitated. It still lives on in the hearts of a good number of men and women. I don't think it's where he thinks it is, but it's out there.

I can only hope that the new perspective his friend gained was "wow, my buddy Bass is kind of an asshole."