I sold Amptoons.com: Comments are now open.
| October 11th, 2006Regarding the sale of Amptoons.com (which I posted about last month), Hugo writes:
Barry, you owe your readers a public forum where you can further explain your decision, and offer those who are stunned and hurt an opportunity to express that to you directly.
It’s the right thing to do, and it needs to happen right now.
Okay. Here’s the same post, this time with the comments open.
* * *
Announcement: I’m not the owner of “Amptoons.com” anymore. I sold it a couple of months ago.
Five months ago, I was facing two problems. First of all, I was in real financial trouble - we were paying all our bills, but by a slimmer margin each month, and if things had kept on going that way it was only a matter of time before we’d come up short. Plus, one person in the house hadn’t been able to pay his rent in a long time, while another seemed on the verge of being unemployed (although as it turned out, that was a false alarm).
Second of all, I kept on having to beg my host not to shut down “Alas” for using too much server time - and in fact, “Alas” was briefly shut down more than once, and I was forced to remove a lot of functionality in order to reduce server load. My host kept on telling me that I needed a dedicated server, but the cost of that is well beyond anything I could consider.
Then a buyer approached me offering to purchase amptoons.com, so he could use it to improve search engine rankings for his clients (how that all works isn’t something I have any knowledge of). He offered a substantial sum of money - not enough to erase my money worries, but enough to ease the pressure for a while. Plus he offered to provide a free dedicated server for “Alas.”
The contract took months to wrangle, but here’s the bottom line: The new owner has absolutely no control over the content of “Alas.” However, “Alas” plus my cartoonist pages are the only parts of amptoons.com I have any access to or control over. The buyer also has the right to put in one or two inconspicuous links on “Alas,” positioned in a way that would make it unlikely that anyone but search engine robots would follow the link.
I was assured by the buyer that he would never host porn sites on “amptoons.com.” And I wrote into the contract that his link on “Alas” could never be a direct link to a porn site. But beyond that, I have no ability to control what the buyer does with his pages - the deal is that he has absolutely no say in what’s on “Alas,” but we also agreed that I have no say over what he does with his own property. And - as a couple of “Alas” readers have noticed - some pages I don’t own include links to porn.
[Edited to add: A couple of readers have speculated that I didn't know that the new owner would link to porn on his pages. That's not true; I kept the links off of "Alas," but I knew that he would be putting links to porn on his own pages.]
I’m essentially in the same position as someone with a blog on “blogspot.com” - I don’t own the domain, and although I control what’s on my own blog, I don’t have any say over what’s posted on the domain other than my little piece of it.
I realize that some “Alas” readers will feel that I’ve sold out, or that this puts me beyond the pale. I’m genuinely sorry for that. For the record, I don’t feel I’ve been victimized (as one person suggested in email), nor do I feel like I’m a total sell-out. What I feel is this: I’ve made a compromise, one that I probably wouldn’t have made in a perfect world.
That’s all. And now, back to your regularly scheduled political rants.
* * *
New comments from Amp:
I warned the new owner that a likely result of this sale would be many other blogs delinking “Alas.” He said that didn’t matter to him and wouldn’t impede his profit; whatever his business model is based on, he isn’t concerned about that.
My views on porn: I’m not terribly pro-porn; most porn, like most mass media, seems sexist and harmful to me. The arguments that porn prevents rape or is in some way tremendously beneficial to society strike me as not at all supported by the evidence. On the other hand, I’m also not especially anti-porn, in that I don’t see porn as being particularly separate from or different than regular mass media, either in how sexist and racist it is, or in the harm it does. I’m convinced that there are other problems far, far more pressing than porn, and I think what I’ve written about over the years reflects that. If all porn disappeared from the face of the Earth tomorrow, I think that sexism, misogyny, and the wage gap would continue uninterrupted.
As I understand it, from the questions I asked before selling “amptoons.com,” the practical outcome of what the new owner does is that when someone searches for “porn,” they’re more likely to find his clients’ sites than other clients’ sites. I’m not thrilled with that, but I also frankly don’t believe it makes the world a worse place if porn company A gets ranked above porn company B in porn searches. Nor do I believe that I could have prevented such manipulations from taking place by refusing to sell the domain.
For me, this compromise is similar to the compromise I’ve made in the past accepting pay for cartoons from small publications who depended on strip club and escort ads for their income; or for being a secretary for various firms on Wall Street (some of those firms do, in my view, far more harm than porn ever has).
I’m not saying what I did was great. It wasn’t. It was a compromise, one that I felt I had no choice but to accept. It’s not something I would have done if I thought I could afford not to do it. It’s a bad thing, disturbing to me, and understandably disturbing (or much worse than disturbing) to my anti-porn readers. I know that some people who formerly liked me will now have lost all respect for me. I understand that, and I regret their departure; at the same time, my respect for them is undiminished.
That said, I’ve never been big on the politics of personal purity. It’s hard to be sure, because I’ve written thousands of blog posts and comments, but I don’t think I’ve ever criticized another feminist for being insufficiently pure in their personal life, their porn use, their income source, or the ads on their blogs.
* * *
One criticism of me that I think is especially strong is that I should have announced the sale of amptoons.com before it happened, to give people a chance to comment and to give other bloggers the chance to delink. It was wrong of me not to do that, and I sincerely apologize for that.
“Alas” reader “Curious” has usefully posted many links to other bloggers criticizing me on this thread. Some of the bloggers are people who have, as “Achilles and Patroclus” says, “the same folks who have been berating Amp for being insufficiently feminist for literally years now”; but others are people who have been quite kind to me over the years, and who I don’t think are knee-jerk Amp-bashers.
* * *
Comments are open for discussion (very much including criticism), but the usual moderation policies apply. Also, I want to remind people that I’m not at the computer all the time, so it may be many hours before I read comments.
This thread is for feminists, feminist-friendly, and pro-feminist posters only.
October 11th, 2006 at 9:51 am
[...] UPDATE: See also (or see instead, really) this post. [...]
This comment was written by Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » I Sold “Amptoons.com”.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 9:53 am
As others have already pointed out: so like many men in need of money, you decided to turn pimp.
Well, no doubt the anti-feminists who find your blog welcoming and friendly will notice no difference.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 9:57 am
A few questions: are you required to continue using the URL amptoons.com for your blog, or could you shift it to a new URL? Hopefully, you left yourself the discretion to move your own site in case amptoons becomes too degraded.
I don’t think I understand quite well enough why it is that owning the site gives a porn purveyor advantages in internet searches for porn. Is it something alphabetical?
Reserving judgment. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I just want to say the only criticism I can see that is valid is that you should have told everyone before it happened, or at the very least, when it happened. Since you have heartfully apologized for that, I see no reason to berate you. I must say I’ve considered far worse things when confronted with difficult financial matters, and I don’t blame you for doing what you thought best for you.
As far as not being sufficiently feminist, well, that’s just plain old horsesh*t. if we all had to live up to some perfect standard of feminism I’m sure a great many of us, myself included would fail. My idea of feminism has always been to try to include as many people as possible rather than exclude people because they may have made one or two decisions over the course of their lifetime I deem “non-feminist”. If we applied that standard to everyone, (and really, what would that standard BE exactly?) I’m quite certain there is not a person in the world who would be able to be called a feminist then. And that just seems counterprodictive and silly.
I guess I’m just saying, I think you are most definitely sufficiently feminist and I don’t so much care about links I never go or can even find, so I’m certainly planning on continuing to read, learn and enjoy here at Alas.
This comment was written by KateL..Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Barbara: I can shift after one year, if things have degraded.
As for the owner’s business, I have no understanding of how it works, but I don’t think it’s alphabetical.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I’m not upset about it. I don’t think anyone needs to flash feminist credentials ever anyway. It’s your domain, you do what you have to do. I still feel welcomed, and I don’t feel pimped.
This comment was written by Kaethe.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:20 am
I still feel welcomed, and I don’t feel pimped.
Well, I don’t and I do.
As someone who has spent years online talking about how porn has negatively impacted my life and my marriage, it’s a huge slap in the face to find out that my visits to this blog has helped promote porn.
This comment was written by Delany.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:27 am
For me, this compromise is similar to the compromise I’ve made in the past accepting pay for cartoons from small publications who depended on strip club and escort ads for their income; or for being a secretary for various firms on Wall Street (some of those firms do, in my view, far more harm than porn ever has).
I’m not saying what I did was great. It wasn’t. It was a compromise, one that I felt I had no choice but to accept. It’s not something I would have done if I thought I could afford not to do it.
The difference here is that the compromise you have made affects others as well as yourself. Selling your cartoons or working for Wall Street is not the same as selling other people’s cartoons to dodgy publications, or using other people’s work to get an income from Wall street. But that’s what you’ve done here, you’ve sold other people, pimped other people’s time and effort and thoughts - and without a thought that you should ask them first about that.
Second comment is that you are dismissive of the porn industry adverts as “not making the world a worse place”. I wonder if your new owner had links to white supremacists or other race-hate sites, would you find that acceptable, or would that be a case of “well it exists anyway so why not ?”
This comment was written by ohno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:30 am
I don’t know how important search engine traffic is to you. If it is, just make sure that this doesn’t happen to you… Some “search engine optimization” techniques will get your site removed from Google, as Google considers it to degrade the quality of their search results.
This comment was written by Alex R.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Kate and Kaethe;
Of course feminists do things that arent feminist–I’m wearing heels right now, for example–and none of us are perfect. But the critique of Amp goes beyond that. The critique is that Amp essentially sold the domain’s google rating, which was based mostly or in part on feminist cred, specifically to promote porn profiteering. Thats a different order than wearing lipstick or laughing at a funny but sexist joke or something. The idea being that Amp was feminist when that was useful, but not when not, and that what he sold was valuble in part because of the content, interest and support of a broad feminist community.
I’d like to see Amps response to those criticisms; as I’ve said elsewhere, I think the originally post totally skirts the issue. Rereading it though, made me feel a little bad for Amp, though becuase he obviously didnt feel great about this decision.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:32 am
I’m with Delany above.
This comment was written by anne.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:35 am
piny wrote: (in the Link Farm thread: )
I can’t tease apart the connection between what Heart and others are writing about Amp’s decision and their feeling about Amp personally –any more than I would expect them to do that about my opinions. It’s not going to happen, so why pretend ? I feel sympathy for the POV of folks like Delany and curious, but I’m not going to sit here and claim that I would do things differently if my back were up against the wall. In fact, I just heard from my accountant that my own back is about to meet the wall, big time. So there’s that coloring my vision, too.
Their reasons can be as genuine as the day is long. If I were to sell a color cover to a paper like The Mercury, I could understand their objections even though I don’t regard my work as pornographic. A huge amount of that paper’s income comes from the “escort” ads in the back. The fact remains, however, the sincerity of their objections doesn’t pay my bills. Would every one in that circle who heard the details of my financial troubles be amenable to my suggestion that if they were serious in their feminism, they could –oh, I don’t know– each pony up one hundred dollars for a small commission to keep me going for a year while I figured out what the hell to do ? I have my doubts. Usually begging from people who already don’t think much of you offers little but the opportunity to collect more reminders from them about the smallness of their regard.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Looks like I will have to remove this site from my daily reading list. I cannot in good conscience and knowingly allow my visits to this site help porn purveyers.
This comment was written by Kali.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:43 am
amp–thanks for the updated comments, they were useful.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I think it’s worth trying to figure out how much and in what way this deal helps porn purveyors, though.
If, as has been suggested elsewhere, the main difference is that now one porn site is a little bit higher in a Google ranking than another porn site, I have a hard time getting up in arms over it.
If, on the other hand, this means that browsers who google “feminist” will get porn, well, that’s clearly very very serious.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:52 am
A and P
It means that Porn site A will list one notch higher in search results for porn than Porn site B. No more than a notch at most: the blog rank at this domain is not high enough to influence more than one or two notches in search results.
Actually, also the opposite _may_ happen. I’ve been looking at the pages and what could happen is people searching for porn, will end up at a pro-feminist site.
This comment was written by Shelley.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Amp, thank you for opening this up. I confess that I am so technologically illiterate that I still don’t fully understand the mechanics of how all of this works (SEOs, or whatever they are.)
I have every intention of continuing to read Alas, and I honor the work of this blog and of you, Amp. Opening up a comments thread is a big step forward. My hostility to commercial porn remains kneejerk, absolute, and powerful, and I remain disappointed that this has happened.
At the same time, I wasn’t in your shoes, Amp. I don’t like what you’ve done; as a feminist man it troubles me greatly for the reasons I made clear at my blog. But I am grateful that we are to have dialogue about this. Thanks for being willing to listen, and to offer a more detailed explanation. Your sincerity is appreciated and acknowledged.
As one who tends to hammer the “personal purity” issue a a lot, your point in that regard is taken.
This comment was written by Hugo.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Curiosgryl,
I think your argument only stands if the “official feminist position” (if there ever could be such a thing) is that porn is inherently antifeminist and bad. I’m not a super porn lover, I definitely think it can do great harm, particularly as a previous poster said for individual marriages and relationships. I also think it’s not unlikely it contributes a great deal to patriarchy. But I personally am not amped up about porn. And I am most certainly NOT the only feminist out there who feels that way. Do think it’s fabulous? Not so much. Do I think it’s evil incarnate and that anything that even remotely, no matter HOW remote contributes to its existance is automatically bad? Nope. I think it’s a divisive issue that has distracted the feminist community far too long far too much. There’s not really anything to be done about that, it’s not the only divisive issue, nor will it be the last, but it’s just not all that important to me personally, I do NOT feel that it degrades the quality of THIS site at all.
I guess, I could draw a parellel like this. Let’s pretend I have a blog (I don’t, but let’s pretend). Let’s pretend that this particular blog is a space that is frequented by a LOT of people who are highly intelligent and contribute a great deal to the intellectual moral discussions I host. I post a lot of incredible feminist friendly analyses, I am open and honest about criticisms, and in general provide an incredible service to an online feminist community by inviting engaging and productive discussions about a variety of issues (all of which I think this site does). Now, let’s say that as a way to earn a little extra cash, I am a passion parties consultant, which is tangentially tied to the porn industry, and I have a link on my site to my passion parties order stuff and vice versa, as an attempt to increase traffic to both places and hopefully be able to sell more products. What I have done is actually much more eggregious than what amp has done because I openly linked to it solely to gain financially.
Now, I am supporting the porn industry, and probably pissing off a lot of readers. So be it, but it does not detract from the work I do on my blog that provides information and discussion to a wide variety of people. Arguably, I may have done a disservice to my blog because I may have pissed people off enough to make them leave my site, and whenever engaged and critical brains leave, that has the potential to harm the discussion and productivity overall. HOWEVER, the choice to leave is theirs, and I can’t very well be asked to NOT do something for myself that I deem necessary on my OWN blog simply because it might piss people off.
Granted, my views on this may be biased because I start from a position that porn is not really something to concern myself with anyway, but overall, I don’t think
#1) I have any right to tell amp what he can and can’t do with his own damn site
#2) that it’s my job to judge how he makes ends meet, even if it isn’t an optimal solution. It’s not illegal, and I don’t think it sufficiently harms anyone (except maybe their feelings, and well, if people had the right to yell at me everytime I hurt someone’s feelings, no one would ever stop yelling at me)
and most importantly
#3) it does NOT take away from the service he has already provided and presumably continues to provide with his insight, analysis and ability to create a forum for productive discussion (this is NOT an easy task).
And I have to say, and I may get flamed for this, but I don’t think Amp would be taking nearly as much heat if he were a woman. Let’s be honest, it’s NOT always easy to be a man and be a feminist, and there are few people I know who are as passionnate about social injustice, particularly gender discrimination as Amp happens to be - in SPITE of the fact that he is a man. I’m not suggesting we should go easier on him because of that, nor am I suggesting he get a cookie for being a downright decent human being, but I DO think he deserves the same respect a woman who dedicated as much of her being to feminism as he does would get from other feminists.
This is a little tangential, but I’ve been reading this site for a few months now, and it’s not the first time Amp has come under criticism for not being “feminist enough” and I can say from my own personal perspective that I really believe if he were a woman the criticism would be much less and more diluted than it currently is, and I just think that is a shame.
I guess my response is in general, if you feel that this issue completely undermines all the other things on this site, then I suppose you are free to go about your business, though I do think it is a shame that you feel that way. I can say with certainty, I do not feel that way. Naturally, I can only speak for myself.
This comment was written by KateL..Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:06 am
ms_xeno, I have seen your artwork on walls and in your portfolio, and you know how much I admire your take-no-prisoners kind of feminism, and I’d like to think of myself as the kind of person who would help you out financially if you really needed it and it were possible for me.
That said, we both know that if you were really strapped for money one small picture of your thonged ass in the “escort” (hate that lying bullshit) pages in the back would garner more money to pay your bills than a whole front cover would. The sincerity of your objection to paying your bills that way is something I utterly understand.
This comment was written by Sam.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:22 am
There are a group of individuals that, through the years, have looked for any excuse to attack Amp, that’s all that this is (possibly more than a little jealously is also involved–these same individuals always rant a bit when BLOGs other than their own succeed in some way or another).
To those of you who feel that being here supports porn, do you really feel that the daily outpouring of thoughtful ideas and discsussions that occur right here on the main pages is somehow trumped by a link within a link (within another link?) that rates porn sites?
Really?
And everything else aside, maybe we should talk a little bit about entitlement, and the notion that some folks seem to hold that the domain Amp worked to build is somehow theirs to control?
SMM
This comment was written by SMM.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:25 am
“Comments are open for discussion (very much including criticism)”
Okay, I’ll take this to heart.
A lot of your analysis seems invested in denying that porn causes harm, or minimizing the extent to which porn harms. I think this undermines your apology.
Also, I’m not sure you’re in a position to make statements like, “If all porn disappeared from the face of the Earth tomorrow, I think that sexism, misogyny, and the wage gap would continue uninterrupted.” Why assert this? You don’t know for sure, and the degree of the impact of porn isn’t what’s at issue here.
A debate about the extendt to which porn is harmful is a red herring; what’s being examined are your actions — how the announcement was initially made, why were comments closed so that the announcement post would drop to the bottom of the page, why was the contract in negotiation for months without discussing it at this site and using readers as a sounding board, etc.
I see you give Hugo a nod and a link at the top there, when other feminists have been writing about this prior to Hugo, and at length. This struck me as a bit disingenuous, and also leaves you open to accusation that you ignore women bloggers, but when a male objects, you quote him and respond. I think that gets you off on the wrong foot.
Finally, I don’t think it’s a question of a “politics of personal purity”. I think that’s an attempt to reframe this issue, and makes the critics sound a bit priggish. It’s about a conflict of interests and the good faith of your readers and contributors at a site that represents anti-racism, anti-sexism, and has that privilege list link roundup as one of its resources.
“I also frankly don’t believe it makes the world a worse place if porn company A gets ranked above porn company B in porn searches.”
This isn’t what’s at issue. What’s at issue is your decision to take part in this system.
I think you did have other choices.
This comment is from someone who is not a regular reader of Alas, FWIW.
This comment was written by Sour Duck.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:26 am
My feelings are fairly jumbled. I really hate porn, on the other hand I also hate a lot of other things — like Vogue Magazine and most of the entertainment industry, and yet, I go to movies and buy magazines, and I rarely stop to consider whether, for instance, buying the New Yorker supports Vogue (I don’t think it does, but you get the idea). On the whole, I think it’s more important that voices in support of feminism have a home, even if it’s not as ideologically pure as I’d like it to be, and I see porn as being more of a symptom than a cause of the objectification of women. So on those grounds I don’t exactly give Amp a pass, but I can understand why it’s a compromise he feels he could make under the circumstances.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I take it some of the criticism has been directed either at Amp’s inability to predict the likely outcome of the sale of amptoons.com, or at his not having dug his heels in sufficiently deep to prevent an outcome that he at least *said* he wanted to avoid. In particular, the wording:
leaves a noticable gap between what was judged important enough to get written into the contract versus what was deemed OK to rest on assurances.
Myself, I’m not going to mount an anti- (or pro-) porn manifesto. I just wanted to point out that some of the uproar seems to boil down to people feeling that Amp misled them in the initial announcement about precisely what his commitments were.
This comment was written by Dr. Free-Ride.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:33 am
SourDuck,
The issue of the harm porn does speaks directly to the issue overall - in regards to coptation or “selling out”. If Amp thought that porn was evil and extremely harmful, then it would be disingenuous for him to say, but I am willing to make that compromise. If he thought it as horrible as many of those criticizing him, then the criticism of coptation makes a lot of sense. If you take what he is saying at face value, then it makes absolute sense that while he doesn’t see this as a preferable solution, he felt it was necessary at the time, and who are we to judge that?
And, what pray tell do you suppose his other options would be? In the future, if his back is up against a wall and he needs some support, should openly tell all his readers, and all other feminist sites about his PERSONAL affairs and ask for help? Really? I think it’s disinengenuous for a person who is NOT a regular reader of the blog to step in and say he was wrong… if you weren’t here before, then what do you care?
This comment was written by KateL..Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:38 am
“I think you had other choices”
This comment in general really strikes a chord with me. It’s about the least feminist position I’ve ever heard. ‘I don’t actually know the circumstances you were under, nor do I know you at all (presumably, since I’m not even a regular reader of your site), but I don’t AGREE with the decision you made, so I am going rationalize that there MUST have been another way and suggest that YOU made the WRONG choice. And in fact there had to be SOMETHING else out there, and you should have been smart enough to see it and do it, regardless of how much personal stress and other factors are going on in your life (of which I have no knowledge) , because in hindsight, I can see that it was just WRONG.’ Wow. Not judgemental at all, no siree.
This comment was written by KateL..Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:43 am
I noticed that too.
This comment was written by Ginger.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:48 am
To me, this sounds like you knew full well that what you were doing would be viewed by many of your readers as beyond the pale. And yet, you didn’t allow your readers to make the choice for themselves by disclosing what you were doing prior to closing the deal; you made your own choice and forced those who would have voted with their feet to be complicit in something that they would not have supported had they had all the facts.
This comment was written by zuzu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
one more thing and then I promise I’ll stop. Has anyone actually been able to FIND these porn link things? I’m still not sure what exactly happens with the ranking of the sites stuff, but I just did a google search for amptoons, alas a blog, feminism and a bunch of random women and things, and you know what? The closest thing to porn I found was other blogs talking about this issue. Granted, I did not search beyond the top 10 page, but I never really do that, and I generally don’t think a reasonable person looks at thing 7239 that pops up in a google search.
Maybe some will argue that’s a moot point, but I really don’t think it is…
This comment was written by Kate L..Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Oh merde, Sam. How could I have forgotten that you’ve already seen my recent stuff ? You see what five hours sleep a night does to me. Anyway, your words are appreciated. By the same token, if you or somebody like oneangrygirl wanted a piece for a feminist benefit or the like, I would definitely see my way clear to donating it;So long as I wasn’t so hard up as to be living under a bridge or the like. :)
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
zuzu: “To me, this sounds like you knew full well that what you were doing would be viewed by many of your readers as beyond the pale. And yet, you didn’t allow your readers to make the choice for themselves by disclosing what you were doing prior to closing the deal; you made your own choice and forced those who would have voted with their feet to be complicit in something that they would not have supported had they had all the facts.”
Why should Amp have mentioned this to his readers ahead of time? Where is the dividing line between ‘community’ and personal space?
When did the feminists of weblogging have their secret meeting and hammer the rules by which the rest of us maintain our weblogs, or suffer the consequences?
The people who have guest weblogger here have some cause to quibble and perhaps Amp will need to remove their posts.
And if the rest of you don’t want to give this site any Google juice, then use rel=”nofollow” in your link and Google won’t follow it. You can even modify your past links using SQL (I’ll provide instructions if you need them).
By all means, remove a link from the blogroll. You mean, you all still have blogrolls? I though it was incidents just like this that demonstrated the tyranny of blogrolls.
I’m curious, thoug, zuzu and by proxy the other Feministe readers: what more do you want? To have Amp remove your comments in the past? Who cares about comments in the past? Seriously.
I am breathless with astonishment at the feminist weblogger responses to this, and not because I feel an overwhelming desire to defend Amp, as much as I feel a necessity to defend each weblogger’s ownership of our spaces. I just had in another weblog a person told me to stop calling myself a feminist because I didn’t agree with her.
Excuse me?
Amp wrote his views, his regrets, and he did so in uncompromising fashion, accepting full responsibility for his actions. But I get the idea that you all want more from him, and I can’t figure out what it is.
To be honest, I can’t figure out what it means to be a ‘feminist’ weblogger any more, either, because I didn’t attend the Secret Meeting where you all defined the rules.
Unbelievable. Incredibly disappointing. I feel betrayed in my trust in all of you, and that my links have gone to promote a view I can no longer tolerate. You all should have discussed with me, first, that there is now a predefined behavior and belief system we must follow to be ‘feminist’ weblogger.
This comment was written by Shelley.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
I picked Hugo out because he is the one person who emailed me personally asking me to open up such a thread.
Hopefully my history will show that I don’t hesitate to link to women bloggers.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Why should Amp have mentioned this to his readers ahead of time? Where is the dividing line between ‘community’ and personal space?
So those who prefer not to support porn in any way, shape, or form could avoid doing so. Considering this is blog contributed to, and visited by, a large feminist population, is it really that much of a stretch to think there might be antiporn folks? By being secretive and asking for those specific things from the purchaser, like Zuzu said, it shows that Amp knew that what he was doing would piss off a large chunk of the community. And that’s pretty shitty.
As for the dividing line between “community” and “personal space”, I’d say it’s a community when you have a huge contingent of guest bloggers that create the bulk of the content. I haven’t thought of this as a personal blog in a long time, but a collective that just uses Amps name.
This comment was written by Delany.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but…..
Visiting Alas does not increase the rating of this site. Visit as many times as you want, bring billions along with you and the Google ranking does not rise. Linking, on the other hand, will increase the Googleranking. So, delinking will lower the ranking of Alas, but not visiting has no effect.
(None if which is to say that if you feel betrayed that you should continue to visit this blog. If amptoons had been sold to white supremacists, for example, I wouldn’t visit - whether or not that had an economic impact on said theoretical purchasers)
As to the criticisms around…
I think that there are some valid points to be made (especially if Amp hasn’t explained why he didn’t choose other options). However, the ignorance of some claims amazes me. How could one blogger of long acquaintance (and some of her commenters) think that Amp was the one writing the pron reviews? Has she never actually read Amp’s writing? Perhaps she is just unable to distinguish one writing style from another? If Amp were a pron purveyor would he have sold his domain name? This adds little credibility to the insults that follow from both blogger and commenters. There are also pile-ons from those who never thought much of Amp (or outright hated him) in the past. I find these, for the most part, to be without value.
Given all of that, one of the most enlightening things for me was how some in the anti-pron camp don’t consider those who are pro-pron or undecided or neutral to be able to be considered feminist. I guess I kind of knew it already, but that really drove it home.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Wow.
Look in the sidebar — who wrote most of the posts?
This comment was written by Shelley.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Of the last 21 posts, 10 are by Amp, 8 are by other people, and 3 are link farms/carnivals posted by Amp. IME, that may be technically be “mostly” his posts, but it’s also a huge portion written by others.
This comment was written by Delany.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Kate L;
I think I agree with you and amp in general about the importance of pron, and the idea that a lot of our culture is hateful and violent toward women. However I think it does matter what pron, or tv show or whatever is actually linked in this instance and what amp could have reasonable expected when he made the sale. In this case, the stuffi is pretty nasty and hateful, in my opinion. The link is at the bottom of the page, something like “software reviews.”
I wonder if folks would object less if it was a link that promoted CSI Special Victims Unit or Calvin Klein underwear.
For the record, I think amp was wrong about this, but I like this blog and hope it continues to be a place where feminist discussion happens. The main thing that I find upsetting about this is that amp seemed to know that this step might piss a big section of his feminist readership off and drive them away. I hope that doesnt happen.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
This is the last time I will be posting, for a while this has been a hostile environment for radcial feminists anyway.
This is from one of the pages up on ampttons now in the “web reviews” section:
I’m Brazilian, and I know full well this kind of targetting of my kind as being lascivious and in need of being “scooped up” just walking down the street.
Yeah, Amp, you needed the money. Well guess what, I need to be safe and I damn sure will never support this kind of stereotyping, which has does real damage to me. I give up on trying to open your eyes, you are beyond sick.
This comment was written by saltyC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Amp,
Let me start by saying I genuinely appreciate the work you have done, and the support you have given to Mary’s and my blog.
However, the biggest problem here — and you do seem to acknowledge this in your post — is the lack of clear disclosure. With disclosure, readers could decide for themselves whether to come here, and could judge for themselves whether an underlying financial arrangement was affecting what you write. Without full disclosure, though, it was both inevitable and foreseeable that many readers would end up unknowingly supporting traffic they abhor.
My view is that you’ve earned the right to be judged by more than one error of judgment, but I would also urge you to think beyond an apology to concrete steps that will mitigate or undo some of the harm.
This comment was written by Fred Vincy.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Jake Squid;
Thanks for that clarification on the links/visits–that helps. I knew it didnt make a whole lot of sense to “stop coming here” as a direct action, which seems to be the motivation of some.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Yeah, Jake, what I know supports what you said — google rankings are improved by *links*, not visitation.
Thanks to whoever put in the code for asking google not to follow your link. I’ll probably apply that to my site so that I can still send my visitors here, but not support the pornographer’s endeavor.
But I’m certainly not going to stop coming here, even if I’ve stopped commenting for the most part. This blog contains interesting, thoughtful analysis written with a different tone than many of the other feminist blogs I read.
I also disagree that this is somehow more like “pimping” than publishing in a magazine that contains advertising for “escort services.” The money that ends up in one’s pocket either way is still, to some extent, earned by the women.
I’m relatively anti-porn, but I have to say that I really don’t think this act is any more heinous than the compromises I make in my everyday life. I don’t mind criticism of this any more than I mind criticism of blow jobs or makeup or population growth or people who live in suburbs. This is a controversial decision, which is in some ways an act of complicity with a system many of us disapprove of. It should be analyzed and considered and discussed and reacted to.
But to throw out the entire endeavor of this blog because of one ideological conflict seems, to me, a strange reaction.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
“By the same token, if you or somebody like oneangrygirl wanted a piece for a feminist benefit or the like, I would definitely see my way clear to donating it.”
It’s likely I’ll take you up on that offer at some point. FYI, oag is an accomplished collagist herself; I have one of her more disturbing creations in my home office.
This comment was written by Sam.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Not just porn either…racist porn. Amp has really struck a deal with the devil. I’m sorry but how can anyone in good conscience read this blog after learning that amptoons is in league (or extremely conplicit) with racist pornagraphers? For goodness sake people, wake up!
This comment was written by anashi.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Sourduck, sorry not to respond to the rest of your post, but Kate in comment #24 explained well why I think my view of the harm of porn does matter. However, I can certainly understand why it wouldn’t matter to you, even though it does matter to me.
To the many people (both here and on their own blogs) who have said that I went about this the wrong way: Obviously, you’re all correct about that. I think that because I felt bad about making this deal at all, I didn’t want to think about it; and not doing an immediate announcement was one way of avoiding thinking about it. I know that’s no excuse.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Well, I’ve gone out in the open, so people can delink “Alas” or add “nofollow” codes if they want to. Which is what I should have done in the first place.
Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions. Seriously.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
A question for the pro-porn people: whenever discusions about the misogyny and abuse in porn arise, the pros will say that they don’t endorse that nasty stuff, no, just the egalitarian woman-friendly kind that has nothing to do with degradation, abuse and exploitation of women.
They say they don’t like the grotty, racist sexist stuff, yet it’s the grotty, racist sexist stuff that is being linked to on this site - so why are they still defending it ? Why ?
This comment was written by ohno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
On a very basic, down to brass tacks level, I find this whole “obligation” premise extraordinarily difficult to swallow. Barry provides this space, the bandwidth and the forum here at his own expense and could shutter it today if it were his choice. He could close commenting altogether (which would reduce his bandwidth costs significantly) and disallow the practice of permitting others (of all stripes) to flog their personal agendas on his dime and in his space. If there is obligation because an alleged “community” has been created here, it’s hardly an obligation on the part of the host.
As to an obligation to people who are linking? Come on. You link to a site at your own risk. At any time its content or ownership or format could change. If you aren’t monitoring sites on your blogroll on a regular basis and adjusting as necessary when they no longer fulfill your personal criteria for linking, that’s no one’s fault but your own. If you aren’t aware that your linking has greater ramifications, if you permit search engine robots to roam your site, that’s no one’s fault but your own. If you feel that you need to make public announcements about your blogroll (Is this 2001? Does anyone care any more? Are we still playing that ‘who links me?’ game?) and feel some need to distance yourself from other blogs as if anyone notices who is or isn’t on your blogroll or pays attention to the content of the numerous other blogs you may happen to link to on any given day enough to think that you may or may not support everything that the other blog authors think/write/say/do and will pass judgment on you as a result, that’s no one’s fault but your own.
This has devolved into playground slambook stuff. If you don’t like something that you’ve seen or learned about a blog or its author, you know how to delete a link. But this fist-shaking, hair-rending “you sold us out, you owe us X” stuff is just nonsense. You’re not owed diddly squat, folks. A hyperlink is not a relationship. A blogroll is not an inner sanctum of friends or a blanket endorsement.
This comment was written by Dreama.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
ohno: in part because we don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I just went and found the reviews section. Some of it looked vaguely unpleasant, but not obviously racist.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Also, until we find a way to end wage slavery, you can expect this to keep happening.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Why was my post banned? It might have educated hf.
This comment was written by saltyC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I don’t like the grotty, racist sexist stuff, and I’m appalled that Amp chose to contract with the people who produce it.
I haven’t been around this site long, so perhaps I shouldn’t say anything, but I consider Amp’s decision to be a particular slap in the face to anti-sexist men. As a prominent male pro-feminist, he must have — or at least should have — known that his crap would wind up splattering on other men who profess to support feminism.
You’re right, ohno, that this isn’t a tough call. This isn’t about whether there can be non-sexist, non-oppressive porn. This is about whether you ally yourself with the people who produce and distribute the stuff we all agree is misogynistic, nasty garbage.
And yes, this is Amp’s site. But he didn’t sell his art, or his prose, or his blogroll to these people. He sold them his visibility. And it’s in large part his readers and friends who built that visibility.
What he sold was a commodity because of all the folks who have linked here over the years, and for no other reason. All of those links have, with this deal, been transmogrified into market share for pornographers and coin in Amp’s pocket.
And that, frankly, sucks.
This comment was written by Brooklynite.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Amp–its good that you are open to suggestions. I hope your strongest critics take you up on that. I wonder what Hugo things.
As for me, I dont have any reasonble ones. It seems like your firmly in the pickle of running a feminst weblog supported by pron.
Maybe you could give away some of the $$ to a good cause or something. Maybe you could commit to moving on from the domain when the contract expires. I dont know whats fair or makes sense.
A lot of people (Shelley) have made strong arguments that you’ve done nothing wrong and owe nobody anything, but it doesnt seem like you feel that way.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
saltyC I dont think your post was banned. Maybe it got caught in a prn filter :)
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
I really feel, and perhaps I am the minority in this, that Amp did what he had to do to support his extended family. We were not in his shoes, do not know the whole extent of his situation and cannot begin to grasp what he was feeling. He is linked now to sites that admittedly he would prefer not to be linked to. He made a mistake, and now, I would say it is time to move on. I like the conversations here, and learning this doesn’t change a thing to me.
This comment was written by valley_grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Amp,
I intentionally avoided suggesting what concretely you could or should do. The reason was that I felt it would be presumptious of me, both because I don’t face the financial circumstances that led you to this decision and because I don’t want to speak for people who were hurt by the decision.
That said, I could imagine several approaches:
You could seek to get out of the contract. They’re not obligated to agree to that, but they might. That leaves you in the same financial situation, and I don’t know whether advertising/contributions/selling your artwork can close the gap, but you have a lot of traffic so they may.
You could migrate your blog to another site as soon as you are allowed under the contract (I think you said a year). In the meantime, you could consider whether (consistent with the contract) there are changes you could make to the blog structure that would minimize the search engine effect. (For example, you could have a link on the front page that gave novices clear instructions how to use a “no follow” code should they choose to do so.)
Alternatively, or in addition, you could consider donating the proceeds relating to the period before full disclosure to an anti-porn organization. If understand the timing and situation correctly, you’d still have something like 90% to address your financial concerns, but you would have divested yourself of any benefit from the non-disclosure period.
You could ask your readers (in a post) for suggestions, recognizing that some would be more helpful than others.
Whatever (if anything) you decide to do, do something that you honestly feel is right, explain yourself, and then keep on with the good work you’re doing.
This comment was written by Fred Vincy.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
I don’t see a problem with Amp’s having sold his domain to a company of this sort, and I certainly don’t see how this change is sufficiently grievous to justify the reaction here. He sold something that was his, with the proviso that a blog people enjoy remain intact. Good on him.
I’m disgusted by the reaction here. A lot of people, none of whom were paying for this service, have been pretty quick to tell this guy how he should spend his money – that he should have gone even more broke for the sake of maintaining their comfort level on a freakin’ blog.
That last bit bears repeating: this is a blog - Ampersand’s online diary. He shared it with guest posters and commenters, but it’s his own in the end.
Amp isn’t a journalist, and nor has he claimed to offer up unbiased facts. If he had, then his readers deserved a full disclosure of his financial entanglements. Since he never did that, he’s a private citizen with all the rights of one.
If you don’t like the do-or-die deal he made to secure his finances, tough: I can’t imagine a single poster here going into hock to preserve the purity of Alas.
This comment was written by The Devil's Advocate.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
This is racist (from the “Ball Honeys” link on the Amptoons Review page):
“Review of Ball Honeys
Score: 87
Sub-Section: Ethnic
Company: BangBros Online
Date: Jul 16, 2006
Ball Honeys is the premier BangBros ethnic site. BALL. Black, Asian, Latina, Ladies. I don’t think I can be any clearer than this. Some of the finest ethnic babes around. All featured in hot scenes, new every week. This is actually one of my favorite sites. The girls they find have the hottest asses around. Nothing beats a big, round booty. Nothing beats the Ball Honeys. Each week, the boys at BangBros deliver a new ethnic mama and get down to business.
This is anti-lesbian:
Review of We Live Together
Score: 84
Sub-Section: Lesbian
Company: Nasty Dollars
Date: Jul 14, 2006
We Live Together is one of the best lesbian sites out there. If you love watching them play and get wild, you’ve found the best place to see it. Two college girls go out every week and rope in the cutiest girl they can. They bring her back to the apartment and then it gets naughty. We Live Together offers rubbing, toying, licking and everything in between. It is extremely hot. The girls they bring back are totally fresh and never seen before. Hell, I’ve never seen them again either. Just your average girl nextdoor types. Some of them are first timers and maybe a bit curious, while others are totally experienced and looking to play. Which ever it is, the girls at We Live Together are more than happy to please.
This is criminal:
Review of Liz Vicious
Score: 85
Sub-Section: Solo Models
Company: JayMan Cash
Date: Jul 22, 2006
Liz Vicious is the newest and hottest teen sensation to hit the new in a while. She has red hale, pale skin, and some have said she looks like Avril Lavigne. Well, a dirty, naughty Avril Lavigne maybe. Regardless, the pictures of Liz Vicious speak for themselves. If you ask me, she is here to stay.
Unlike many of the solo teen models on the net that just do tease pictures and videos, Liz Vicious is all about the hard stuff. She describes herself as the goth girl gone bad. I agree. There is something about her that just draws you in. If you are reading this though, you probably already know that.
***
The above? It’s Amptoons.
Note, when you click on the links, you don’t just get text, you get pornography too, photos.
And you click on the link down there at the bottom of this page where it says “review.”
Heart
This comment was written by Heart.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
As a Brazilian, I know what being targetted for being latina is, and it’s not funny. This kind of stereotyping is very damaging. I will never post here again.
This comment was written by saltyC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
I tried posting again about how I feel as a Brazilian about the stereotyping at the “reviews” page and again was censored.
This comment was written by saltyC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
ok, to get to this pron stuff, i have to scroll all the way to the bottom of one of amp’s 2 pages, and click on a word in a phrase that seems like just a boilerplate that i would probably ignore anyway.
then, i get sent to a site with text only. there, i have to do some more scrolling past some really stupid movie & product reviews to find the pron links.
this isn’t for someone who is directly looking for the pron, it’s for increasing google traffic which would already be going there. you think bang bros or 8th street latinas is hurting for traffic with or without amp?
these links offend me not one little bit. i like what an earlier poster said about being offended by vogue. there’s plenty out there that isn’t buried beneath a mound of links to be offended by.
and isn’t kinda ironic that the pron sites are paying for a feminist site to exist? making the anti-feminists pay for our ability to criticize them more freely? sounds like a sweet deal to me.
This comment was written by proud to swim home.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Look, am I crazy here? Does anyone else think that this is actually a good deal that Amp made?
Check it out:
What are the porn sites getting out of this? They’re getting their (racist, misogynist, abhorrent) porn sites ranked on Google a few spots above other (similarly racist, similarly misogynist, similarly abhorrent) porn sites. Does having these links on Amp’s site mean that these porn sites are going to get more traffic? Yes . . . AS COMPARED TO other porn sites. Not as compared to, like, Amazon.com or Cat Food Depot or Feministe or Pandagon or something. Porn bothers me. It doesn’t particularly bother me that one (racist, misogynist, abhorrent) porn site is doing better or worse than another (racist, misogynist, abhorrent) porn site.
What is Amp getting out of this? He’s getting much needed money, with which to support a website which offers a forum for discussion of Feminist issues.
My point is that the continued success of Alas, A Blog is more important in the whole scheme of things than whether one MILF site or another becomes marginally more successful. Let them fight it out amongst themselves. If their money goes to the continuation of Alas, A Blog, it’s certainly better than wherever it would have gone otherwise.
PS: Exactly what proud to swim home said.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.PPS: Heart doesn’t believe that Amp is a good feminist? Quel Horreur! (I stopped listening to her when she started to explain how it’s okay to discriminate against transwomen because they weren’t ‘real’ women anyway. )
Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
I’m done here, I’m done with the biased moderation, with the coddling of violence against women, with the slanders against radical feminists, this is my last post.
This comment was written by saltyC.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
So far, I haven’t deleted or blocked any posts here. One post of SaltyC’s was caught in the auto-moderation, and I approved it when I saw it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
I feel like I’ve said things a dozen times, but everything I say is invisible until someone else repeats it, but in the interests of clarifying misunderstanding on the technology…
There is no ‘hit count’ that’s triggered when Amp’s page is loaded, with the link to the Reviews site. This just ensures that the web bots find the sites (establishes a connection).
The link in this page does not add to the link rank in the Reviews page, because it’s in the same domain. If the owner of the domain changes this to another domain (and it has to be outside of the IP block of this site), then there might be some small rank accrual.
The Review site links to other sites, with some additional text, so it doesn’t look like a linkspam site to the web bots. For all intents and purposes, it’s a legimitate site, and Google will not penalize it.
The porn link field is full of SEO (search engine optimization) so what happens is the sites linked _may_ get a few links higher than others in the same search. However, to repeat myself, it won’t make porn show up with a feminist search, and neither will it make a search on any of the feminist sites that have been linked here, appear during a porn site.
However, if trigger words are used as keywords in the Reviews a porn search _might_ show up at amptoons.com. I looked at the reviews, and it would see that they’re pretty careful about keyword use. Not good use of titles on the links for search engine optimization, though. (Bad use of SEO).
Now, all of the people who have been linked to the Reviews site in disdain have just managed to boost the search rank up for that page enormously, and I imagine the person who bought the domain is properly appreciative.
Now, as said by others, vising here and leaving comments might help you if rel=nofollow isn’t used in the comment URL link. Regardless, you are not boosting this site’s rank,
If you want to link here without doing so, use rel=”nofollow”, and the Google bot (and most other search engine bots) won’t follow the link or use it in rank calculation.
I agree with proud to swim home that there is a funny irony in that this feminist site is now paid for by links to bolster porn sites. But then, during this discussion, I’ve been told that because I defended this site and this decision, I’m no longer a feminist, so what do I know.
As for those wanting Amp to cut himself and bleed in public, give up all the money, break the contract–get a life.
This comment was written by Shelley.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Shelley,
To be clear, that was not what I was advocating. Amp asked for suggestions, and I offered ones that I thought allowed a way for him to meaningfully redress what he agrees he would have done differently if he had to do it over again, without asking him to “bleed” for the sake of bleeding. It’s for Amp to decide what he feels is right.
This comment was written by Fred Vincy.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
[...] I wasn’t sure where Barry stood on the anti-porn/sex-positive feminism front, but I’ve never gotten any sense of his being pro-porn in any way. (He’s since clarified.) I really couldn’t imagine him approving of this. What was going on? Had the site been hacked? Did he have an evil twin? Whatever the explanation, it was clear that I had a major scoop here. Ampersand is a big name in the feminist blogosphere, so I did what any blogger would do. I immediately posted a humiliating exposé without bothering to find out any facts emailed him to find out what was going on: It’s not my intention to embarrass you, but in the tradition of blogger-as-journalist, I feel duty bound to blog about this. I’d like to give you an opportunity to comment before I do. [...]
This comment was written by Alas, an Eruption « Creative Destruction.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
I believe the commercial sex industry to be in and of itself an exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our society.
This comment was written by Occasional Expositor.I have been a regular reader (but not commenter) of Alas and I would have liked to know that this so-called pro-feminist website in any way contributed to the promotion of pornography websites. And Ampersand knows that this issue is contentious among feminists; that’s what makes me suspicious about the way the sale was announced and then “vanished” without comments.
I will no longer be visiting this website.
Doing what you have to do to make money? It sure is hard out there for a pro-feminist blogger.
Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
I’m really, really puzzled by this.
It’s just a URL.
Amp, why didn’t you (why don’t you) strip your content off this page, put up a sign that says ‘we’ve moved’, go to another host, and post a link?
Amptoons.blogspot.com?
This happens so often I don’t even pay attention to it–just alter my bookmarks. If I wanted to be real nice, I’d email the folks on my blogroll and tell them of the change.
I condemn no one who sell out in order to survive. No one.
My question is not, why’d you sell, but why are you still here?
What are you holding on to? It seems like you’re going through a lot of agony for fourteen letters and two periods.
This comment was written by pbg.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
saltyC, just how many angry ‘last posts’ are you going to make? Auto-moderation happens. Happens to everyone. You’re awfully quick to howl about censorship.
For that matter, Amp has been changing his structures and his content for ages to cater to the comfort level of people who have continued to be hostile, to say he can never really be a feminist, and who, every time, say this is an awful place hostile to their views and they’ll never ever come back again.
And they still do come back. Because he puts forth his resources to give them–give!–a forum for telling him how bad he is, because he clearly believes in the discourse and in improving his understanding. This place remains open to those criticisms and discussions and viewpoints, and they’re not censored. And their proponents keep coming back and using this space because it’s a good space for discussion, and then run home to complain that because someone dared to argue, this place is horribly hostile to “radical feminism” or whatever the label du jour is.
You know, I was sitting on the fence about this whole mess. I think Amp made some mistakes here, especially in the disclosure department. You know what, though? I’m damned well sticking around, in part because I trust that if I’ve got a problem, Amp will have the integrity to try and address it, even if he and I end up disagreeing. And if anyone else wants to use their resources to build a place as good as this one has been, I’ll be happy to be there, too. I’d rather discuss and see what Amp will do to rectify the problems, and contribute to the solution, then set effigies of him on fire and make sixteen posts about how I’m never posting here again. I plan on screwing up in the future, too. I believe in giving people chances. And as someone who’s eaten garbage to get by, I also believe in taking a step back before telling someone else what their financial options are.
This? Not my last post.
This comment was written by little light.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
This is exactly the same situation that arises when doctors are given gifts and incentives by drug companies: the doctors themselves really believe it doesn’t affect what drugs they choose to prescribe, but studies show that it does deeply alter their attutides and behaviour to those companies.
You can’t claim, after this, that any of your stated views on pornography aren’t influenced by knowing that your blog is paid for by porn merchants.
This comment was written by Laura.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Perhaps I missed this, but what’s to stop you from shutting down shop and opening a new blog elsewhere?
As for the people who’re badmouthing you, well, I hate to say it, but now you know what it looks like from the perspective of anyone who’s sex-positive who staps in here and trys to have a discussion from that perspective. You’ve surrounded yourself with a lot of rather harsh (to put it mildly) critics of any sex-positive writing, thought, or work.
I don’t know that it’s ever been directed at you before, but what you’re seeing in this thread is just a taste of what it’s like to try and hold a conversation here from a sex-positive standpoint.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Rest assured, Josh. We lock-kneed prudes find you every bit as harsh as you find us.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
[...] All your questions answered (and by the way, I’m selling the blog to Focus on the Family) For those of you following the saga of Alas and the Pornographers, Barry has spoken: Yes, he knew there would be porn. Yes, he understood that the internet rating for Alas would drive up the search engine rankings for the pornographer. No, he doesn’t think it’s such a bad thing. Yes, he should have been upfront about it, and he’s sorry. [...]
This comment was written by Reclusive Leftist » Blog Archive » All your questions answered (and by the way, I’m selling the blog to Focus on the Family).Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
You know, I haven’t seen a very clear explanation yet of what exactly it is that drives up the porn site’s hit counts. Is it simply having you on a blogroll? Linking to specific posts? Leaving an URL in comments? I haven’t seen anything about nofollow codes until this comment thread. So you haven’t exactly been “out in the open.”
A few people have loftily derided those who have thought that you are writing the pron reviews, or that simply viewing the page is the trigger for the hit count. Such derision is misplaced, because there has been no explanation of just what it is that drives the hits.
I have no strong position on porn, but damned if I’m going to participate in driving up the hit count of a porn site I don’t know about, haven’t reviewed, haven’t approved, is racist, what have you.
Moreover, if this works the way I think it does, and it’s the links from other bloggers that drives up the hit counts (and whether that’s based on just numbers of links, or traffic driven to the site through those links, I still don’t know), then you owe it to the people who link to you in whichever way affects the hit counts to disclose your arrangement to them, if for no other reason than that you’re now profiting from those links.
This comment was written by zuzu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Alright, what are people missing here? Especially you people who seem to be sex-positive (stupid word)…even if you are sex-positive how can you continue supporting amp, knowing that it is racist pornagraphy that he is boistering? I mean, seriously, I can barely even formulate words to describe how this makes me feel as a woman, as a feminist, as a person who cares about racial prejudice in pornagraphy and how hurtful it is to women and men of color. Can we agree that this is not right? That this is shameful and degrading to women and men of color. Shame on you all for being complicit in this. This is racist crap you guys are writing off with your, ‘We understand, amp’ bs. This is not okay. There are standards. He has none.
This comment was written by anashi.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
If you’ve read this thread, you know what I know. If I’m unclear on it in my writing, it’s because I’m unclear on it in my mind; I don’t know how things work. Frankly, it all seems very dubious to me that anyone could make money this way.
Shelley seems to have a clearer idea of the technology than anyone else here, so I’m assuming that what she says in comment #63 is accurate.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
I must really be out of it. Could someone please tell me what “sex positive” means? I can’t even begin to fathom — not androgynous? enjoys having sexual relations? happy being the gender they were born with?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Barbara, “sex-positive” is generally a euphemism for pro-porn feminists.
As for how Alas is helping the pornographer, it’s like this (and I’m copying from a comment at my place which was copied from somewhere else):
In other words, the pornographer needs a way to get his site boosted to the top of Google searches; that’s his only chance at attracting customers in the sea of millions of porn sites. By attaching to amptoons, which because of this blog is a very highly-ranked domain in Google (given its age and the number of links from other sites), he achieves his objective.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Violet Socks, thanks. That’s a euphemism I won’t be using and it shows why using euphemisms is usually a bad idea.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I was going to say that my earlier message was a bit jumbled, but Violet Socks has it mostly right. There’s a lot more to search engine optimization than just the page rank though–amount of other material in ratio to number of links, number of outgoing links in a page as ratio to incoming links, keyword lists, actual text of the links, page headers, and so on, all impact on how high up the search engine results list a site gets.
I had come back to volunteer to provide a clearer answer and more details on nofollow and whatever, if this is what you really want zuzu. But I can’t tell if you want to really know this, or if you’re looking to vent.
Just remember: you can continue to link to Alas a Blog, using rel=”nofollow” and you won’t add to site’s page rank. And a site’s ‘hits’ have nothing to do at all with search engine results. The page hit count is the number of times a site has been visited (as well as unique visitor count(, and it makes sense only if you’re selling ads, like Google ads. That’s not what the Amptoons.com buyer is interested in. He wants to optimize search engine results–two different beasties.
You can visit this site millions of times, and all that happens is Amp gets a nice ego boost, and his server costs go up.
Sex-positive? Wow, there’s a term for everything now. Interesting use of words.
Sorry that my earlier explanation was so jumbled.
This comment was written by Shelley.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Geez, I really like the graphic you use to separate comments. That is so cute.
This comment was written by Shelley.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Bottom line for me…
This feminist space is still here.
This comment was written by Skanky Jane.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Yes, well, of course there’s also the fact that Alas is being supported by pornography. It’s a two-way deal. The blog is now running on a server paid for by the pornographer, who’s making his money from links to BangBros and other lovely stuff.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I’m not sure that that’s quite true, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a definition of “sex-positive” from someone who considers her- or him-self to actually be sex positive.
I mean, really, it’s like asking Susie Bright for a definition of Radical Feminist and getting back “It’s generally a euphamism for pro-censorship feminists.”
Perhaps your definition is a little biased, in other words.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Can this thread please, please, please not de-evolve into a sex-positive vs. anti-porn debate, since that horse has been beat to death…I shouldn’t have called ’sex-positive’ out as a stupid word. I’m sorry. Can we move on…
This comment was written by anashi.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
It looks like a lot of feminists agree with you. So Amp will lose some links, and some readers. My own opinions are more in line with little light’s comments.
For those like anashi and Violet, who find the situation untenable, all I can say is that you’ve made your opinions clear. What are you proposing that Amp do to mend fences ? If the fences are beyond mending, how many more times do you plan on stating as much before you realize that not everyone is going to be convinced ?
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Amp, are you totally blind or what? All these women comment, and the only person you respond to is anotehr guy?!
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Look, I know you know I’m a lawyer, and I know that you have lawyer friends, and I know that you know tech people, and I know that all of what you’re saying here isn’t entirely credible unless you were completely trying to hide what you were doing.
Basically, I can’t quite believe that you spent months — MONTHS!!! — negotiating a contract, months, without knowing what exactly you were agreeing to. And how the whole thing worked.
Honestly, I could believe that you didn’t really know what was going on if you’d, say, just jumped at the first version of the contract they gave you. But you didn’t. The months thing tells me that others were involved, advising you, and if you didn’t necessarily understand the implications of what you were doing (though telling the seller that people would likely delink you should they find out tells me that you knew very well), someone did.
This comment was written by zuzu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Maybe he meant this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_positive
This comment was written by Wiki Pedia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
If the fences are beyond mending, how many more times do you plan on stating as much before you realize that not everyone is going to be convinced ?
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was replying to the commenters in this thread who still are unclear on the situation. Given all the extreme confusion evident here about how the internet works, I was just trying to clarify.
My position is that since this is a feminist blog, and many feminists oppose pornography, I think people have the right to understand that this blog is supported by hard-core pornography and is in turn promoting hard-core pornography.
Once people understand the situation, it’s up to them to decide whether they are troubled by it. Really, either it bugs you or it doesn’t. Either you think Barry should have been upfront about it or you don’t.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
It seems worth waiting to see what more, if anything, amp plans to do to address this.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Here’s something I wrote about three years back under a different handle attempting to define ‘Sex Positive.’
Hope it’s useful.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Pimp My Domain for Dummies: Not Mysterious
Over on Alas, Violet Socks posted John’s explanation, from here, yesterday, about the mechanics of domain name pimping, as follows:
…
This comment was written by Women's Space/The Margins.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Zuzu - I don’t think Amp is claiming that he didn’t know what he was agreeing to (ie he knew what was going to happen to the domain when he sold it). What he has said that he’s unsure of is how the person who bought the blog off him is making money out of the whole thing. Therefore he doesn’t know anymore than anyone else what difference people who link to his blog make to either the profit of the person who owns amptoons.com, or the rankings of the sites that are linked to.
As co/guest bloggers have been brought up I think I should make it clear that I did know that Barry had sold his domain, and didn’t have a problem with it (for reasons that I may explain in another post).
This comment was written by Maia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
‘What are you proposing that Amp do to mend fences ?’
I don’t know…maybe not support racist, misogynistic porn. Or is that too much to ask from a feminist who claims to care about issues of race and prejudice?
This comment was written by anashi.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Amps site links to porn.
Amps site posts pix of his daughter.
This comment was written by Pony.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Yeah, anashi. I get it. Believe it or not. I’m not a moron. I’m trying to figure out just what specifically you think could be done to keep the site going without the domain being an online lad rag. Any specific ideas ?
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
As Maia correctly says, I meant that I don’t understand how search engine rankings, and attempts to manipulate them, work.
I didn’t consult with anyone except close friends on an informal basis. I didn’t consult any lawyers, and I didn’t consult any tech people. My main concern with writing the contract was making sure that no one but the writers of posts would own those posts (and ditto for my cartoons), and that “alas” would retain editorial independence. That might sound strange to you, but keep in mind that my background is in cartooning, where there are endless horror stories about people losing the rights to their creations to publishers.
It was inaccurate of me to say negotiating the contract took months. The negotiation as a whole took months, but the contract was only the final part of the negotiations. And as for the negotiation taking months - it just did. There were a lot of back and forth emails, often with several days between each email. At one point I was traveling for a couple of weeks and not responding to email. At one point I walked away entirely, because he wouldn’t agree to have no porn links at all.[*] Then a couple of weeks passed, a tenant told me that they might be losing their job, and he emailed out of the blue with a higher offer, and I decided I could live with the compromise. It all added up to months.
IIRC, the delinking conversation happened very early in the process, when I was thinking he was nuts, and pointing out reasons I thought it wouldn’t work. That he said delinkings wouldn’t be relevant for his interests, made it seem less consequential to me that I tell everyone right away. In retrospect, I was wrong.
[*] I mention this not to excuse myself - obviously, it doesn’t, and if that were my intention I’d have mentioned it long ago. I just mention it to give you an idea of how it is an amateur negotiation can, in fact, take months.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
It seems worth waiting to see what more, if anything, amp plans to do to address this.
I am puzzled, what more do you expect him to do? Sounds to me like he did what he needed to do to make sure his family didn’t do without. That’s a good thing for a person to do, yes?
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
While I am not a fan of porn myself, I have a world of problems with the feminist police attacking Amp yet again for a choice that we don’t really know much of. To make it worse, this comes from Heart, whose hypocrisy I have spoken about more than once ( for some reason I have huge doubt that anyone with a passel of childrn has a right to call others picket fence feminists or whatever, and I have called her bullshit on that).
I do not have the data that I would need in order to make a correct judgement as to how “right ” or “wrong” Amp’s decision was. But it appears that he had to make a choice between selling the domain and kicking out a roommate( or something similar), and if any feminists of whatever colour actually think the former is a bigger crime than the latter, then I call that being utterly screwed up.
Insofar, I have seen no one attacking Amp who hasn’t done it in the past already for various reasons. As such, their honesty has to be questioned. As for me, I appreciate all the work that Amp has done and continues to do, and hope that whatever reason he had for this will be soon sorted and things will get better for himself and his household.
This comment was written by soopermouse.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Okay.
I’m not here much anymore, but my snapshot take on the situation is that Amp was faced with a shitty situation and did the best he could.
We’re all trying to get by in this world, and it’s oftentimes really fucking hard, and we do the best we can, and sometimes we don’t make the choices that other people would have.
We will all fuck up sometimes.
I just hope that when my time comes, and I screw up while furiously treading water, that the people around me have a little more kindness and a little less vicious orthodoxy.
I just wish that he would have let us know that things were bad, because I’d have been happy to give something back for everything he’s given to us over the years . . . and I just did.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Soopermouse, thank you for your post. I really appreciate it.
But I do want to point out that I’m not in dire economic need right now; but it is in part because I made this deal that I can afford to pay my bills and be relaxed about tenants not paying rent (sometimes, not in many months). I didn’t mean to give the impression that I’m currently in bad shape.
Also, although it’s true that some of my critics have been eager to criticize me harshly over the years, it’s also true some of the people criticizing me have been quite kind to me in the past; for instance, Violet Sacks, Lauren, and Hugo are all people who have been perfectly nice to me. (I’m not saying those are the only three, they’re just the three that leap first to my mind.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
And may I repeat what Amp has said: the reason Amp responded to me directly was that I slammed him hard at my blog but also sent him an email asking him to open this thread. Nothing to do with taking a man’s opinion more seriously, as far as I can see.
I’d love to see Alas continue on another site, somehow, someday.
This comment was written by Hugo.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Myca and Hugo, thanks. (And thanks to many, many others, as well.)
Putting on my moderator cap for a moment, I have to comment on this:
Soopermouse, with all due respect (and I respect you a lot), as moderator I have to ask you to leave old arguments with Heart - and also Heart’s number of kids - out of this thread.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
I’m not sure total thread derailment is what’s needed at this point, but there are some things that it’s hard to ignore:
I see absolutely no hypocricy about a feminist having children. And degrading the work that women do giving birth to and raising children seems profoundly anti-feminist to me.
This comment was written by Maia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
People have already offered suggestions about alternatives. Donations for one thing. If people wanted to read Amp so badly and were invested in seeing him continue writing, I think that donations would have been a good alternative. But that ship has sailed, so why are you even asking me about what I think as far as alternatives go? Seems like there were plenty of people who would have been willing to help that weren’t given a chance to. I don’t see donations as a bad thing at all. I think that it’s perfectly legit to lean on your readers for support. There’s no shame in asking for help. I don’t think you’re a moron at all. There aren’t any simple answers, I’m afraid. And nothing he does right now will probably appease some people, even going the donation route. What I think is being missed here is how incidious the system is, how it worms its way into our lives through compromise…it happens in increments and suddenly we wake up and we don’t have a leg to stand on anymore because we’re just as bad as the people whose minds we are trying to change…I’m sorry for all the blathering. That’s all from me.
This comment was written by anashi.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Amp, point duly noted, and I apologize.
However, the attacks against you are what I call the feminist police, they are a thing that has been going on for a while and from my POV this is bullying. I am sick and tired of seeing it, I am sick and tired of seeing pwople who have done a lot for feminism being attacked just because their POV is not a copy of *****’s POV.
Maia
This comment was written by soopermouse.the hypocrisy was in the context of Heart’s observation. This can be found at genderberg
Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
I’m coming to all of this very late.
I’ve been a fan of the thoughtful and intelligent writing on” Alas” for a long time.
I’m really glad that the blog is no longer in jeopardy, is continuing and will remain autonomous.
“Body impolitic” will certainly maintain its link to you.
This comment was written by laurie toby edison.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 12:21 am
Anashi, donations had been solicited but not many people actually contributed. Barry also tried some feminist friendly advertisement space. Again it didn’t measure up. It’s been an ongoing problem for Alas, and I find it extremely dishonest of many of the critics to feign unawareness. They happily used Alas bandwidth to be critical of Barry (and often times his housemates have gotten caught in the crossfire - ala Matt and I embracing and happily enjoying the Babyblogging links of our two daughters that have been used by idiots like Pony to push their own bullshit and uninformed agenda). On the same token, consider what might have happened had the donation route taken hold with different factions of feminism fighting over what was appropriate and not appropriate for the blog. Do you think the same people who feel so entitled to saying what should go on and not go on at Alas would have been less or more vocal had they invested five bucks to the cause? I’m thinking they would have felt five bucks entitled them to a hell of a lot. Unjustified entitlement isn’t unique to the patriarchy.
This comment was written by Kim (Basement Variety).Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Although I know this doesn’t excuse my past errors, in response to this thread I’m planning to donate one-tenth of the money from the sale of amptoons.com to charities that help women. Hopefully this will provide some feeling of closure or balance to feminists who are distressed by having linked to “Alas” during the period since the sale.
I was thinking that one-half of the donation could be sent to the campaign to end fistula.
The other half, I was thinking of sending to an organization that provides services and assistance to prostitutes who want to leave prostitution. I was hoping that someone could suggest a good organization they know of (doing a google search for “services for prostitutes” did not turn up the kind of thing I was looking for, to put it mildly).
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 1:12 am
ya know, the campaign to end fistula sounds like a good idea. Maybe this will remove some pains in the ass ya know ;)
All I have to say on this further can be found on my blog, so I won’t alter the civility of this blog ( for which I respect Amp. I would ahve told soem people to go fuck themselves a long time ago if I was you).
Kim, Amp, you do not owe anyone anything. You should not fdeel like you do, and not give in to the bullies.
Amp, I run a web hosting business. Maybe you will want to email me about seeing what can be done regarding a server.
This comment was written by soopermouse.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 1:16 am
I’ll throw in some money to the charities you decide to support, Amp. Please put links on the blog when you make your decisions.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 1:23 am
Rather than making null and void Alas’ credibility - a feminist blog site supported in part by a pornographer - gives us all the more material to think with.
This comment was written by Skanky Jane.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Before I started reading Ampersand, back when he was the only writer on the site anyway, I didn’t consider myself a feminist. My mom had been a huge Limbaugh fan when I was a kid and though I was politically liberal, I had a very skewed opinion of what it meant to be a feminist. Reading this site, Ampersand’s writing, changed my mind about that and I’ve been glad to call myself a feminist for quite a while now.
This site has been a tremendous educational resource for me personally and, through links, to share with my readers. It would actually be my hope that, provided the SEO people keep their word, the site could remain where it is. It would be a shame for the existing backlog of links to content here to go dark and for web searches for it to have to rely on the Google cache. But what they’ve done at the moment, just a simple page with text of the sort they’ve got up, is probably not going to get this site flagged as spam in Google.
Shelley is exactly right about how this works and I know because I used to do SEO for a living. Visiting here directs no actual traffic to the pron people. It won’t land pron in searches for feminism. SEO has two main features: linking and keywords. Linking helps page rank, which determines overall importance of a page. Keywords determine relevance. This second thing is prime, because no matter how high a page rank might be, that page will only show up in searches for terms that are included in its text content or in the text of links to it. A site like microsoft.com, for example, has a page rank of 10 (out of a possible 10, 10/10, which can be observed by anyone who has the Google toolbar installed in their browser and looks at the little PageRank icon with the variable green and white bar) that makes it come up pretty high in the rankings … if you’re looking for software services of the type they provide. Indeed, if you google their company or product names, rest assured that a page rank of 10 will land them on that first page of results. But it will under no circumstances give Microsoft any standing whatever in a search for feminism, or pron, or where to find the best Indian food in Seattle. (Cedars, btw, on 70th, eastbound off I5 above the Flying Apron bakery. The chai is bottomless and it tastes mildly of the best pumpkin pie you ever had.) As regards internal linking on a site, this has a different effect. It doesn’t touch page rank, but does affect relevancy somewhat. What the people who bought this domain have done is to make it minimally likely, as noted above, that they’ll get flagged as gaming the system by choosing a perfectly innocuous and descriptive link term and while also maintaining flexibility to promote the sites of many different clients.
For the record, a page rank of 6 like Alas has is damn fine. Most SEO people would consider selling their grandmother’s dentures to get even a 4, because while it’s normal for a reasonably trafficked blog that’s been around a few years, it’s hellishly difficult to obtain if you’re merely some soulless corporate venue without a national brand name. If Amp moves this site, it might take a significant amount of time to build up that kind of page rank again, which would also mean that the well-researched articles and thoughtful commentary that appear here would also lose rank in the searches. Actual hits to the sites they promote will come through the search engine listings and pretty much there only. It’s in no way realistic that the sort of page they’ve got on the site right now would be anywhere higher than, if they’re very lucky, page 40 or so of any search, which means that it practically doesn’t exist as far as visitors go.
Though I’m not very concerned about the pron issue, either. It isn’t something that inherently irritates me, nor does it especially interest me, no one looks like they’re having an actual good time and I find that a turn off. I don’t like the attitudes towards women that go along with many of the narratives, but not only don’t I know that fighting pron is the best way to beat that, I know for sure that it isn’t the only source of those attitudes.
Back when I was married, the jerk I’d had the bad taste to hook up with would sulk by reading Russian mail-order bride catalogs and discussing the merits of the various listees with me. All the women were fully clothed. Usually, they were all white, though some of the catalogs he’d ordered had sections for women from various parts of the world, which he by and large wasn’t that interested in. There was no explicit talk about sex, as such. And it wasn’t really about that, anyway. It was about him wanting a partner who was at once supremely competent and entirely obedient. ‘She has an advanced degree and I bet she’d have dinner ready on time every night, too, because she’d be so grateful.’ No pron was necessary for my complete and repeated humiliation. No pron was necessary for this man to feel like he had the right to treat me like a possession and so restrict my access to our joint finances (even though I had a job as well) that I often had to scrounge out of the change jar so I could buy ‘lunch’ from a vending machine. It would not have affected his issues for every pornographer on the planet to have disappeared overnight and oh, good grief, do I believe that I have well and away enough information to say that with confidence.
The first guy I dated after my divorce was an online pron fiend like I have never known before or since. But he finally taught me how to drive at the age of 23, which my ex had made impossible. He helped me learn enough about computers, and encouraged me to take classes in them, so that I was able one day to get a Very Good Job. Neither my family nor my self-proclaimed ‘feminist’ ex ever did so much to ultimately set me on a path to independence or to believing that I had the right to have such a thing.
And I’ll echo the comment of someone else upthread, it amuses me to know that pron will be supporting a feminist site. It makes me glad that Amp will be donating some of it to worthy causes and it sounds to me like his initial suggestions are good ones.
As a blogger myself, I know how hard it is to get a site to pay for itself through donations. Not even Atrios can pull in enough off his blog to have a minimum wage salary at this point, iirc. There isn’t at the moment a network of sympathetic financiers who will underwrite what is typically just an incredibly time-consuming hobby, something which requires hours of unpaid labor every week, during which the blogger could presumably be doing something else to earn a living. The likelihood that a boutique site could earn enough to significantly impact household finances is slim to none, while maintaining it is a virtual part-time job unto itself.
Lastly, just, frakking blog wars, man. There weren’t this many people threatening never to link to the NY Times again because they employed that lying, warmongering hack Judith Miller.
Amp - As long as Alas continues to be the blog I’ve known and loved for the last several years, you will always have a link on my site. But yeah, this would have been a good thing to mention a little more plainly when it happened and though when I looked just now I didn’t see any stereotypified ethnic pron advertised, that would be an important thing to discuss with them if you can still negotiate that.
But on the whole, thanks for everything.
This comment was written by natasha.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 5:18 am
This is really disgusting. but it reflects badly on Pony, not on Amp.
Human Rights Watch has an anti-trafficking campaign, but that is probably not exactly what you’re looking for Amp.
I agree with Mandolin–post links!
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 5:37 am
If Only! With our powers combined….the NYT will probably remain the (toilet)paper of record.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 5:54 am
“When did the feminists of weblogging have their secret meeting and hammer the rules by which the rest of us maintain our weblogs, or suffer the consequences?”
Dontcha know? Heart has determined Proper Feminist Credentials for all Womynkind. Of course, she’s careened crazily from submit-to-your-man-bear-a-dozen-children-for-the-glory-of-God to the other extreme of man-hating, but either way, she’s Correct and you’re not.
This comment was written by Susanne.You’re not the only one , Soopermouse, who has issues with her tremendous hypocrisy, which completely trumps Amp’s blog sale.
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October 12th, 2006 at 7:03 am
You know, I’m not thrilled with Amp’s decision, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for delinking, not posting/reading, whatever. I’m not a big fan of porn or of so-called “sex positive” thinking that worships the idea of women as servers/men as consumers, or the philosophy that anyone who questions the status quo is a big meanie who’s all for repression and against sex (I’m looking at you, Josh–you’re just as bad as those you whine about).
But, you know, it is pretty damn ironic that the very feminists who have a personal grudge against Amp (i.e., Heart and her clique) have routinely come here and used this very blog to shake their fingers at us lesser feminists, lecture us, and hector us. Who’ve used the comments section of this blog to make sweeping comments trashing all of the feminists on Amp’s blogroll for not being good enough while ignoring their own baggage. Who ignore their own friendships with so-called feminist men who aren’t the the best allies, who ignore their own heteronormative privilege while trashing those lesser and “fun” feminists–or even fellow radical feminists–for just that. Well, fuck that noise.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 7:07 am
I have to agree that Pony’s statement was out of line, and very distasteful. I support Amp in making a donation to a good cause-as for one that supports prostitutes when leaving the field, I want to say there is one in California that is run by an ex-sex worker, but for the life of me I can’t remember the name…want to say Angels is in there somewhere but sometimes with my memory I think angels are everywhere. As I said earlier, I think Amp made a mistake, admitted it and I still think this is a wonderful site full of thought provoking articles to make me go hhmm.
This comment was written by valley_grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 7:24 am
I have been reading this conversation with fascination and frustration. That Barry should have said something earlier is clear; he has acknowledged that. We are, all of us, fallible human beings and we all of us fuck up from time to time; and there are always, at least in my life, and I am assuming in everyone else’s life as well, people waiting to pounce on that as a way to prove how inhuman, how below contempt we really are. The people who are calling Barry pimp, pornographer, who are suggesting that he is a pedophile, are taking cheap shots because they are cheap and what makes them cheap is not that there is nothing in Barry’s decision to sell, in his decision not to be as open as he is now being, and so on, that is worth critiquing from any of the various feminist points of view that are out there. That male privilege is implicated in what went on seems to me to be a more-than-obvious conclusion, not only in terms of Barry’s personal decision-making (since when is male privilege not implicated in any man’s decision-making, especially when he identifies as pro-feminist, or feminist, and especially when it involves something like Alas?), but also in terms of who had the kind of money, and why, to buy amptoons.com that would force Barry, given his financial situation, to take seriously the offer that was made.
It is for Barry to work through what went on in him as he made the decisions he made and to come to terms with that–and it sounds, frankly, like he has already done some of that work–and it is for him to decide whether he wants to go public with that working through. However, if this discussion can become a discussion, as anashi puts it, of
and if that discussion can be had without judging individual people, without calling them names, without invalidating them as human beings–which is not to say that we shouldn’t hold them accountable for choices they have made–then we will have moved on to something quite valuable. In that spirit, I have been thinking this: A while ago, I had a business doing freelance corporate communications and one of the things I did was ghostwrite a column on Internet marketing for one of my clients. One of the columns I wrote was about how one of the dirty little secrets of online commerce was that the Internet pron industry had pioneered many of the e-commerce and online traffic-generating techniques that made the growth of e-commerce possible. It would be interesting to see a post or series of posts, though I am not the person to write them, exploring the ways in which online pron has helped to drive the growth of the Internet, making all of us who use and benefit from it complicit. It would also be interesting–someone had probably already done it, and I just haven’t seen it–to see a feminist analysis of blogosphere economics, not just in terms of dollars and cents, but in terms of asking what kind of economy is it. (I am thinking, for example, of how, in the literary community, poetry–which makes no money–is thought of as circulating in a kind of gift economy that is separate, though not necessarily entirely distinct from, and also subversive of, the capitalist economy. These kinds of posts, if there is someone out there willing and able to write them–I would if I felt I could do the subjects justice, but I am neither knowledgable enough nor do I have the time–would, I think, begin to build on this discussion about the decisions Barry made in a constructive way.
I have been reading and commenting on Alas for quite a while now, and I have come to value the writing and the community of people the blog pulls together. While I would have preferred that amptoons.com had been sold to an interest that had no connection to pronography, and I also would have preferred more openness on Barry’s part, I am not so sure that continuing to read, comment and link here is any different from helping to boost circulation figures by picking up NYC’s The Village Voice, which gets an awful lot of its advertising money from escort services, phone sex lines and the like. I pick the paper up anyway because I value much of the writing that is in it; they are voices I would not be able to read anywhere else. Similarly, I will continue to read and comment and link here.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 7:53 am
Sheelzebub, I have come a long time ago to the sad conclusion that radical feminism is a movement of white western women… and sometimes I feel like screaming at the fucking entitlement it reeks of.
White privilege…check
This comment was written by soopermouse.Western privilege…check
het privilege…check
breeder privilege…check
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October 12th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Along the same lines, I think it needs to be said that having the ability to spend time and effort on the scale that Amp must spend to create something like this blog is the product of either its own kind of privilege, or herculean dedication of a kind that I don’t have the right to expect as a matter of entitlement. I haven’t done a survey, so I don’t know the percentage, but the quest for purity is most likely to stifle the voices of anyone other than those who are independently affluent, underwritten by universities or like minded employers, free lance or professional writers, or wildly and atypically successful in the blogosphere. Which is not to say that there is no line that oughtn’t to be crossed, but we need to think long and hard before we say that someone has irrevocably crossed that line.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:07 am
Yeah, anashi, Kim nailed it. I’ve donated little specks of money here and there to worthy feminist blogs. These days I don’t even have the little specks any more. Even when I did, I had no idea that things were going to financial hell for Amp’s household as much as he later mentioned they were. And we actually live in the same town and hang out together at least once a month. Maybe he was embarassed to make a big deal out of it when he had a regular job and I don’t. Maybe he did make a big deal out of it and I just wasn’t listening. At any rate, if I didn’t realize that the situation was getting serious until recently. If I didn’t pick up on that, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a lot of readers who only know Amp from this space and the occasional dinner together didn’t pick up on it.
Speaking of dinner, someday I still want to buy it for Sheelzebub. I probably don’t mention that enough and I don’t read her page enough either. :o
[sarcasm] Kim, have you broken the news yet to Matt that Sydney is actually Amp’s daughter ? I can’t wait to read the meltdown around blogland about that ? [/sarcasm]
The Fistula Foundation is a great org. And I second bean’s suggestion about the Baldwin Foundation.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:22 am
That’s why Soopermouse - you used your “Privilege” to bash someone of a lower economic class for at least 5-6 posts in your blog. Who isn’t a hypocrite to you?
Just because you had a fall out with people on just about every radical feminist site doesn’t mean that you can claim to be ‘non-hypocritical’ yourself. You take every single opportunity you can to use people’s ‘personal’ information against them. It’s the lowest type of vileness ever.
There are many feminists of colour who consider themselves ‘radical’ or with radical leanings… pls. don’t pull up the race card cause you are bitter.
This comment was written by AradhanaDevindra.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:30 am
[sarcasm] Kim, have you broken the news yet to Matt that Sydney is actually Amp’s daughter ? I can’t wait to read the meltdown around blogland about that ? [/sarcasm]
There’ll be an even greater meltdown when it’s revealed that Amp is actually Sydney’s mother.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:41 am
[cues soap opera organ music for Daran] And what of bean and her forbidden love for Walter the cat ? What of Radcliffe Hall’s sordid masochism and polyamory ? Tune in tomorrow !! [/organ music]
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:43 am
What Richard Jeffrey Newman said, especially the bit about the Village Voice and the growth of the Internet. Not only the Internet, but also the various digital recording media, have experienced tremendous growth and innovation at least in part because of the money from the pron industry. So we’re all a little complicit every day. Amp’s connection is just more obvious and recent. I would have a much greater problem with direct pron links from the blog. What if he had gone the other way and chosen to sign a contract with some Dominionist fundie group? I think a great many of the people who come here regularly would have had problems with that, too.
Amp, thanks for doing what you can to keep this site going, and thanks for being upfront about the situation - better late than never! Sorry the bullies have had their clubs out!
This comment was written by Original Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Kim, have you broken the news yet to Matt that Sydney is actually Amp’s daughter ? I can’t wait to read the meltdown around blogland about that ?
Yes, yes, I know. I’m belittling people for their ignorance. Too bad.
The above reference to Pony’s bizarre and ignorant statement is an example of what can make your critique of Amp’s actions easily disregarded. Your utter ignorance of the facts - that have been clearly explained both here and elsewhere - make us wonder if anything you write can be taken as grounded in fact or reality.
Here are a few things that you shouldn’t write if you are critiquing Amp and wish to be taken seriously:
Amp is writing reviews of pron
Visiting Alas will up the ratings of the domain
Sydney is Amp’s daughter
Chickens are made of spam
Amp writes from a position of privilege and you don’t write from a position of any privilege at all
One can only be a feminist if one is solidly anti-pron
You are a pure feminist and the target of your derision is not a “real” feminist
We can call each other names and make shit up to support our wild accusations or we can address the issues that concern us about the situation. It’s very, very hard to do both.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Well, count me in the category of folks who were primarily annoyed at the “no disclosure, not even a polite warning” issue. I figure that’s about the only thing I (as a noncontributor) was especially “entitled” to find troubling. I wasn’t really all that annoyed anyway, and Amp apologized–which seemed fair–so then i stopped being annoyed at all.
See? It’s easy.
I am always a fan of disclosure–I do it a lot in my profession–and I certainly think that given this shitstorm, ANYONE reading this thread will probably be inclined not to hide stuff in the future. Which overall is a good thing.
That said, can’t we have a nice debate about something else?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Susanne, the issue is not what trumps what. The issue is that all these quests for purisms have yet to yeild (sp?) any results but alienating allies and ultimately hurting the movement. As luck would have it, no one is completely white or black, we live in a system that forces us to compromise in order to survive. However, you know, one has to wonder whose compromise trumps whose… and what gives anyone the right to appoint themselves ultimate autority on…
Funny, all these tactics remind me of living in Communist Romania and the Party meetings where the “deviationists” were condemned for not toeing the line.
I believe that Amp did the best he could do for himself and his household, and that he did not owe anyone anything regarding that. Amp’s work has made a world of difference on s many levels ( not just feminism), and he is a league of his own regarding that aspect. He is also a non jesuite about it, which helps tremendously.
The comments made by ***** and such are unwarranted because there is no love lost here. They have attacked Amp before, and this is just another bashing fest occasion for them. This is not about honest concern.
AradhanaDevindra, falling out with them is one of the biggest achievements I have to claim this year. It took a world of hard work. But if you so desire to attack me, please do it at my blog, this is not the place.
This comment was written by soopermouse.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Sailorman:
Battlefield Earth. Worst movie in recorded human history or merely a pretender to the throne held by Star Wars: Episode I ?
It’s a tough call, but I have to say that Jar Jar trumps even Scientology for sheer worst-ness.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Speaking of dinner, someday I still want to buy it for Sheelzebub. I probably don’t mention that enough and I don’t read her page enough either. :o
;) I am queen of the skillet meal, so if we’re strapped money wise but are ever on the same coast, we can still eat.
And my blogging has been pretty sparse lately–I wasn’t even online or checking for a week and a half, and found several explosion ‘cross the ’sphere this week. Crap. I just can’t keep up.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Battlefield Earth. Worst movie in recorded human history or merely a pretender to the throne held by Star Wars: Episode I ?
Wrong and wrong. Battlefield Earth, while a terrible movie, doesn’t even make my bottom 100 list. Star Wars: Episode 1, the movie that made me say, “They never get another dollar from me,” still isn’t close to the worst movie of all time.
The worst movie of all time, the one that makes time stand still, the one that does everything wrong at every opportunity, is Boxing Helena. There is no disputing this. If you are attempting to dispute this, you have not seen the movie. Even Surf Nazis Must Die is a far superior viewing experience.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Well, I liked the BOOK version of BE, or at least I did when I was 12 year old ;) Never saw the movie though.
SW1 was really, truly, atrocious. But actually I stayed through the whole thing. I have not walked out of movies much in my life, but there have been a few. sadly (happily?) I can’t recall their names.
BTW, I assume/hope you’re feeling better…?
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Daran #125 and Jake Squid #128,
I think Matt, Amp, and Kim may need to go on Maury Povich to solve this one. LOL!!!
Sorry, I just could resist, inserting that one into the debate.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 10:08 am
You know this is really sad when other feminist women and profeminist men critique another profeminist man - it is not called ‘bullying’.
If this was a nonprofit organization’s website that dedicated itself working towards third world poverty elimination, and let’s say Nike wanted to embed a link to it’s website somewhere, I am sure the critics would have a field day. Likewise if this was a website for helping prostituted women off the streets and this happened - there would be criticism. If this was a website that was dedicated to anti-classism issues and we had a link to Stock trading, it would be the samething. Alcoholics Anonymous with beer sponsorship so on and so forth.
But the thing is - this isn’t that type of site - No one ‘has’ to hold Amp accountable to anything, except himself right? But when you say that you are a profeminist man that means that you are going to take into consideration your actions and the impact it has on women. And if you don’t think much of racist and sexist pornography (like the ones on your site) well then so be it. No one can change what you did / will continue to do. It’s your site Amp - you’ve done what you wanted to. And of course there were no other solutions.
Sure, in a highly pornified culture ‘Amp’s’ selling out is not really that big of a deal. Sure, when 600,000 iraqis are dead since the US invasion Amp’s selling out is not really a big deal.
The point is when you claim to be something, claim that you are dedicating your site to some people, claim that you uphold certain beliefs - it is justified that we should hold you to those claims. And this is why it’s a big deal.
This comment was written by AradhanaDevindra.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Typical. make an assumption, never back it up and then hold other responsible for not working under your assumption.
radical feminism is not all there is to feminism. Amp has never identified himself as one, and as such he owes no explanation as to why he does not obey radfem rules. The fact that he is treated like this because he does not obey the narrow rules made by people who are far too busy bolstering their own egos than doing anything but blabber on the internet and kissing each other’s asses, and the only result they have to show for themselves is alienating people, making feminism into a scarecrow notion and damaging the movement more than they have helped.
In the mean time, those they have spent so much time accusing and blaming have managed to make advances in real life more than what a bunch of white women who, after paying the patriarchy dues , have the audacity to judge others from the shade of their white fence and unearned privilege, have the right to say or do. It was not the radical feminists who made violent porn illegal in Britain, it was the Government they keep attacking for not bowing to their narrow standards. Radical feminism has turned into an elitist and bigoted club who cares more about judging others than doing anything that’s not words on a screen and reciprocal back patting.
You accused me of having class privilege. I do. And it is earned privilege, earn with blood, health and years of study.
AradhanaDevindra, neither Amp nor anyone else owes you anything regarding how they maintain their blogs or lives. You are not entitled to make a judgement regarding their decisions, and since no one is in any way forcing you to come here you are using Amp’s bandwidth for your agenda. I guess the porn money you are chastising Amp about are good enough if they buy the bandwidth for your soapbox.
The number of victims in Iraq? red herring.
I have seen some moron asking why did Amp not take a loan instead of selling the domain. This is entitlement.
Radical feminism has become a joke.
This comment was written by soopermouse.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
[...] The new Alas post detailing the sale of amptoons.com. [...]
This comment was written by Definition - A Feminist Weblog » This whole “Alas” drama thing.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I second what Laurie Toby Edison said in comment #107:
And I’d like to add that though it was a surprise to read last month, while I was guest blogging here, the minimal information Amp gave about the domain name’s sale, Amp was quick this week to contact me (and, I presume, other guest bloggers) and discuss whether or not I wanted my posts here removed from the site.
The fact is that disability bloggers (and, I believe, anyone interested in the community of people who claim disability as an identity) gained a great deal from the large readership of this blog. Some of the discussion following one or two of my posts included the rare online experience of disability and feminism being discussed together in such a large forum, with the typical conflicts emerging when two political identities try to manage merging priorities. I really value Alas for that and the role it has had in the past with disability issues.
Every day when I check the sitemeter for my blog I find many, many Google searches for fetish pron about disabled women (and men) and laugh that the searcher ended up — however briefly — on a site that seeks to upset the objectification and stereotyping of disabled women. Pron is inextricably linked to everything else on the internet, which is deeply problematic, for sure. And though Amp’s full disclosure came late, I just can’t get worked up about the particulars of how pron is linked to Amp’s site. It doesn’t weigh heavily enough against the opportunities for discussion that are provided here.
This comment was written by Blue.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
sailorman:
I was until Squid and his film guide showed up. [sprays down computer with disinfectant]
Sheelzebub, you’re on. I’ll make the drinks. :D
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
What you should have said was:
(I just realised the joke probably only works in the UK.)
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
I’m very sure that Ampersand has been an anti-sexist longer than I have, and has done more work of an activistic nature than I have toward that cause.
Knowing this, I can only conclude that a profeminist man - who obviously must understand the principles of “divide and conquer” - who can proceed to watch feminists line up on either side of him, against each other - over HIM - without feeling a sense of emergency so overwhelming as to do absolutely anything to remove himself from that position, is proof-positive that being an experienced profeminist man does not require that you know your ass from your elbow.
Unless your cartoon career was bolstered, aided and to some degree co-authored by a community wherein a significant population was passionately opposed to strip clubs, I’d say there’s nothing similar at all. Furthermore, unless this hypothetical community was not consulted in the slightest before your “compromise”, the similarities fade even further. This analogy, frankly, sucks.
Whose trust, exactly, did you betray in order to take a job on Wall Street? Did some Marxist organization help put you through college?
If an anti-porn feminist made the same “compromise”, do you think they’d offer one word of rationalization for it? I doubt it, and I doubt they’d call it a “compromise”; they’d probably call it “defeat”. But you “understand” all this, right? At any rate, let’s not feign surprise when anti-porn feminists fail to sympathize on this issue (I’ve seen plenty of them *empathize” with you, however.)
Apparently your “respect” doesn’t extend to speaking up for them when they’re attacked in a rather nasty manner for the very beliefs you supposedly “understand”. (your moderating slap on the wrist for the ad hominem attacker notwithstanding)
Taking the moral high ground is probably not going to work with those who feel betrayed by you. But that’s not what this statement is about, of course; rather, it’s an invitation for people to take sides. Is this what “male profeminism” is all about? From all appearances, it is the opposite.
So, selling to a porn promoter - considering your readers - is not worthy of an apology, but this is? This is about as half-assed as it gets.
I’m not going to much criticize the feminist supporters of Ampersand. Feminists have discussed, debated and fought over this issue for a long time. What I’m going to criticize is the idea of a man claiming to be anti-sexist/profeminist/feminist/whatever putting himself in the middle of it. This can ONLY be more hurtful to women on both sides of the argument.
After all, porn divides some of you, and who better to be standing right next to it, between you, but a man? If this is male anti-sexism, I need to find a new label.
This comment was written by John.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Let me just say that I have no qualms about Amp selling his intellectual property. The porn reviews are hidden at least two links deep, and it’s clear that it’s a different entity.
And the money perpetuating discussion of feminism and liberalism is using an enemy’s money against them. It’s like me taking a scholarship from Coors - even though they’re far-right and make bad beer, their money helped me partially defray my educational costs, and my education has helped me more effectively fight for liberalism.
Barbara’s comments upthread are true-on - I do far more damage to the cause of feminism by subscribing to the New Yorker, which is published by Conde Nast, which publishes Allure, Details, Domino, GQ, Glamour, Jane, Lucky, Men’s Vogue, Self, Teen Vogue, Vogue and W, as well as celebrity-idolizing Vanity Fair, than I do advertising in the Portland Mercury, which has the escort ads mentioned by S.M.
The fashion industry has caused 1000 times more damage to women’s self-image (and mens’ too!) than the porn industry at its most vulgar could.
I wonder if the members of ChezAmp can be fed, clothed, and housed on indie/feminist/punk cred.
This comment was written by Aaron V..Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
[...] Amp responded with his first announcement, along with some additional comments about his beliefs on the whole “personal is political” ideal. [...]
This comment was written by reappropriate » Blog Archive » Selling Out Your Blog.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
John… Amp has never had the support of the radfems. They attacked him before, and they will just keep doing so, therefore there is no love lost here. Why do you think he should pander to a group that constantly insulted him?
This comment was written by soopermouse.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
I’d add to soopermouse’s point that feminists find plenty to fight about even when there isn’t a man to be seen for miles. I think that John gives Amp too much credit to assume that somehow blogs run by feminist women are automatically more peaceable than this. Even among anti-porn feminists, you’ll see fierce arguments over whether or not women who make porn are culpable for harm to other women or not, and so on…
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Since Heart felt uncomfortable posting my response to Pony’s “amp is a child molester” implicaiton over at hear blog, I’m repeating it here:
That comment was gross. It doesnt even make sense. It’s unlikely that anyone would randomly end up looking at pron via “Alas”–I had trouble finding the indirect link. The comment is insulting, not just to Amp, but to women–like me– who have struggled or are struggling to tell the TRUTH about rape, sexual violence, child abuse and other GBV in thier own lives. You have no evidence to make such a heinous charge, and you should really apologize.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Wow, a lot of people here seem to be upset about something that they get for free. Don’t take anything for granted do we?
It’s a shitty compromise of the type that you make all the friggin time. The food you buy, the car you drive, the energy you consume… At least he told you. If you have a link and you disagree, delink. Not that hard.
Do you check everything you consume to see what it’s supporting that you disagree with? Some of your disagreement seems rather presumptuous otherwise.
The venom is staggering.
This comment was written by Carnadosa.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
John - Why exactly is it that Amp should be called out for betraying an ideal that he doesn’t share? He isn’t anti-pron himself, (and you know, every time you spell that correctly you feed the search engine pron beast) and the female members of the feminist blogging community have had scorching debates about this issue among themselves without Amp needing to be involved. It’s far from settled doctrine, and I can think easily of several more objectionable sorts of businesses that could have piggybacked this domain’s ranking.
This comment was written by natasha.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
” If this is male anti-sexism, I need to find a new label. ”
How about “pompous, pandering, ignorant, fully entitled moron”?
SMM
This comment was written by SMM.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Wow, it’s so nice when men like John come in and tell people how it really is, and defend us poor women feminists from the likes of men like Barry. I was almost beginning to think that I’d formed my own opinion on why I won’t personally being part of the flogging Amp crew, but now I know it was just masterful manipulation on Barry’s part.
…errr wait.
This comment was written by Kim (Basement Variety).Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
(This may be very old news to many.)
“Google accused of profiting from child porn”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/10/google_sued_for_promoting_illegal_content/
As others have already noted - (far more eloquently than I ever could) - my ‘addition’ (above) does not dismiss or discount objections/arguments raised in this thread - and is not intended to do so - but it is a complicated world isn’t it?
1. I use Google as my number one search engine and have a blog that I believe is owned by Google (blogspot).
2. I found the above information using Google’s search engine.
Original Lee: So we’re all a little complicit every day.
And …by the same token (curiously) we’re all a little subversive everyday.
I got a lot from your post Natasha and Barbara you hit it on the head for me when you said you see pron as more of a symptom than a cause.
This issue makes me think of my mate Jenzo (who is doing a ‘Masters’ in social work and identifies as feminist) and a series of articles she lent to me written by Andrew Gara.
It is not that the world is made up of things including people who then relate to each other in various ways. Ways of relating are ‘morphic fields’ or psychical shapes which are then ‘filled out’ in the form of the people or objects or events we perceive. This is the case whether we are talking about one person ‘abusing’ another or two people planning to go out for the evening.
Two things flow from this re-orientation of our thinking. Firstly, if it is ways of relating that emerge from and within fields of interrelatedness manifesting as, say, two people, then these two person’s actions fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They are like two sides of a coin or the outside and inside surfaces of a sphere — they mutually define each other. They are twin aspects of a mutual boundary relation. They look like they are separate and distinct pieces in a relation (which leads to the whole scientific ‘thing’). But they are actually inseparable but distinct elements OF a relation.
Secondly, if all events emerge from and within fields of interrelatedness, then science’s description of reality and, thus, our commonsense way of looking at reality has to be turned on its head. Science believes that consciousness (fields of awareness) emerge somehow from a non aware universe of dead matter. Awareness somehow emerges from the brain. Science and commonsense takes for granted that ways of relating are a product of the interaction between things. Two people meet and form a relationship. Two great hunks of matter attract each other and we end up with a planet revolving around a sun.
Thus science is led to believe that relationships are ‘caused’ by interactions between material objects. 2 billiard balls hit each other at a certain angle and this collision ‘causes’ both to go off in certain directions. Someone is assassinated and this ‘causes’ a world war. A man beats up his young son on a regular basis and this action ‘causes’ him to suffer from long term depression, feelings of inferiority and self harming behaviour years later.
We have to reverse this. Consciousness did not emerge from dead matter. Awareness is not a product of the brain. The brain does not produce dreams. Ways of relating are states of awareness or being. If I am ‘down’, this mood is a whole way of relating to the world. States of awareness do not emerge from the body nor are they caused by people ‘banging’ together like billiard balls.
*from : http://www.meaningofdepression.com/Part Two.htm
A bit abstract perhaps - but there’s a link for me to much of this discussion. These so-called dichotomies/binaries - right and left, radical and conservative, Feminism and porn. They are in relationship, all the time.
SJ xx
This comment was written by Skanky Jane.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
This story doesn’t sound so bad at all.
For the record, you don’t owe anyone anything. You provided a site and the service of exchanging content, for free.
This comment was written by SteveR.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Just to say, after the initial snark, that besides that I agree with natasha, Blue, basement Kim, soopermouse, curiousgyrl, and others;
what I’ve always valued about Amp & Alas is that it -isn’t- limited to any one thing; Amp has always genuinely tried to engage on a number of fronts, with a wide range of issues and people.
And ultimately, you know, besides the porn business–which, sure, if that were really -all- it was, yeah i get it to a point;
but it’s not just that with some people and never has been. Do this with the blog. Do that. Don’t call yourself this. Don’t let these people post. Don’t talk about this. Talk about that more…
…and I don’t know. I can’t speak for Amp, but: I’ve always thought of “Alas” as a “multi-issue” blog. Certainly including feminism(s). And if Amp himself wants to call himself a feminist or a pro-feminist or Agnes (it’s a nice name) or whatever else, hey, you know what: so mote it be.
But I’ve never understood why some people seem to have the need to make it -only- that. “you said it’s a feminist blog! it IS a feminist blog! and this is what that must mean! and you’re on probation anyway, and…”
jesus, who NEEDS it?
Hell, I don’t understand why some people feel apparently not only the need but the RIGHT to tell someone -else- how to run their blog.
i mean, I really love the attitude of some people that they were -doing Alas a favor- by deigning to participate, when frankly…
well i already said that part. Anyway.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
>Barbara, “sex-positive” is generally a euphemism for pro-porn feminists.
Oh, hello again. Back to square one, are we?
You know what: we’ve all had our fuck-ups over the last while, VS; and as I expect you know, it never feels wonderful to be on the hot seat. At least Amp doesn’t shut down as soon as he starts getting criticism over a hot spot. And at least he admits it when he screwed up.
Yeah, it’s true, some of us don’t see pr0n as as big a deal as some other people, no. Then again, some take some other issues a bit more seriously, perhaps.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Belledame, I adore you madly, and I’m grateful for your support and friendship.
Nonetheless, I have to disagree with some of the criticisms of Violet Socks in your most recent - whoops, I mean, second to most recent - post.
I think it’s legitimate for VS to shut down comments on a thread if she wants to (I’m pretty sure I know which thread you’re referring to). These kinds of blogstorms can be very, VERY bruising for the blogger at the center of the storm, as I know better than most. It’s up to each blogger to decide for herself what kind of interactions she’s prepared to undergo on her own blog.
I don’t think any blogger should be blamed for deciding “this is not the kind of interaction I want to be having on my blog, at this time.” It’s fucking hard, sometimes. It’s necessary for mental health to shut the spigot, sometimes. And that’s all that shutting off comments indicates, in my opinion. It’s a perfectly legitimate thing for VS, or anyone else, to do.
I also think that criticism on one’s own blog feels qualitatively different from criticism on other people’s blogs. I am obliged to read the comments on my own blog; they are in my space, and to some degree I have accepted responsibility for keeping abreast of what’s happening here (if only to approve posts stuck in moderation). In a way, I’m a captive audience. I can’t decide to ignore “Alas” comments for a week or two and come back to them when I’m feeling more up to it.
Shutting down comments isn’t shutting down criticism, because other folks can always criticize your position on their own blogs. (As I criticized VS’s position on “Alas.”)
Finally, if I recall correctly, in the instance you were referring to VS wasn’t persuaded that she had genuinely screwed up. She isn’t obligated to admit to a screw-up that she isn’t convinced she made.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 12:38 am
I could quote any number of the posters in this thread in support of Amp, but this from Blue says enough for me. Clearly Amp wasn’t/isn’t over the moon about what he felt he needed to do, and this was partly why the disclosure was done as awkwardly as it was, and he’s made his apology for that.
Direct to you, Amp, I thank you for the time, thought, effort, blood and guts you put into this blog which I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy for free. (and I couldn’t have helped you even if you’d asked.) It is much appreciated.
Btw, just to be a pesky commenter (not really), what happened to ‘preview’?
This comment was written by cicely.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 1:53 am
Kim, does he brainwash you into wearing one of those stupid pirate costumes, too ? Shit. I hate that. Amp, you know that I FUCKING HATE PIRATES !! So cut it out !! Grrrr…
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 2:12 am
Amanda says F*** Ritual Condemnation and links to Faultline’s post on blog policy, which I will quote here in part because it’s just so bloody cool:
And that’s how it’s done. I recommend reading the whole thing.
This comment was written by natasha.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 8:00 am
“One criticism of me that I think is especially strong is that I should have announced the sale of amptoons.com before it happened, to give people a chance to comment and to give other bloggers the chance to delink. It was wrong of me not to do that, and I sincerely apologize for that.”
Please. One of the things on the long list of things I hate about the Net is this inconsistently applied idea of some sort of bizarre consensus rule. Whether or not you sell a chunk of intellectual property is nobody else’s damn business.
This comment was written by kbrigan.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 8:16 am
I’ve been hesitant to comment on this as I’m fairly sympathetic to the opposition to porn, BUT I respect people who don’t feel that way. I also don’t think its fair to make strict anti-porn beliefs a litmus test for feminism. While I find the pornography industry to be repugnant, I don’t necessarily think that porn itself is fundamentally bad. And I think many “users” of porn are capable of doing so in a responsible manner. I also think that while there are strong and undeniable implications for feminism in the faults of the porn industry, I just think a lot of what they do wrong goes beyond that. Obviously, they encourage a dangerously mysoginistic attitude towards women. At the same time, I think mainstream porn can be profoundly harmful to men. I mean, for one, it encourages them to have dangerously mysogonistic attitudes towards women. Moreover, I think it encourages men to be sexually uninspired and to generally have a stunted relationship with sex. It encourages men to have an unhealthy relationship with women and with relationships. While the results of this can have far more dire consequences for women, I don’t think we should regard this mindset as harmless to the men, either. Growing up, I didn’t use pornography. Given that even then I was aware that I was attracted to fat women, the mainstream porn that was available to me just had nothing to offer me. But I did see the impact this had on my male classmates at the time and I saw their attitudes towards women grow alarmingly combative and disdainful. Not everyone. Not by a long shot. But I saw it enough people I expected better from that I am very wary of the conditioning effects of pornography.
But still, I don’t think its fair to regard this as a mandatory position. Either for feminism or progressive politics. Attacking Barry because he feels this way and is a man is ill-founded. Many feminist women are similiarly ambiviliant about feminism. And even opposing it, I have to admit that I can’t see myself being that offended or outraged at the extent of Amp’s association with pornography here. He’s not producing it. He’s not distributing it. He’s not even linking to it. I can’t deny that the scale of the involvement here is quite minimal and not enough to seriously offend me. I still read the Boston Phoenix and Weekly Dig every week inspite of their getting significant funds from “adult” advertisements. I suspect other alt-weeklies around the country are much the same. And that is a far more direct relationship then we have here.
The bottom line, is that this is Amp’s bottom line. This is his site and HE needs to pay for it. Its success is also a real issue for him in paying for its maintainence. He was put into a tough spot, and I really can’t see myself judging his response to that. I never donated to this blog. I don’t judge people who made that same choice, either. But I recognize that this all puts Amp in a tough spot. I don’t think blog readers have an obligation to donate to the blogs that they read. I think its great if they can, but it has to be a personal choice. And while a result like this is a good reason TO donate to help out the writers and communities we value, its also obviously a good reason why many feel hesitant about that. I did donate to a blog once, and I ended up regretting it. As some many now regret supporting Amp. That’s a fair concern, but its also an unhelpful one. Amp still needs to pay to keep this site running and he took the steps available to him. I won’t fault him for that.
I agree that this situation wasn’t handled well from the outset. I’m a VERY minor contributor to the site, but I could obviously appreciate other guest posters feeling upset by this and the way the news came out. And an open comments thread from the start would have been helpful. But I think Amp recognizes those errors and I’m fine with moving forward.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 8:24 am
I like what Jenn from Reappropriate had to say about this. The porn and ethnic porn makes me uncomfortable reading this blog now but this debate needs to be tempered by considerations of privilege and luxury:
To me, I think it’s important as blog readers, that we remember that the blog’s we read are not services that exist for us, but that exist, in many ways, despite us. We may enjoy our daily routine of blog perusals, but that doesn’t mean that the blogger blogs for us; they blog for themselves and the fact that you read and enjoy their work is almost incidental. As a blog reader, we are not entitled to a blog being maintained as the highest priority in a blogger’s life, especially over other concerns like paying for food and shelter.
I was very much swayed by Amp’s discussion of his financial woes. This past summer, I was under amazing financial pressures; I wasn’t getting paid, and nearly all of my non-regular bills rained down on me. Only a few months ago, I was pinching pennies so severely, that I was raiding my piggy bank for change in order to buy food for the week. Every day, I stared at my blog and just thought about how the money I had sunk into it could help feed me, let alone pay for the mounting, past-due bills.
At that point, if a pornographer had approached me with a large sum of money, I would have had to think long and hard before turning it down. I don’t know that I would have done it, but I certainly feel like some of the outraged commentors lambasting Amp for his decision speak from a position of luxury, in which people either cannot remember or have never experienced being, quite literally, broke in America.
And I guess that’s why oppression remains so prevalent; it’s hard being an activist when the people in power can buy you, and sometimes you don’t have the choice to say no.
I think Amp sold out his domain name, and it was disappointing that he would sell it to a pornographer, which is still a controversial industry for feminists. I was disgusted to find that many of the pornography sites being advertised include ones that could hardly be construed as sex-positive feminism; rather, several are blatant exploitations of female sexuality, promote violence against women, and are racist against women of colour.
However, I see no reason to lambast a man who was facing mounting financial woes and worried about maintaining a roof over his head — the whole debate smacks so much of privilege that I am surprised that relatively few are coming to Amp’s defense to advocate a more tempered and faired outcry.
This comment was written by Donna Darko.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Life can be challenging and sometimes when push comes to shove is when you can know the most about what a person is.
How much is it worth to a person, to her wallet and her sense of integrity, to not participate and profit from the propagation of hate?
How much money would someone have to offer you to host a website that promotes racism and sexism?
Maybe we all have our price and we should all feel compassion on each other, but I don’t think we can forget even for a moment that each individual choice contributes to the power and legitimacy of hatred and that these choices, each little personal decision, as a whole, function to create the world we and other people with fewer choices at their disposal than we have live in.
Each person decides (to the extent that our choices can rise above the subconcious and be explicit) for her/himself.
This comment was written by Tara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Just realized I made a major typo in my response that I feel I should clarify as it is not obviously a typo. In my second paragraphy when I wrote: “Many feminist women are similiarly ambiviliant about feminism.” I menat to say: “Many feminist women are similiarly ambiviliant about pornography.”
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 10:17 am
[...] Like saying no when it’s easier to say yes. in the words of Twisty Faster [back]see Creative Destruction’s account of the controversy surrounding the selling of feminist blog Alas’s URL for porn promotion. The post links to posts discussing the hoo-haa. The strongest condemnation has come from Heart. Other posts (each with a different take) by Sour Duck, Hugo, and Alas contributors Tekanji and Earlbecke are also worth reading. The issue is also now under discussion over at Alas. [back]see this thread over at Happy Feminist [back] see this post from Jill at Feministe, a discussion inspired by this post from the wisest of Spinster Aunts. You can also read zuzu there too [back] [...]
This comment was written by feminish » Another world is possible.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 11:33 am
AMP- I for one would like to thank you for your extreme patience and understanding for being capable of having this thread open for as long as you have and watching a few trash you in the process.
This comment was written by Rachelle.On that note I have to wonder when enough is enough. I have read all the comments posted here and it seems like you have given everyone enough time to either bash your decision or like myself tell you that I’m definetly going to continue to read your blog.
It seems to me that the ones that are willing to move on have said so and the others that are against your decision have their own blogs to be able to drag you through the proverbial mud.
SO - it’s time to let those that oppose your views go on their separate ways and those that are still willing and waiting so see what the next informative thread you are going to discuss on this blog is going to be.
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October 13th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
[...] http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/10/11/i-sold-amptoonscom-comments-are-now-open/ Posted by sparklematrix Filed in feminism, Patriarchy [...]
This comment was written by Alas a Blog ~ Sold out To Pimp My Ride « Sparkle*Matrix.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Barry,
Fuck the naysayers. People ought to put their money where their mouths are and too many people in the blogosphere don’t do that.
What I am worried about is that you may be blackholed by Google. It’s happened before in this SEO scenarios.
This comment was written by liza.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
I just wanted to make sure that Ampersand has seen this, particularly the last few paragraphs –
This comment was written by DavidS.Ben Metcalfe believes that Amp is being cheated
According to Metcalfe, you are in fact not receiving the dedicated server that your contract specifies. If this is true, then it might give you quite a bit of leverage in getting out of this contract on terms favorable to you. That restores you to your previous problem, of course, but it would make it easier for you to start over and find a different solution.
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October 13th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I’ll go read what Metcalfe wrote.
This comment was written by liza.Just FYI, if you need hosting, btw, talk to me.
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October 13th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
This probably falls under the category of “already been said,” but… I think Barry sold out. I decline to beat him up for it, because 1) he’s done enough of that himself already 2) let whoever is without sin, and all that. I also think he’s entitled to do whatever he wants, or feels he must, with his own property, intellectual or otherwise.
I’ll be around.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Barry, what Ben Metcalfe said is correct. If your contract said that you will receive a dedicated server ( not “hosted on a dedicated server”) they are in breach of contract.
This comment was written by soopermouse.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Regarding the dedicated server thing, thanks for pointing that out. I’m looking into it. If there ends up being news to report, I’ll report it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Barry,
I have so many questions!
Did you talk to a lawyer and discuss the possible effects to your trademark and copyright? If you don’t own the domain anymore, aren’t you tarnishing your own intellectual property? What possible repercussions could this have in future defenses of your intellectual property? And did you valuate Amptoons the cartoon before deciding what a good offer for Amptoons.com would be?
I mean … do you understand how HUGE are the legal and business ramifications for a sell like this? It just kills me, KILLS ME, that within the political blogosphere we can’t seem to have discussions around good business practices.
BlogSheroes was supposed to be that place or that group of people. I mean, you have a whole community of tech, law and business saavy women who, if ignorant of the answers, could have pointed you to the right people to talk to.
I am so disappointed on that aspect. Honestly, it’s not the selling of the domain that bothers me. It’s your property after all. It’s not reaching out to the network of people you have, to help you make an educated decision.
More to the point. You sold the domain do that people that live in your house don’t have to worry about paying the rent yet, you didn’t seem to get that this is your house as well. You have two homes : one meatspace, one blogspace.
Had you been in a situation were you would have had to sell your meatspace house, would you have done it in the same way you sold the one you have online?
This comment was written by liza.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Fuck you and your “sincere apologies” Amp.
At least the pornographers make it plain that they hate us. You? You pretend to like us.
You’re a turd.
I will never again trust a ‘pro-feminist’ man as long as I live because you sold me out - you sold us all out.
Men fucking suck (even in spite of their living arangements and all of that shit that women have to deal with on a daily basis).
I feel so betrayed I can’t tell you.
Fucking bastard dipshit.
This comment was written by Woman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
I just wanted to show I’m 100% behind Amp, who did what he had to do.
This comment was written by EL.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Sounds like you were stuck between a rock and a hard place and made what you thought was the best decision for yourself and Alas. It’s no big deal to me, I just hope you don’t end up regretting it. I wish there was some way you could have kept the domain for yourself. Keep up the great writing and I’ll keep coming here. I’m also keeping the link to Alas at my blog and appreciate being on your blogroll too.
This comment was written by Donna.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Mind the Gap. We believe that Ampersand was one of the first “big” bloggers to link to us approvingly and send traffic our way and we were pleased to be noticed. With this in mind, we waited until Ampersand explained himself further in this post before moving on the issue. The rather evasive nature of his explanation makes us wonder exactly what is in that contract and whether he is currently able to criticise the company that bought his website.
This comment was written by Mind the Gap!.Report this comment to the moderators
October 13th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Sorry, EL. Real feminists spew a bunch of barely coherent profanity, all the while vowing to never post here again and yet deliberately using a vague, link-free moniker and a generic writing style that leaves you in doubt as to whether they ever posted here before in the first place– as opposed to just jumping on the more-rad-than-thou bandwagon.
Try again. :D
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 14th, 2006 at 4:35 am
domain. In other words, feminist bloggers linking to Alas will boost traffic to pr0n sites - which is kind of a problem as a lot of feminists (not all of them) are not impressed by pr0n. To put it mildly. You can read about it in his own words here. I’ve added “rel=”nofollow”” to the link, which apparently negates the advantage to the pr0n merchant. Plenty of wise people have pointed out that Amp, who provides a public service for free, should be able to do anything with his own domain
This comment was written by Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony.Report this comment to the moderators
October 14th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Woman,
This comment was written by Kate L..Sounds to me like you didn’t need Amp to do what he did to distrust men and hate them. I’m sorry for that. I must say in this particular case, I’m afraid YOU are the one giving feminists a bad name. Not Amp.
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October 14th, 2006 at 10:38 am
BTsu - The alt weeklies in Seattle are loaded with adult ads. I can’t recall hearing anyone suggest that this was a reason not to read them. The Stranger, for example, has been a favorite local source for Dan Savage, culture reviews and a mix of progressive/fringe political snark for ages.
Woman - So, one pro-feminist guy, whom you ‘know’ exclusively online, does something to piss you off and you will never trust another pro-feminist guy again. Your essay assignment is to explain to me how this is nothing like some man who goes through a bad divorce and decides that all women are scum because of his experience with one in particular.
It’s like an announcement to the world that the proper way to respond to someone you think acted like a jerk is by being an even bigger jerk yourself. This hardly seems reasonable, to put it mildly.
This comment was written by natasha.Report this comment to the moderators
October 14th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Natasha,
I don’t know Amp in real life, but how many critics have even stopped to wonder about the difficulties that prompted Amp to sell the domain, rather than launching into a full bore attack, some more substantive than others? I am convinced that there is a significant part of the universe than can only relate to others in anger. It’s not reasonable, but it’s pretty common and no small part of the reason why many small grievances beget serious conflagrations. It’s not that anger is never justified, but when it is the only thing that motivates you, you have a serious problem.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 14th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
of creators from the web. The big news to everyone else though will be that KLA has signed Jim Lawson and the estate of Harvey Kurtzman. Barry Deutsch who sold his URL to a “Search Engine Optimization” company - but kept his blog and cartoons there - opens up his blog to discussion of his decision. Reinder has a post with some thoughts on the controversy.MILESTONES Roderick Leermakers’ webcomic, Captain August, has entered it’s third year online. Congrats! OPINION Peter Bagge comments on immigration at Reason online
This comment was written by The Webcomic List - Online Comics.Report this comment to the moderators
October 14th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Wait. WAIT. HOLD EVERYTHING. **How** did I miss this before?
>>Chickens are [not] made of spam>>
…which, wait, WHAT are you telling me?…
Fuck!
But, but, I BELIEVED, I…
I should have known.
this changes everything. everything.
i feel so BETRAYED by this knowledge.
i’ll never trust poultry ever again
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 14th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
I could discuss the burqa thing or the disturbing consideration of the “choice to wax” or the stupid Playboy-Pandagon thing, but all of those have been tackled with aplomb by bloggers I respect. I want to talk, briefly, about the whole “Amp’s a sell-out!”
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October 15th, 2006 at 6:27 am
Well, hell. Right now I’m sick, I’m broke, I don’t have a computer, and I been working 12-hours a day, 6 days a week, for the past four months, and the only thing I really own is my truck (which I’m actually still paying for) and a couple of musical instruments.
I guess I could sell my instruments and turn tricks out of the back of my truck for easy money, huh? Or maybe I should send my picture into one of those amateurishly-inclined porno rags, see if they’ll fly me out to L.A. for a photo shoot.
I mean, if it’s OK for one idealist to sell out, it should be fine for another. Right?
You can publish this comment or not, I don’t really care. I do want you to read it, though. Because you have missed a few of the finer points.
I think that you have kind of cancelled out your call for respectful posting by choosing, willfully and seemingly knowingly, to however ambiguously support an industry that lives and thrives via brutal humiliation and exploitation of women, as WOMEN. You really aren’t qualified to remark as to the harmfulness of the porn industry (as you attempt to do with your watery defense of the way in which you’ve sold out- saying that porn isn’t essentially any more harmful than any other mass media) being as you are a member of the class of humans that benefits from the social recoil of pornography. Why the fuck should a feminist have any respect for someone who tries to pump up their own readership calling himself “pro-feminist” who then turns around and sells his domain in such a way? You got money from pornography. You lost the respect. Punto. Don’t fucking whine about it. And don’t try and negate the negative and murderous effects of an industry that’s more nightmarish than you could comprehend just to defend your ignorant and short-sighted leap for cash. If you didn’t want feminists to be angry, then you should have found another fucking way to make some money.
There are lots of feminists who find ways to manage without resorting to this kind of betrayal. The sob story about the high bills and blah blah blah… I honestly don’t know why you expect any of us to even care. WHY should we care? I honestly would like to know. Everybody’s got high bills. Everybody has to work. The country is in a financial crisis. You felt desperate, an offer was made, and you took it. You should be apologizing, instead of making excuses and squinting your eyes at what the porn industry does- not only to women and to children, but to humanity.
I’m a union organizer. I work day after day with people who keep two and three jobs at a time to keep their families fed, and they do it, even if the jobs don’t pay well. These folks still find time to be active in standing up for their rights. As I mentioned earlier, I work at LEAST 12 hours a day for a small salary, no overtime, and I manage to manage. Fuck your idiotic and selfish excuses. They’re bullshit.
Your excuse is a highlight of your privilege and the ways in which it has blinded you. You should admit to that. If you can’t, then you’re probably lost.
I will be suggesting to folks from now on to avoid this part of the blogosphere. Hope your conscience wakes up one day.
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October 15th, 2006 at 7:26 am
So Amp, I asked you if this was a Kos-style purge on the link thread and you gave me a semi-snarky, dismissive answer. Then I come here and find even more Armando wanna-bes telling the people you’ve offended to leave and don’t come back and don’t let the door in you in the ass, etc.
How could you have not known the repercussions of your actions?
I just don’t believe you. I think you considered the fallout from this sale prior to it and decided it was okay by you.
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October 15th, 2006 at 8:49 am
Gayle, it’s hypocritical for you to criticize me for being snarky/dismissive in response to your own snarky/dismissive comment.
To answer your question: As I’ve said, it was a compromise. So yes, of course I realized that I’d be delinked and purged by many bloggers and comment-writers, including some I have a lot of respect for. That was one of three bad things about this deal, in my view.
This is the nature of compromise. If someone decides to live in a crime-ridden neighborhood in exchange for affordable rent, would you conclude they’re “okay with” having their car robbed over and over?
I guess it depends on what the word “okay” means. If it means “something they can live with,” then yeah, I’m okay with people blacklisting “Alas.” If it means “something they consider a positive effect,” then no, of course I’m not okay with it.
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October 15th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Wondering where my first comment ended up.
Perhaps it was the reference to pimping. Or selling out.
Can we trust any men to be pro-feminist, or do we get shat on each bloody time?
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October 15th, 2006 at 11:29 am
that much hardcore porn promotes, but my link to Amp makes no difference in the production of porn. Neither, ultimately, do the links on Amp’s page — they only allow one porn company to be ranked higher by Google than another porn company. More from Amp
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October 15th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
You know, points taken wrt relative privilege. i think we’re all pretty clear that what Amp did here was a choice, not something he -absolutely had- to do. Very few things are, in this life, as per a line in I think BTVS:
“You have a choice. You don’t have a -good- choice, but you have a choice.”
and perhaps Amp has, had more even of those limited options than others. Sure.
Tangentially, just a thought:
Would we be hearing the same degree of outrage from the same people if Amp had sold to someone who only dealt with male-on-male porn? (Not as big, but still turns a tidy profit, that whole rather large subgenre). Why or why not?
Just idly wondering.
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October 15th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
that is to say: sure, perhaps Amp has more choices than others here, even if those choices are limited, also.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 15th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Gayle: weren’t you the one who tried to have me “purged” from Punkass? What is this, “she goes or I go?” At any rate, I’m not exactly having huge amounts of sympathy here, no. Obviously. Not for people who’ve repeatedly insinuated that I (among many, many other people whom I consider to be perfectly sane. smart, reasonable people, female, even feminists too, YES) am a “concern troll,” “derailing,” really a man and/or someone’s sock puppet, pro-Patriarchy and any other thing in the goddam world except gee, actually trying to engage the topic, albeit perhaps not in a way that is to the liking of some people. That does not, however, mean that Amp shares my feelings. Amp is, as I’ve said elsewhere, a much nicer person than I am.
but then, he does have that dreaded XY chromosome, so clearly he was already deeply suspect.
whatever. You know, the great thing about the belief that “everyone’s out to get me/us” is that eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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October 15th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
>I am convinced that there is a significant part of the universe than can only relate to others in anger. It’s not reasonable, but it’s pretty common and no small part of the reason why many small grievances beget serious conflagrations. It’s not that anger is never justified, but when it is the only thing that motivates you, you have a serious problem.>
I think you’re onto something there.
at any rate, tangentially, i have often wondered, wrt some people: okay, I’m really really really clear on what you’re -against.- What are you FOR? i mean, specifically.
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October 15th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
belledame, I think that’s a pointless question. I can’t imagine that the audience for male pron would be lucrative enough for the offer to have existed under those circumstances. Personally, I would have been bothered to the same degree. I don’t think that the view of sexuality offered by most pron films is terribly healthy for anyone in this culture, and that includes gay men.
And Elaina points out that feminism is not for the weak and that halfway measures are as good as no measures. Also that Amp’s apologies don’t mean anything unless he (aparently) hands back all the money tomorrow and personally shows up at the house of every woman he’s wronged to kiss her feet.
Though she doesn’t say so, I guess that means that Alas would have been better off just disappearing. It has a certain purist appeal, but OTOH, it explains why so many people who sympathise with the cause of justice don’t want to call themselves feminists. It’s as if to use the word, you must martyr yourself all the time, or at least pretend that you are martyring yourself all the time;And do it in a fashion that loudly one-ups the woman next to you. And there’s a “one-drop” rule. If you doubt and fail at any time and under any circumstances, you must relinquish your veils and be expelled to the outside world.
When I read this sort of thing, it strikes me as a winnowing exercise. The person writing it needs, for her own consolation, to make it abundantly clear that her club is exclusive and the vast majority of those interested in it are pretenders who can never gain new membership. She has nothing to offer/withhold but her approval, so she has to make the most of it. It’s tempting to say that, fuck it, under those circumstances, I’m not a feminist and neither are the majority of feminist bloggers. It’s tempting, but I think I’ll keep the word for now. I don’t worship dieties, make dieties of my beliefs, or have any use for those who want to cast themselves as High Priestesses of when and how I have the right to employ those beliefs and to speak of them.
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October 15th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
You know, I have been speculating myself recently as to what on earth could be motivating some people. For instance: the attacks on Amanda at Pandagon from this camp, one poster in particular on a thread I remember vividly for my own reasons: they are the same reasons why I’m not exactly Amanda’s #1 fan myself these days (really completely unrelated to pr0n, contrary to some peoples’ beliefs, I suspect, including perhaps Amanda’s; anyway). So, I have no dog in this one, really;
but strictly from a realpolitik perspective, it did strike me as terribly ironic. Here’s a mainstream, quite popular feminist blogger who, over the past year? or so has actually been swinging -toward- your worldview. Isn’t there completely, no; but certainly, the -direction- has been in your favor, if you’re paying attention. Wouldn’t you think the -last- thing you’d want to do is run in there and ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK! specifically, “no, you are NOT one of us. no, you are NOT even in the middle; you are with THEM. go! go over there and be with THEM! you’re not sufficiently pure for us! Go.”
and yet, that’s exactly what someone did; and then throw in the whole Playboy hooha (which may or may not have been what was so outraging girlfriend in the first place), but the net result, i suspect, is not exactly unpredictable to anyone with the sense God gave a doughnut.
So, as you say: perhaps indeed the goal is really more to huddle together and stay “pure” than, you know, actually effect change, for a number of people. Maybe it’s not a totally -conscious- goal, but how else to explain? Or the people who write manifestos of YOU’RE NOT A FEMINIST IF:
i mean, not even -radical- feminist, but FEMINIST,
which is not only alienating but completely inaccurate; hello, there are many many other schools of feminism out there?
I think I did get that through to one person, at least. That much.
But, jeezus.
“Go away! No! Bad! You don’t belong! YOU’RE NOT ONE OF US. You may THINK you are, but you’re not. You’re not pure enough…*sigh* I shouldn’t even have to tell you this, but: you didn’t use the wire scrub brush OR the organic bleach. How can we possibly trust you ever again? You’re TAINTED.”
then, plaintively,
“Where O where have all the feminists gone? Where are the feminists of yesteryear?…”
AUGH
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October 15th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
…but actually, this interests me,
>Personally, I would have been bothered to the same degree. I don’t think that the view of sexuality offered by most pron films is terribly healthy for anyone in this culture, and that includes gay men.>
because i *think* that what’s going on here, and what maybe a number of people don’t realize, is that while a lot of people don’t like porn, it’s not -just- that some people feel more strongly about it than others; some people have different -reasons-, i think, than others.
If your feminism is of the sort that puts male sexual abuse/domination of women as the -root- of pretty much everything that’s wrong with the system, i.e. the Patriarchy (iow, many–not all, but probably most, these days–peoples’ definition of “radical feminism”); if you see “pornstitution” as one of the main expressions of said abuse/rape/domination (i.e. Class Man over Class Woman), then, of COURSE there’s nothing worse Amp could’ve done than sell to a pornographer. I asked rhetorically about whether Coca-Cola ads and so forth wouldn’t have been just as bad, and maybe for some people they would have done, even people who -also- think porn is generally pernicious for, say, the reasons you lay out here; but that would’ve required a different core belief system, see.
That’s why I asked about gayboy pr0n. Not because I think Amp should’ve or even could’ve–you’re probably right that it wouldn’t have been sufficiently lucrative for the deal-offerer–just because, I’m always curious as to how male on male pr0n fits into -that- worldview. I know some people, MacKinnon, I think, maybe? just basically fit it, as well as lesbian pr0n, into the same one-size-fits-all paradigm: i.e. it replicates male-over-female power dynamics (the very act of filming, I think? the objectification? i need to go review, clearly). Others (does this include Jeffreys, I wonder?) go it one further and say that -all- male sexuality is gonna be patriarchal pretty much by default; at best, just…leave them to it, we want nothing to do with them, we radical “political” lesbians.
Online, it’s been an interesting mishmosh of all these ideas already floating around. I’m always really intrigued by hetero, even partnered radical feminists who -mostly- talk a straight Dworkin/Jeffreys line, since back in the day (yes, MacKinnon is straight, too, but) there was a school, and there are some adherents to this even now (yes, I think Heart is among them) embracing what’s called “political lesbianism:” by Sheila Jeffreys’ definition, this means abstaining from men, period. actual sex with actual women is optional.
at any rate, for whatever number of reasons, the overall heterocentricism of the debate has always frustrated me. not that i really, like, need to talk about gayboy pr0n right now. But whenever i’ve attempted any such line in the past with…certain people? predominating, the response has ranged from -crickets crickets- to yet more accusations of “derailing.” Like, you know, gay men, gay PEOPLE (at least any other sort than curiously-silent-on-the-notion-of-desire radicallesbians) are, well, pretty much besides the point.
which is one of the -other- things that I’ve found vexing.
But it makes perfect sense; of course if it all boils down to Class Man over Class Woman, then well, no, nothing else much matters as much as overthrowing Class Man; what men do among themselves is irrelevant at best; and as for the queer/transgender thing…well. yeah. that’s been my -other- real bone of contention here. I do love watching some people twist themselves into knots trying to explain that no, no, we’re NOT essentialists, we are the -opposite- of essentialists, we are trying to do -away- with gender, -they- are the ones upholding it…
and o yah: “gender trumps race,” blahblah; well, that’s also in the template, really: if the original act of domination is rape, then of course everything else takes a backseat. doesn’t mean racism isn’t IMPORTANT, -also-, but…in the final analysis. If you buy this worldview lock stock & barrel. that does implicitly come with the territory. Class Men dominates Class Woman; the -primary-, original method is via sexuality (rape); the rest is gravy.
I don’t buy it, but–and *nods to Bitch Lab*–I do think it’s important to at least know what it is I’m disagreeing with, more or less.
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October 15th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
further props: Bitch Lab is the one who (online, not already an adherent of the theory) started actually reading radical feminist theory and writing about it.
but just to back some of that up, soundbite version:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1519268,00.html
>[Sheila] Jeffreys sees sexuality as the basis of the oppression of women by men, in much the same way as Marx saw capitalism as the scourge of the working class.>
She’s not the only one, although she’s arguably one of the most “hardcore” of the older generation of radical feminists of this school. Dworkin’s another, although in some ways she was less stringent about some things:
>Dworkin, as it happens, lived with a man, whom in 1998 she married.
Not Jeffreys. She became a lesbian in 1973 because she felt it contradictory to give “her most precious energies to a man” when she was thoroughly committed to a women’s revolution. Six years later, she went further and wrote, with others, a pamphlet entitled Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism And Political Lesbianism. In it, feminists who sleep with men are described as collaborating with the enemy. It caused a huge ruction in the women’s movement, and is still cited as an example of early separatists “going way too far”.
“We do think,” it said, “that all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women.” Although many of the more radical feminists agreed, most went wild at being told they were “counter-revolutionary”…
***
I’ve no doubt there are a lot of Jeffreys fans who take some of her more extreme pronouncements with a grain of salt: she’s just trying to provoke thought! And there are others who, I expect like Jeffreys herself, take what she’s saying pretty damn literally.
btw, Twisty Faster of I Blame the Patriarchy once said something to the effect of she and Jeffreys are as “two hearts that beat as one.” something close to that. I think while reviewing that very book (”Beauty and Misogyny”). anyway: IBTP is obviously heavily influenced by Jeffreys’ thinking, albeit (I am sure) not -only- her.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 15th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
The reason I regard the issues you describe as “derailments,” belledame, is because they present a lose/lose situation for anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with whatever worldview you use those issues, or people, to advocate. If I agree with you, I’m diluting the focus on women, which generally, in the contexts discussed in the threads in question, I think ought to be the primary focus. If I disagree with you, than not only am I some kind of repressed transphobic sex-hater, or whatever, I’m also some kind of “political lesbian,’ or somebody who isn’t qualified to speak about the culture you’re talking about, etc etc.
To hear the way you talk, you’d think that I was roaming the net daily, crashing each and every thread about same sex on same sex abuse and the like in order to spout Dworkin highlights and to acuse the people discussing their issues of not caring about women. Hell, I hardly ever comment in the threads here regarding gay male or transexual issues, because I prefer to sit back and listen and learn. So excuse me if I’d like the same consideration from others once in awhile.
Also, I’m not ginmar. I have never once said that “gender trumps race.” So you can get that association the hell out of your head. I don’t think that ginmar is a saint, though I do think she was treated shabbily here at times by Amp and others. But there’s nothing to be done about that now. It also doesn’t mean that I think everything she ever said is right.
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October 15th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Various thoughts on the general proposition are posted with Wampum here:
[wampum.wabanaki.net/vault/2006/10/003130...]
I’m not going to repost them here as I actually have real work to do, real political work too, and I don’t have any need of ‘flame wars’ with this profoundly silly and wildly over extended thread. Folks, if we had half of the passion OR attention generated here over this small incident FOR preserving, say the Constitution or the Environment, we’d be a whole lot better off in general. I really don’t waste my time on such nonsense. Few can really afford to actually. Our time here is short. What are each of you doing RIGHT NOW to defeat fascism & tyranny Here & Now? That’s my only question. The rest is just posturing and posing. We’ve all had quite enough of that, right?
In short I think it was & is Barry’s/ AMP’s decision to make, and the manner and the way he did so bent over backwards to take his audience into consideration. No other media outlet would have done so, none has gone so far as to open themselves up to open criticism for doing so either. And certainly not from ‘non paying customers’! Cheers, ‘VJ’
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October 15th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
ago, feminists critiquing each other was an important part of feminism. Now, doggedly serving liberal partisan politics squelches everything that could become vital.” Yes, if you examine the feminist blogosphere today, one thing you’ll notice is that feminists are completely unwilling to engage in critiques of each other. (In fairness, she would be right not to count the many critiques of her post: feminists criticizing an anti-feminist is a different category.)
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October 15th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Okay, first of all, I wasn’t actually tweaking that you were one of the ones referring to my posts as “derailments,” ms. xeno. I mean, I wasn’t referring to you at all, intentionally, tbh. I did not associate you with ginmar or any of the people I had in mind. I was thinking more of, you know, well, people who…yeah, okay, there’s a personal beef here: treated me and others pretty shabbily. And trying to put in an a theoretical context, trying to understand at least -why- some people feel -so- passionately about whatever that it’s now okay to basically blackball people who don’t agree with them (and I am not referring to myself here either; I’ve seen an awful lot of crap, though, and a lot involving people I both respect and care about).
actually there is no second of all. yeah; I…think there’s a crossed wire here or something. Look, I’m not trying to make people feel bad for not wanting to talk about lgbt whatever in any given thread, okay; that was not my intention. I’m just trying to explain why I feel frustrated at what has often felt -to me- like a…predominating discourse. And get at -why.-
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October 15th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
But it’s like this: for me, queer issues are inextricably bound up with -my- feminism. So it’s extremely difficult for me to talk about something as broad as, say, “porn” and go, -nod-, o.k., we are talking about hetero porn from the viewpoint of straight women, y punto. It’s never been like that for me; it’s just not where I’m coming from.
And like I say, I don’t blame people for -not saying anything,- of itself; what I -have- had a problem with is, you know, people jumping on my shit (not here) with, “concern troll” or, to the effect of it’s irrelevant, or blahblah. It’s -not- irrelevant; it’s my -life,- sometimes?
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 15th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
…I mean, well, I just blogged about this recently myself, but it’s like: I can’t count how many people have -leaped- to the conclusion that I’m DEFENDING THE MEN, because I, y’know, want to please men; because what else could -possibly- be motivating me? Or, yeah, brainwashed, sexbot (yes)…
and it’s like, look, I can write about -men- (straight and otherwise) like this, when I do because it -just isn’t that weighted for me.- It feels…anthropological to me. (especially with straight men) And the only reason I do it at all, when I do, is because I am -trying- to at least -sort of- go along with the framing as it’s already been presented. And sure, I could sit back and learn and listen in the straight-women-threads, but it does get a little hard to take, when people keep talking as though their experience is UNIVERSAL. particularly when they use it to bash me and mine (as I see it); that was what got me embroiled in these thrashes in the first plae, you know, x number of months back. Radical feminist straight guy explaining earnestly why all BDSM is “patriarchal,” including in a queer context. Well, no; and just…no; it isn’t for you to say. Frankly.
So yeah. I get that porn and such really push a lot of peoples’ buttons. I do. Because there’s all kinds of shit attached to it, personal experiences, and…it’s painful. -But I have my own buttons.- And I don’t like being mischaracterized and dismissed any more than anyone else. And I post as much as I do because frankly it feels like I might disappear if I don’t.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 15th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
…sometimes.
sigh.
as for “all the threads on same-sex abuse:” my point is, relatively speaking, there just -aren’t that many.- In general, not just here. Like, at all. For a number of reasons. And why does it need to be segregated into its own place anyway?
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 15th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Finally: wrt “gender trumps race.” Much as I had real problems with that, as well as the…author of that (for a number of reasons), here I actually was trying to just say: I recognize that that, too, is coming from somewhere, ideologically speaking. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean, “I don’t think racism matters at all.” It means, “I put this in the framework of Class Man over Class Woman; obviously gender/sexual oppression is weighted more.”
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 15th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
and: we may have had contretemps before, ms. x. (honestly I can’t keep track of them all at this point…) But believe me: I was not trying to passive-aggressively jab at you when I replied to you here; I was actually just mostly going off what I thought where you were probably coming from based on your last few responses in these threads. If I had a problem with you personally, I’d say so.
I don’t have a problem with people I -disagree- with about any given thing; I have a problem with, well. Zealotry, basically.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Well, I’m enough of an anarchist to believe that it is the community of posters that have made this blog important and visible, not just Amp’s considerable contributions. Up thread was this comment:
And? This isn’t exactly highschool here, and no one’s voting for homecoming queen. Amp’s page rank is directly tied to the mostly feminist voices that have been voiced here over the last several years. It is the time, effort, and thought of many brilliant and brave women that has driven the popularity of this blog — that cannot be denied, and I don’t think it should be overlooked. Amp provided the platform; we provided the thought provoking and controversial filler.
From my perspective Amp has made his deal with the Devil - and it’s his deal to make. But my words won’t support that deal.
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October 16th, 2006 at 10:28 am
belledame:
I never said that it couldn’t be intertwined with other roots, you know. I never even said that there couldn’t be overlapping or interlocking systems of oppression. But I also don’t think that it’s so outrageous to suggest that, say, homophobia is directly related to sexism. Or that the hypermasculinity in straight pron films isn’t all that different from the hypermasculinity in gay male pron films. During some earlier dust-up, piny said something along the lines of “transgender sex workers are oppressed *because* they are women.” Except that I was never arguing with piny that those folks weren’t oppressed or that they couldn’t be percieved as women– even if it means I’m some other kind of woman. What I would point out now is that in a world where the strict dichotomy of masculine/feminine leaves no doubt as to whose rightfully in charge, it’s entirely possible for the dominant class to create more subordinates for its purposes than it had originally. So an oppressed transgender “sex worker’s” oppression still relates to the fact that the dominant class– the johns, looks at this “worker” and sees a “she–” someone whose correct role is that of servant, or object. How a biological woman sees that person is also important, but I don’t think it can have the same level of importance because –except in extraordinary cases– the bio woman isn’t there to exercise privilege in the most important context;That of “buyer” relating to “seller.”
(This isn’t unique to feminism, of course, any more so than the martyr-to-the-cause syndrome is. The White men who preached their own superiority even as they sired mixed-race children are a prime example. They knew that those children would be a different class of people than their Black mothers, but nonetheless that they would be oppressed for the same reasons, and be equally useful to maintaining the system that kept them subordinate in the first place.)
One more thing: It’s not any one side that has problems agreeing on the importance of a poster’s personal experiences in a debate– as opposed to theory, statistics, or outside sources. That’s an ongoing issue on all sides in most debates, and I don’t see it resting anytime soon.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 10:30 am
P.S.– Qgrrl, you’re always welcome at my journal if you feel like talking.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Duh. I wondered where in the hell you’d gone.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Just quickly: that had been meant to be a general “you,” you know (”if your…”). I really need to watch that more carefully.
“If one’s feminism is the sort that puts male sexual abuse/domination of women as the -root- of pretty much everything that’s wrong with the system…”
I didn’t peg you as believing this; I do know that there are feminists who -do- believe this and are far less inclined to talk about “interlocking oppressions.”
It’s funny; before I came to blog O’sphere I was far more inclined to the belief in “Patriarchy” per se, I think. altho’ i was probably coming at it from a more goddess-y, pre-existing matriarchies, in so much as i really thought it out at all (i never did buy one overarching Matriarchy) perspective than really thinking about the sex angle as such.
these days i…well if nothing else i’ll say that i really have been challenged on many fronts, this past year or so’s worth of reading and arguing and rethinking and reading some more.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
>But I also don’t think that it’s so outrageous to suggest that, say, homophobia is directly related to sexism. Or that the hypermasculinity in straight pron films isn’t all that different from the hypermasculinity in gay male pron films. >
Oh, absolutely. I mean, there’s no question at all. In fact that’s the sort of thing I’d like to talk about -more.-
But sometimes in these discussions what happens is–well like that first blow-up i was alluding to, months ago now: radical feminist dude is basically saying that as he’s seen it, (which is now being taken as the Voice of Experience), even “homosexual” BDSM players he’d seen, male and female (there can be no other), the more butch partner topped, the femmier one was on the bottom;
and i was like: some femme tops i know (who are in it for pleasure, not business; the strong suggestion was that this, too, was an impossibility) would be -really interested- in hearing all about this. or f’r instance, the gayboy scene: “fem” is pretty damn eschewed all around. as you say, that is no doubt connected to the overaching sexism we’re all steeped in at some level; at the same time, it -does- play out somewhat differently, and to suggest, as this dude did, that it was -the same- as with straight folk was…
well, putting aside BDSM per se: the problem was “speaking for.”
But I think among people who are not obviously, you know, jerks, like so and so, there’s well one difference between two feminist camps, roughly; or lesbian-feminist vs. queer? -very- roughly:
i think we pretty much all recognize that gender is a construct, and in a particularly loaded way, traditionally, at that. And that homophobia is connected to sexism, yes.
The difference is, perhaps, in what you do with this. Some people are/were of the belief that it’d be better really to do away with these…gender signifiers altogether, or as much as possible. Other people like to embrace them but not uncritically; rather, consciously and playfully fuck around with them.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
I should add, speaking of “speaking for;” I actually don’t know what your core beliefs are and probably should’ve simply asked first.
but yes, i think there’s a way in which to believe in “patriarchy” without being as, ummm, single-mindedly prioritizing? as some people seem to be.
bottom line point in all of this: i think the more one prioritizes this “primary” oppression, the more one probably was likely to have been really deeply upset by what Amp did here. ’sall, really.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
During some earlier dust-up, piny said something along the lines of “transgender sex workers are oppressed *because* they are women.” Except that I was never arguing with piny that those folks weren’t oppressed or that they couldn’t be percieved as women– even if it means I’m some other kind of woman.
I wasn’t calling you teh evol transphobe there, any more than BD is calling you teh evol heterosexist here. And I never contested that you were arguing that these people were oppressed, or that they were never perceived as women.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
But I also don’t think that it’s so outrageous to suggest that, say, homophobia is directly related to sexism. Or that the hypermasculinity in straight pron films isn’t all that different from the hypermasculinity in gay male pron films.
Yeah, but the problem with these arguments is that they can and do remove both homophobia and gay people from the equation. It becomes a discussion about anything but them. It happens with transwomen, too: transphobia is a derail to the extent that it is described as anything other than an extension of misogyny; discrimination against transwomen is only ever described as a desire on the patriarchy’s part to make these unsatisfactory “men” into the underclass. So hatred specific to transpeople disappears, and any transpeople suffering under oppression of women disappear.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
I don’t want to minimize how people feel hurt - but my initial reaction is that Alas is an awesome blog, a strong community, and frankly an amazing resource - and it is entirely free. Yet running something like this obviously takes time and money - perhaps we need a better model for online communities, if we want to be entirely free of all the negative aspects of “free” Internet sites. I wonder how many people who are agast at the same have ever contributed money, if that’s something they could afford to do. After all, chances are they buy books, or pay for cable, or buy magasines, etc… if they feel enough of a connection to the site to be upset by the sale of the domain, then perhaps their money should go where their mouth is.
We need to realise that our beautiful free internet sites are free because of capitalism and (often) less-than-ethically-pristine companies. Porn money pays many people; so does gambling, and advertising.
Whether it should is an entirely different question.
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October 16th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Really interesting points, Piny. I’ve noticed the same thing.
It’s also occurred to me that the specific ‘framing’ on issues of transphobia can be a little manipulative.
So if a transwoman faces discrimination, then it must be because she’s being punished as a ‘failed man’ for being insufficiently masculine. Fair enough, but when a transman faces discrimination, does the same reasoning apply? No, of course not. If a transman faces discrimination, then (duh) she’s being punished for being biologically female or something.
I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, and I am frustrated by my inability here, but it’s always sounded like a tautology to me . . . it’s like it all comes down to male and female and nothing else because it all comes down to male and female and nothing else.
It’s a kind of blindness that doesn’t consider that someone who’s transgendered faces a different kind of oppression that is not exclusive of but is in addition to misogyny.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
would have done for less than a million dollars : He sold off Amptoons.com to a pornography company that wants to raise the search engine ranking of their sites. As I wrote in the comments section of I sold Amptoons.com, comments are now open, Barry could have chose to speak to other blogpreneurs in his search for a better educated decision about this deal. Here’s some of the problems I see with this deal: How much is too much or too little for a domain name? Amptoons is the name of his
This comment was written by culturekitchen | fresh dissent served daily.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
piny:
Have I mentioned that when I become wealthy enough to buy this domain, everyone who deliberately misspells “the” will be fined a quarter, which will go directly into my personal coffee fund and donut fund ? Anyway…
No, I suppose that your comments fell into Amp’s ideal of attacking arguments, not posters, but that’s a technicality on certain charged subjects so far as I’m concerned. Particularly since I’ve already been on the losing side of some board struggles elsewhere in which it was a definite minus that I wasn’t interested in reading Jeffries or somebody similar and looking constantly for transsexual empires behind every @#$! lamppost. I had better things to do and besides, I didn’t notice that the transsexuals in those spaces could even agree on where they’d like to have lunch, much less on how to build an empire. Try to understand why your comments crawled up my nose in a major way, in that context. Please.
And you don’t think that bio women ever feel this way ? Or that we might, just might, have some justification for feeling it ?
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
I am trying. I am not equating you with, well, people we’re probably both thinking of but choose not to name. I never did. Do you understand why your comments seemed wrongheaded to me? Do you understand the points I was making, and why they have nothing to do with the extreme example of Jeffreys? Or are you still stuck on this idea that I’m painting you as the trannyhater, when that was never the argument at all?
I don’t understand why you seem to think that I am or was attacking you:
I love rhetorical questions, don’t you? No, of course not. I’m saying that in this instance, queers are complaining about derails from the opposite angle for the same reason. And that we also have plenty of justification for feeling it. You’re reacting to a queer response to a particular lens on queer oppression as though it were a sexist derail. Why?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
And, Christ, talk about being unfair and inflammatory.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
I don’t know what else to tell you, piny. Other than that I usually avoid contributing to trans threads because I generally feel like a turtle without a shell in them. And that sometimes, it really bothers me that I don’t seem to have any moorings in even a discussion originally about bio women that ends up being steered elsewhere. Somehow, simultaneously, I’m supposed to remember that transpeople are perceived by the general public as being one gender or the other, and yet they might also not be any pre-ordained, traditional gender at all. Somehow I’m supposed to accept that when it comes to oppression we’re all in this together and yet I we’re not– as soon as the person who tells me that we are suddenly wants to map out all the reasons that I’m not qualified to even judge as to whether or not we are. Small wonder these discussions constantly make my teeth hurt.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Yeah, I feel the same way about contributing to threads like the aforementioned, a lot of the time, particularly when they take place on blogs like this one. I’m not sure why that would excuse me if I decided to see you and Jeffreys et al. as an undifferentiated mass. My response to you was not a microcosm or some point in a larger struggle; I was talking about something you said.
Many of these discussions, though, are only originally about bio women because transwomen are ignored. It might or might not be fair to call a reference to transgendered people, transsexuals, or transwomen a derail; that has to do with the individual dimensions of the discussion. Sex work, unfortunately, is something that transwomen deal with both in terms of misogyny and transphobia; the same double-bind I mentioned earlier is often in play in terms of feminist treatment of them.
How is this a contradiction?
Yes, there’s a lot of common ground between misogyny and transphobia and critiques thereof. No, they’re not the same thing. No, experiencing one does not mean you experience the other. These aren’t contradictions either.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 16th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
I am seriously bummed that Qgrrl left, because she always keeps her head in these discussions better than I do. I just stayed the hell out of the last Privilege thread and nodded my head with a lot of what she was saying.
Anyway, piny, I don’t really have any suggestions about how we can make room for one another without excessive amounts of ire. A certain amount is inevitable, but I’d just as soon as pass on all ire all the time. It’s too draining. So if you have any suggestions, I’ll read them.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 12:53 am
ms_xeno,
Agreed. Qgrrl leaving is the worst result of this so far. I’m not surprised, but I am sad.
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 2:28 am
I agree, as well.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Oh, yay!
Belledame’s doing her patented hijack-the-thread-by-writing-consecutive- increasingly-off-topic-unnecessarily-long-posts troll maneuver again!
Did I ask Marc to moderate your fervent attempts at derailing a rape pron discussion at his blog? Yes, I did –and with good cause. Trolling isn’t the same as disagreeing so don’t even attempt to equate the two and get away with it, BD.
Amp,
I’m sorry you think my comment to you was just snark. I think the Kos analogy is apt. And I think Kos is a much narrower and smaller place now than it was prior to his “woman’s studies set” and “hippy” comments. I’ve heard his numbers are still really good so he’s managed to bring in new readers. But its chalk full of yes-men and bullies now and IMHO his best bloggers are long gone.
This comment was written by gayle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 9:09 am
So now you’re banning my direct responses to you and BD?
Way to prove my point, Amp.
This comment was written by gayle.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 9:34 am
I just wanted to refer to this and mention that this is exactly how I felt as a gay man when I was first confronted with my male privilege in a feminist context.
Confused. Attacked. Faced with a double standard.
When it comes to oppression we’re all in this together and yet, we’re not. Suddenly, I’m the enemy, an oppressor. What the hell happened?
Over time, what I came to understand is that there are different kinds of privilege and different kinds of oppression. There’s straight privilege, which I do not posses. There’s male privilege, which I do. There’s cisgendered privilege, monogamous privilege, etc., etc., etc.
This is one of my primary issues with Radical Feminism. It seems . . . reductive to me. You’re either an oppressor or you’re not. You’re either oppressed, or you’re not. I don’t think it works that way.
I exercise privilege in my day to day life. I suspect we all do. I suffer oppression. I suspect we all do. Becoming aware of both is one of my goals.
I hope that was helpful, Ms Xeno.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Gayle wrote:
From the moderation policies page:
Way to prove my… oh, wait, I have no point. Never mind.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Fair enough. I just mentioned it because, as I said, my initial reaction to being confronted with my privilege was so similar to her described reaction.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Okay, gayle. This is the third time you’ve accused me of “trolling.”
do you know what a “tangent” is? “drift?” We were talking. As in, discussion. And your contribution is…?
and once again: who the fuck -are- you, and where the hell do you get off? I really resent the attempt to paint me as some kind of sinister-agenda’d disruptor, feeble though the attempt may be.
I mean, you have no link to a website; I have no personal context for you apart from your snarks at me; and, again, your contribution here is…?
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 11:09 am
and thanks, Achilles.
just in general, this seems to be a theme across the ’sphere right now: people who are/were already identifying with one marginalized group being called on possible let’s say unconsciousness in other areas. Burqagate for the most obvious example (to me) right now.
It’s like: I think there’s this widespread if not quite articulated idea that “privileged” (in any sense)=”bad person,” or something like that. And if one is ever “caught” displaying a blind spot (and who the hell doesn’t have them? any of us?) well, that’s just, well shit! I Am A Bad Person! that’s what I must accept if I accept this! I can’t accept that! lash! defend!
and as i keep saying: y’know, this is never what the whole “examination,” “consciousness raising” deal was supposed to be in the damn first place. Shame shame shame.
And yeah, some people are gonna get angry, probably, but 1) it is possible to accept what someone is saying and still not accept the burden of their anger 2) one is hardly going to make people -less- angry by deny deny counter-attack defend twist shout etc.
shrug.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 11:20 am
>Somehow, simultaneously, I’m supposed to remember that transpeople are perceived by the general public as being one gender or the other, and yet they might also not be any pre-ordained, traditional gender at all. >
Well, yes, in that transfolk aren’t a monolith; and neither are the “general public,” really.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Yeah, bean. It’s okay, though. I don’t think that Achilles was trying to be superior. Achilles, this is usually the point where I’d bring in some kind of parallel about opressed classes and how they interact and change roles. But I can’t, because this is one case where analogies seem even more unequal to the job than they usually are. That’s because once I accept the notion of fluid gender roles, I start to feel as if the opressions themselves, or the role of either oppresser or oppressed become more fluid than they would be in any parallel I could draw. I obviously don’t know you well, but it seems to me that there’s a major divide between the way I’m going to look at oppression and the way you’re going to look at it for a simple reason: Everywhere I go, people can look at me and see I’m part of a subordinate class, at least where gender is concerned. Unless I go live on Paradise Island, which last I heard, was still only fictional. :p That’s not the case for you or many transsexuals. While you may fear “being found out” for being different in a number of ways than the dominant class, it’s not a given that the dominant class can pick up on these things just by looking at you.
Oh, and I’m not a radical feminist. I tend to treat feminist thought like a buffet. I pick up a few things from everywhere and don’t try and digest it all at once.
belledame, you’re giving me either too much or too little credit to assume that I’m bringing this all up out of shame. It has more to do with wanting to figure out how we can have interlocking discussions on interconnected issues in this space without either A) Constantly stepping on each other’s toes or B) Having every damn conversation so weighted down with disclaimers and qualifiers that the discussions become all disclaimers and qualifiers, and not about whatever the original points were supposed to be.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
away when I go to meetings or get absorbed in a problem.) It’s just that CavLec is my space (not MySpace, but my space). Nobody has any claim on it but me (and if you think commenters and blog-colleagues don’t come to believe they own the place, I have a cautionary tale for you). I rant here, often pigheadedly, once in a while ill-advisedly (and I’m fully aware that rants on blogs invite ranty comments). I’m comfortable here. I relax here (within the limits of a publicly-open space). I
This comment was written by Caveat Lector.Report this comment to the moderators
October 17th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Alas, a Sleazy Decision Julian Sanchez points out a controversy among the readers of lefty blog Alas, A Blog. Apparently, the domain has been sold to a company that will add some additional pages to the domain that will have links to various porn sites, helping those porn sites increase their rank in Google
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October 18th, 2006 at 12:12 am
…To add a few of those disclaimers and qualifiers: passability and privacy are very much affected by other factors, class being a big one. Transsexuals in general are not obviously transsexual, but many are and are visible because of transphobia. It isn’t quite accurate to say that it’s all about being found out, although that works pretty well for my life. That having been said, this is a very good point about the differences between the way misogyny operates and the way transphobia operates.
There’s a very simple parallel, then: being gay or lesbian.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 18th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Yup.
Weirdly enough, too, although I don’t see it as so much in operation here & now (21st century United States, I am currently writing from, and as a member of both the below-listed), I have also found a lot of parallels between “queer” and…Jewish.
* “Passing” is a big issue; some people do/did it more successfully than others
* “Cultural elite”
* accusations of being both degenerate filthy gutter underscum and all-powerful wealthy sinister Elitists running everything -at the same time-
* often associated with effeminacy, which in turn is associated with decadence, luxury/exploitation of the “salt of the earth” folks
…and a few other things as well.
just ruminating.
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 18th, 2006 at 11:29 am
>t has more to do with wanting to figure out how we can have interlocking discussions on interconnected issues in this space without either A) Constantly stepping on each other’s toes or B) Having every damn conversation so weighted down with disclaimers and qualifiers that the discussions become all disclaimers and qualifiers, and not about whatever the original points were supposed to be.>
…so, yeah, sure, i’d be for that as well…
This comment was written by belledame222.Report this comment to the moderators
October 18th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
[...] Amp responded by publically revealing the details of his financial condition and why he did the sale, and all the inner conflicts he had about not just the sale but his antiporn beliefs. For the most part, most of the readership of Alas, while a bit saddened and feeling more than a bit betrayed that Amp would resort to that alternative without publically hashing it out in the first place, nevertheless was willing to forgive the situation as a case of financial survival. [...]
This comment was written by The SmackDog Chronicles » Blog Archive » Intermission Special: The “Alas, a Porn Portal” Controversy.Report this comment to the moderators
October 18th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Hey, I just wanted to follow up the Dedicated Server issue - any news on this front?
I hope you can get out of the contract…
Bests
This comment was written by Ben Metcalfe.Ben
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October 19th, 2006 at 5:31 am
I doubt it. Barry could sue, but I doubt he would get more of it than an court order against the buyer to comply with the contract. What damages has he suffered from the breech?
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
October 19th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
I just came across the latest frackus over Amp/Barry’s sale of his domain name to a new host who has significant finanical ties to pornographers. (Disclosure, we used to host Amptoons a few years back while Barry was looking for a new host. Also, Barry came to my defense (and other women bloggers) in a very big way three years
This comment was written by Wampum.Report this comment to the moderators
October 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
meat of this post, I should let people know whats going on. For those, who have been around the blogosphere for a while you’ve probably already heard, Ampersand at Alas A Blog has sold his domain name to a search engine optimizing (SEO) company (See the explanation of this here.) that promotes several sites. So last month Amp wrote a post telling readers that the domain for Alas (amptoons.com) had been sold, but this was only after Daran at Creative Destruction and another anonymous reader noticed the porn links which are
This comment was written by Rachel’s Tavern.Report this comment to the moderators
October 20th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Ampersand, the founder of the left-wing but otherwise excellent Alas (a blog), is taking some heat from some of his fellow travelers for selling his domain to a search-engine optimization company whose clients include some pornographic web sites. Not for selling or giving up any editorial control of the blog, mind you—just for allowing the company to put links to pornographic sites on other
This comment was written by Catallarchy.Report this comment to the moderators
October 22nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Maybe as a virtually unknown new blogger I shouldn’t care about this odd bailout, since I don’t depend on writing for my living, would’ve starved long ago if I dared, almost did just that when young and reckless, but that’s another story. What makes me care is what transpired concerning this allegedly representative of feminist blogs behind the backs of several really pissed off women who posted here. Ampersand, it makes me think your idea of feminism makes you feel independent of what women feel about your actions, as I observed on my blog about Hugh Hefner, also a man claiming feminist leanings while profiting on this peculiarity of our culture, using women sexually for money.
I found some odd reversals reading this thread, particularly in responses to radfems and to John. If this is porn funding feminist discussion, why are many of the feminist posters jumping ship, breaking longstanding blog links? Offended is putting it mildly. They are furious, and in my view, rightly so. My view may not count for anything, as a male outsider, but I have to agree with John that this makes men who fight sexism look bad, or at least less credible. It reflects badly on men who make an effort to support the cause. It puts in question whether any man can be trusted as a reliable ally of feminism. This makes it my business, so I am here to register my protest. If you censor me, it will be on my blog, with a protest of that tactic tacked on. I’d hope you aren’t heavily censoring this thread, though I’m sure you hoped it’d die off already.
Why did you do it, really? None of anybody’s business, seems to have been your attitude, though you profess regret now. Kinda late, better late than never? Yeah, well, maybe you are sincere, maybe not. Obviously you have to maintain that you are. It just strains credulity, if you look at it from my point of view. Here you are in money trouble. Who bails you out? Would you accept a bailout from a child pornographer? Oh wait, I guess you did. What goes on here? Does informed consent mean anything to you, or your loyal defenders? You didn’t think women posting here deserved to know until how long after it was a done deal, then were busted, then buried a cursory announcement by disallowing comments, then finally a man convinced you to open a thread for comments. Did I get the timetable wrong? Maybe you think women in the industry know what they’re getting into. My info says, most want to get out, feel trapped. Sounds like they didn’t know. Do you care, Amp? I don’t get it. People say this is a feminist blog being supported by porn? Fun feminist blog, maybe, the kind that think women in sex work gave consent, so no problem, right? Did they understand what they were getting into? I think that is a big issue you ought to face. Sounds like, this is a blog discussing feminism while supporting porn. You may have a legal right to sell your blog to anyone you wish, but hardly a moral high ground. No, I wouldn’t go so far as it say such a blog is a complete oxymoron, not really for me to judge, but that depends on how far it degenerates. This thread is a bad sign.
Maybe the porn merchant hosting this blog is not hocking the worst of porn, but where do you draw the line? This is not rocket science. This is not erotic art this guy is selling. I don’t know what he is selling, because I’m not buying, but I can tell that much. If this is some kind of speech, it’s hate speech, saying women are sex objects for sale to gratify male lust. I think you could get out of this deal if you really want to. That might go a long way to convince your old friends you regret the mistake. I get the impression some are unconvinced, and likely to remain so, since you want to drop the subject as settled, over, nothing anyone can do about it now. If so, that may well be true, but the boycott may spread until it chokes you. The fate of one who gets a reputation as phony is rarely pretty. I got the impression some women feel scammed, while others expected you sooner or later to betray your real colors. You didn’t do yourself any favor by accepting this deal or by being devious about it, unless you really don’t care that women feel betrayed. Then, hey, no skin off your back, but you don’t want women to think you are that indifferent to the issues they are raising. What a trap you dug for yourself. I almost feel sorry for you, guy, but I’d never trust you, so I don’t. Another man betrays feminism for whatever reason, yawn, what else is new? Maybe this shouldn’t be a big deal for feminists, just like when the antiwar group Not in Our Name welcomed support from Mr. Progressive Larry Flynt? Thanks a lot, alleged ally. You are no ally of mine. I’ll answer if someone responds, but otherwise I’m an outsider, so I’ll leave you alone, except perhaps to raise some more hell on my blog.
This comment was written by Angry Scientist.Report this comment to the moderators
October 22nd, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Hey, AS, you could have saved yourself and the rest of us a lot of time by just putting in a plug for your space, with something pithy like, “Hey, I’m a real feminist man who’ll never sell you out, Sisters.” Instead of recapping a bunch of stuff that everyone already knows, darkly insinuating –based on what ?– that you will be censored, and implying that this is due in part to the fact that Amp tried to make a full-time living as a blogger– which he has never done or claimed to do, so far as I know. Brilliant. I’ll be headed over to your space, pronto, since you are moral enough to give pron a boost just long enough to toot your own horn;Yeah, I can just smell the purity radiating from every pore. Where have you been all my life, Brother ?
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Disingenuine. That’s the word that comes to mind when reading Angry Scientist - either that or the epitome of hiney-kissing. The fact is, not all feminists are in the same camp about pron, like it or not, and if the radical feminist contingency wishes to declare themselves as exclusive from those of us that are less decisive about the issue (come on folks, it’s far more complex than simple feminism here, we’re all sexual creatures and pron caters to that common denominator - at times legitimately, but, admittedly often times exploitatively of women). So yes, there is an issue that lingers at the bottom of this, but it still is up to the individual to choose what it means to them.
Amp has made some mistakes in handling this, but I am confident and clear enough on the situation to understand that the most vocal opponents that have repeatedly condemned his actions are the ones who have a VERY CLEAR PERSONAL BIAS AGAINST AMP.
This notion of shaming folks for not joining in on the hayday of folks who suddenly are having their own wet dreams satisfied by Amp slipping up in a way that they can get a lot of spin miles is hardly my idea of fun. I don’t care to associate myself with feminists that are exclusive, bigoted and all around asshat-like to others that don’t 100% tow their line of rhetoric any more than I want to hang out with a bunch of MRA’s.
As for Angry Scientists take and writing, well it’s obvious he’s already part of that camp (as a lowly male apologist underling, rather than a companion) when you read some of what he’s written on his own blog. Hell, he even is into shaming the trans-community for the whole Michigan fest hub-bub. Lets see, where have we seen that rhetoric before….ohhhh yeah. Anyways… what the fuck ever. Sycophant. That’s right, if you get to shame us and pre-judge us for our politics, you sure as hell are going to get a target painted on you.
So harsh though it may be, can I just say would (those of you radical fem) asshats (that do attempt to define for everyone) quit attempting to define feminism for the rest of us. Some of us who should be your fucking companions and colleagues in this fight are getting more than a little sick of your shit and your own very clear brand of oppression. My husband and male friends are feminists. I’m a feminist. Just because we don’t tow your line of thought doesn’t mean we aren’t fighting the good fight on many levels that we all feel is appropriate for us. Just because a male isn’t a god-damn sycophant doesn’t mean he isn’t genuinely wishing for equality among the sexes, and just because he slips up doesn’t make him lesser than you, it just makes him a fallible human LIKE YOU.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
October 24th, 2006 at 2:43 am
I tried to respond earlier, before Kim weighed in, but the comment problem prevented that. Odd that both responses accuse me of defining feminism. Men have neither the privilege nor the ability to do that. Betrayal is another matter, as is informed consent. Kim, Amp slipped up? Is that how you see this? Amazing. That you presume I must be dishonest and/or a sycophant is less amazing, almost expected, considering. I know some of the things I write are hard to believe. That’s not something I can afford to worry about. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. I don’t blog for fun, not remotely. I blog to blow the whistle on things that really piss me off. This was my response to ms_xeno, as I posted on my blog this Monday morning, not knowing when or if I could post it here.
Hey, ms_xeno, if you are going to accuse me of distorted implications, perhaps you should refrain from making such about me. I know Amp is a cartoonist as well, and also that he was part of a larger household with trouble paying the bills. Maybe he could have managed it on his own. Who ever said Amp tried to make a full-time living as a blogger? I just said I wasn’t in any position to sell my writing, so I’m not in his shoes. That is beside the point, which is what I expected of any response from his side. You might call that bit of political posturing pithy, but I couldn’t make such claims as being a real feminist man, because that isn’t mine to define. I can say I fight sexism. I can say I have a free unknown blog of no financial value to anyone, so no analogy would cross my mind. I have kept my heretical observations to myself forever, but a certain man caused me to defy my fears by getting the goods on the military and trying to publicize it. So I decided to hell with consequences, I was going to say what I perceived. When I make mistakes, I have to learn from them.
Speaking of which, I misused the word hocking. I meant to say hawking. I have this image in my mind of Amp hocking his blog to pron. I don’t get why amptoons is so concerned about showing up in searches for pron. Kinda late to worry about that now with that conflict of interest in the picture, not because of anything I said. However, point taken, I’ll avoid that spelling. Anyone coming to my blog for pron will find nothing they were looking for, perhaps a challenge if they bother to read. Also, since Amp had the honor to post this, as well as many other angry protests, I probably should not have expected to be censored. I have reason to believe he picked and chose. As I said to my first hostile commenter, I am above all a truth-seeker. I give credit where it is due, even when it might seem to contradict my point.
This comment was written by Angry Scientist.Report this comment to the moderators
October 24th, 2006 at 7:52 am
I have been sitting here for the last 20 minutes or so trying to decide if I want to respond to what you have written, Angry Scientist, not because I am unsure whether it is worth it or not, but because, in all honesty, I don’t have the time to engage in much of a discussion and you seem to be someone spoiling for an argument–and I mean this in a good way; I do not think you are being provocative for provocation’s sake. Still, there is a lot in what you have written that resonates with me–not because I agree with you. I don’t. I think you are, ultimately, unfair to Amp, especially given that you are very new to this blog, as well as to blogging in general; but, more importantly, I think your self-righteousness renders impossible what might otherwise be a really important and really interesting discussion.
What do I mean? It is very tempting as a man who is commited to feminist goals–I don’t care whether you call yourself feminist, pro-feminist or what–to divide men into “us” and “them.” Sometimes “we” are the ones who get it, while “they” are the ones who don’t; sometimes “we” are the ideologically pure ones, while “they” are the ones who have not yet really made the full commitment to feminism that “we” feel places us in a camp apart as “true” allies. I used to do this all the time, and it was, for me, absolutely about making myself feel better about being a man in a society where men oppress women. (I will not presume to psychologize you by suggesting that your motivations are anything similar to mine; I am offering my experience as, simply, my experience.) I was one of “the good guys;” I owned my privilege, took responsibility for it, and I did so before anyone else had to tell me about it, and that put me head and shoulders not only above the men who didn’t get it, but also above the men who did, or at least claimed to, but had not yet gotten as much of it as I had.
The fact is, however, at the level of male privilege, that there is no “us” and “them.” You and I are no different from the pronographers whose search engine rankings are influenced–as I understand it pretty minutely–by the search engine optimization that the amptoons domain is now part of; what differentiates us, or any man from them, is what we do. And because we are human and fallible, and because our privilege is ubiquitous, and because the world is set up in such a way to make fighting that privilege on all fronts at all times in the ideologically pure way that we might like to fight, nearly impossible, we will fuck up, and sometimes we will fuck up in very big ways.
Personally, I think what Amp did was a big fuck up–not so much the sale, because I was not in his shoes, do not know and, frankly, do not need to know, the financial details of what his situation was–but because he did not say anything sooner. Do I think male privilege was involved in his decision not to say anything sooner? Yes I do; not because I think Amp’s feminism has all along been the cynical front his accusers have been saying it is; but because he operated within a male privileged system, and it is worth considering how that system was at work not only within himself, not only in the context that created the financial offer he felt he had to accept, but also in the connections between those two “sites of privilege” (if that expression make sense). I am not the person to start that discussion here because, first, I don’t know Amp well enough, and I would not presume that such a discussion should take place on the basis of his blogging persona; second, because I don’t know that Amp owes any of us a view into the inner workings of his psyche (though I would be interested in reading, if he ever decides to write, a more thorough account–if there is one along the lines I am suggesting–of how he came to terms with the sale and its fallout); and, third, as I said, I don’t really have the time.
What I can say is this: I understand and respect why a woman, on finding out that the amptoons domain name is now being used to help pron sites get better search engine rankings, might choose to disassociate herself from this blog; and I can also understand why she might choose to see Amp himself in a very different light. If purity in other people’s stance in opposition to pronography is that important to her–and I am not suggesting that such a position is at all unreasonable–then there is no reason for her to continue to take Amp seriously as an ally. I can also understand and respect why a man might choose to disassociate himself from this blog, if he does so because he doesn’t want his actions in any way to support pronography; but once he starts to play the “us” and “them” game, which pretty clearly seems to be the game, Angry Scientist, that you are playing, he is engaging in a kind of zealotry that ultimately reinforces the patriarchy he claims to be trying to dismantle.
Okay, I am out of time. Please understand that, if I don’t respond, it is not because I am not interested, but rather that I am otherwise occupied.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 24th, 2006 at 10:44 am
AS wrote:
Oh, boo hoo. Let the full-0n martyr act really get rolling. Look, “Brother,” I sure as fuck didn’t wander over to your space looking for a fight. Until two days ago, I’d never heard of you, and I’m still reading nothing here that makes me give a damn about your space. If you dislike being misunderstood, try becoming a better writer. You could have spoken your piece –which as I said, is largely a rehash of what others have written out much more articulately — with twice the clarity and in half the space, had you really wanted to.
Yeah. Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which piles up faster. He has already made it clear that “on his own” was not going to work anymore. But you need a paper dragon to slay to prove your own knightly virtues, so just keep repeating that over and over in hopes of making it true.
Shit, dude. Give us a little more passive-aggressiveness, why don’t you ? Ohhh, you’re all so meeeeeeean to me and my sloppy, transparent, insinuations and bad writing, just because I think Amp is tainting feminism with pron and now here I am, pitching my space to a bunch of people I actually don’t even like and hypocritically tainting myself in the process. Bawwwwwwww…
Fine, I get it. You’re the hero, we’re the jerks. Now that we’ve established your ability to dig yourself a hole, why don’t you take your shovel and go digging elsewhere ?
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 24th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Mrs.Xeno–it is worth noting that linking, not commenting is the tainted pron promoting activity. At least, thats what I thought we figured out.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I didn’t come here to argue with professional trashers who presume to know what someone they don’t know from Adam feels or thinks. Mr. Newman at least thought about what I said. Sorry, guy, I have probably less time than you. I think that kind of discussion could only work on my blog, if you care to copy your post. Making fun of my writing style may seem like intelligent discourse to some, but I have to say, some kinds of BS don’t merit a response. I came here to protest what Amp did, and to challenge him to respond to my post. I’m looking for fights, this is true, but not with Amp’s defenders. I wouldn’t stoop to this level of dodging every issue I raise with crude distortions about me. This thread is not about me, and I couldn’t respond to this silly unfounded BS without going totally off topic. I’ll just say, it doesn’t surprise or bother me in the least I’m too weird for you to get where I’m coming from. You have lots of company. Hint, it’s not martyrdom.
Would anyone care to discuss what informed consent means to them? A minor selling pictures of her body is no big deal? Amp could get a free blog like us peons you know. If he doesn’t care to respond to me, no big deal to me. I didn’t come here to defend my weird opinions that make no sense to character assassinators defending Amp by way of evasive insinuations based on nothing. I didn’t expect them to. I’d hoped for some discussion of the issues I raised, but it seems some would prefer to blindly bash me vainly hoping to leave a mark. You haven’t the slightest clue what motivates me to write. Martyrdom is sometimes the lot of the effective whistleblower, but my concern was about Uncle Sam or nutcases, not scurrilous attacks based on wild imaginations. FTR Kim and Xeno most of your responses I have no time to refute, but on my blog I might cite the most laughable clueless crude inventions about me. I’d rather not take that kind of bait. If you want a response, try answering one of the questions I raised, or convince your hero to. I’m not interested in responding in kind to garbage insinuations. My charges are well-founded. Besides, I don’t play those games.
Also, I have to say the accusation of purity is particularly ludicrous. I’ve lurked on feminist boards and blogs enough to know radfems have plenty of internal discord, even on pron. For one thing, what does the word mean? Some religious fanatics consider sexuality evil, or at least distasteful. Where the line is drawn is not a settled matter, but I think one line feminists rarely cross is when a minor is the lure. Amptoons is owned by an outfit that crossed that line, whether Amp likes it or not. Personally I object more strenuously to that, or to violent pron, than to softer stuff. I do recognize the existence of erotica, which is hard to define, leaving a big gray area. I don’t think anything this merchant is selling would qualify. I think erotica requires some artistic or educational purpose. YMMV. The purpose of pron is rarely artistic, since then it wouldn’t be pron. My impression is that many of Amp’s accusers are new, who used to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he crossed one too many lines. This was the last straw, so boycott spreads.
So, Amp, if this really bothers you, why don’t you revert to a free Wordpress blog like us peons? BTW how much did it cost you to keep up this fancy blog? I know, none of my business. Maybe I could afford one of my own, but my purpose is not remotely artistic, just to have my say, no nice touches requiring custom software or extra bandwidth like this blog.
This comment was written by Angry Scientist.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Are you saying that this link-farm outfit produces or promotes pornography involving minors?
If this is true, legal action really ought to be taken.
If this is not true, you shouldn’t claim it is.
This comment was written by Achilles and Patroclus.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Angry Scientist:
You, on the other hand, seem not to have thought very much about what I said. In your own words, you were “hop[ing] for some discussion of the issues [you] raised.” Yet, if, as you say, mine was the only response that took you seriously, it is telling, very telling, that you spend so much of the precious little time you have responding (with a very disturbing self-righteousness, I might add) to everyone else instead of taking on the issues I tried to raise, which I thought were connected to the ones you were trying to talk about.
It makes your invitation to me to continue this discussion on your blog seem to have been the real point of posting here, i.e. driving traffic to your blog, and it certainly makes it look like the benefit of the doubt I gave you was unambiguously misplaced.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Sure, curious. A link would formalize the degree of AS “sin,” but it’s a “sin,” nonetheless, by his own standards. He is using someone who uses pornography to promote his own space.
AS:
[/civility monitor]
Your long-winded, ill-informed postings would seem to establish which of us actually has more time on the posting, if not reading end of things.
Also, I’m not a guy, you stupid sanctimonious ass. “ms” as in “ms.,” not “Microsoft,” for the love of– Oh, forget it. It’s been well established to most regular posters here that A) I’ve known Amp since we were both a couple of gawky, geeky teenagers (I used to post as “alsis,”) that B) Obviously that’s going to impact how I feel about what he’s done and that C) I’m probably somewhere between Kim (basement) and Sam (aka SM Berg) in my views about pornography. Read more carefully next time before you claim to be an all-knowing expert. Otherwise, back the fuck off. I don’t need you to vet my blogging habits and I sure as hell don’t need you to explain feminism to me.
[civility monitor on:]
For the record, I haven’t had any problem with Richard’s posts, or piny’s, or even with those of most of the people who left in the wake of the sell-out. They can at least claim some emotional and time investment in this space. AS, OTOH, can’t claim any such thing and that’s why his posts piss me the hell off.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Whack!
Stab!
Maul!
Bludgeon!
Wham!
Kablooie!
DIE, THREAD! YOU MUST DIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
whew. I feel much better now.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, whatever, Sailor. Take the extra punctuation back to the Gw*n St*f*n* thread, why don’t you ? Unless you feel like googling “Professional Trasher” for me so I can find out if the pay, hours and the 401K are to my liking.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
mx_xeno
“I used to post as “alsis”"
Well you’ve been keeping *that* very quiet, I must say.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
ms,
1) was mostly a joke
2) wasn’t talking about you anyway
3) to the degree it wasn’t a joke, it was just an annoyed reference to the probable reality that this issue (which seems pretty much “done”) will never, ever, ever, die in the eyes of some.
peace.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Maybe you should check in more often, Tom. I don’t go to everyone’s spaces and post updates every fifteen minutes, you know. But you’re right. It’s all part of my nefarious plan f0r– something. I don’t know what the plan actually is, but if I wait here long enough, AS will probably come back and explain it to me.
It’s all right, Sailor. I was joking, too.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Welcome back.
It didn’t even occur to me to leave for a long time, honestly, and not because of attachment; my family doesn’t do estrangement. We fight and fight and fight and fight and fight. We never stop speaking.
I’m honestly not sure what I’m gonna do; I don’t think I feel comfortable linking here anymore. I do feel, though, like it’s important to have this discussion, so.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Actually, Ms_Xeno, I was wondering if you’d changed moniker because, having written “alsis38″, “alsis38.5″ and so on, you suddenly realized that “alsis40″ was looming up ahead and lost your nerve. Speaking as a forty-four year old I would certainly sympathize.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
October 25th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Not really, Tom. It’s true that the changeovers got to be a bit of a drag. My birthdate is still readily available to anyone who looks at my LJ. But mostly I just wanted a blog name that went better with the name of my art webpage, which will hopefully be fully operational before Sydney celebrates her 40th birthday.
:/
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 26th, 2006 at 8:05 am
Alsis! I did lurk on Ms. for awhile, so I would heartily agree, I have more time per post, since yours outnumber mine at least 100 to 1. Thousands? I had no idea! Now it makes more sense why you don’t like me! You haven’t the patience to figure out my theories. I can understand that. You don’t need to tell me I’m no professional writer. I know that out of context it’s not easy to figure out what the hell I’m trying to say. Even reading my blog might not help. You probably shouldn’t bother. Why waste your time. I should’ve known it was you! I didn’t lurk that much, but you have a distinct style hard to forget.
Anyway, just to say, I did find your posts interesting, most of the time. I understand my ways of expressing myself can be tiresome, and you think this subject beaten to death. Yeah, I’m late to the party. Sorry, I feel this affects me in a bad way and wanted to have my say. I have no particular beef with you, and the guy reference was directed at Richard. BTW Richard I disagree with your assessment. Sometimes responding to attacks is more important than anything else. Unfortunately, this was one of those times. I have work to do, so if you’re all bored with me, and Amp prefers to ignore my rants, I may not be around for awhile. Then again, who knows. FTR I’ve never claimed to be an expert on pron, forget all-knowing expert. The latter cannot exist, except possibly on certain limited specialties, such as the properties of machines.
Alsis, sorry I rubbed you the wrong way. I know, that’s an understatement. I just have to say, I think I understand part of why we clash so much. I don’t hold it against you. I’m just weird that way. I find it ironic, and interesting. If you don’t believe me, I don’t hold that against you either. Why should you? We both know, it doesn’t matter, not at all. Won’t affect either of us, or the course of events. Sorry for boring you and pissing you off, since my writing isn’t up to your standards and you think I have no stake in this. Not directly, true, but indirectly, it’s another slap in the face women took from a man trusted as an ally. That’s why I felt it necessary to make a stand. That’s really all I’m trying to do here, sorry it took so long.
This comment was written by Angry Scientist.Report this comment to the moderators
October 26th, 2006 at 8:34 am
One more thing. I’m not sure whether teen sensation is meant to imply before the age of consent, but if not, I am in error in presuming the owner is promoting child porn. I also have less time for reading than I’d like, and it appears I misconstrued that. Since Amp has no control, it appears he has to trust the business sense of the owner not to promote anything illegal. This has little to do with my argument, as a matter of principle, but it’s true, I overreached if that teen sensation is of age.
This comment was written by Angry Scientist.Report this comment to the moderators
October 26th, 2006 at 8:37 am
“Teen” porn is a particularly disgusting brand of porn. They advertise as “18 to 19 year old” models, who usually pose looking like they’re several years younger.
While they’re not illegal themselves, they surely promote the sexualization of young girls.
This comment was written by Agnostic.Report this comment to the moderators
October 26th, 2006 at 9:37 am
I guess you missed the post about me being on vacation.
But yes, I do prefer to ignore your rants, and probably would have even if I had been here. That’s because you treat me as if you’re a flawless god who has never, ever made a mistake, whereas I’m subhuman scum who should be grateful that you deign to come to my blog to treat me like shit.
Do you really think I’m being unreasonable in not responding to you, considering the utter contempt you treat me with?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 26th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
AS, you must be aware of how incredibly patronizing you sound when you write stuff like this. First of all, “your theories” are pretty common amongst a great number of feminists. I’ve seen them before. Some I’ve appreciated and some I’ve rejected, but I could do without your assertion that you’re bringing something unique and special to the table that a lesser mind like mine aparently can’t grasp.
Also, I’d still like to know how you justify using this space to boost your own blog’s readership. You claim to be anti-pron, but you’re using a space which has a domain now owned by pron promoters. You haven’t been very receptive to Amp’s POV that he did what he felt was the best way to keep the space going. His assertion, over all, was that he wanted to keep the space as it was because the space as it was provided something that would have been lost otherwise. The compromises and mistakes he made all stemmed from wanting to preserve the current space and structure of Alas without causing severe problems in his offline living situation.
Now, you have zero sympathy for this, it seems to me. Yet you expect people here to have sympathy for your own compromises, which are likewise borne of the belief that your POV is unique and important enough to be worth preserving and bringing outside its normal area.
In short, you demand sympathy and forbearance for yourself that you don’t extend to the person who runs this space, or to anyone who still refuses to help you trash him.
You already know the names and locations of the folks who’d probably be happy to have you on their team and on their blogrolls. So why did you come here in the first place, if not out of self-indulgence ? And why the hell are you stillhere ?
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
October 26th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Nobody in the USA hosts or sells child pornography, not unless they want to end up hosted themselves in a Federal Prison. Most real child pornography is produced in the former Soviet Block, where laws are lax and police are bribable.
‘Teen’ in the lexicon of Western pornography means anyone who might conceivably pass for eighteen or nineteen, at least to those who’ve never seen a real teenager.
Some ‘teens’ are nearly in their thirties.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
October 27th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Alsis, I’ve expected or demanded nothing at all. You made all that up. Why are you insisting on jumping to conclusions, as if you know all about my theories and motives without even reading my blog? I was speaking in broad terms, and impatience has nothing to do with lack of intelligence. I’m sure you could understand my theories, if you took the time, but you won’t. I’m only still here because you keep answering me. I explained why I was here. I have nothing else to say, except that I said all those presumably absurd things yesterday after I remembered you because I have some respect for your opinions. I’ll think about how I came across to you, and take it as a lesson. I did hope, stupid as it sounds, we could be a little friendly. My theories are not all about feminism; those are just interpretations of things I read, so I wouldn’t call them mine. I meant, my theories, not about feminism, which influence my perspective on feminism besides, you know, books and magazines and boards and blogs, things like that. I don’t expect you to be impressed, or read my blog, or anyone else, for that matter. You all made that up too. I stand by what I said, corrected by my errors. If that all adds up to nothing or less, I don’t care. Stop answering me, if you think it’s all nonsense, so I can stop correcting the record.
Amp, anger and hostility are not the same, though I presume you take such a challenge as hostile. I reject that characterization; I merely renounce any alliance with you as a man claiming alliance with feminism. You don’t anger me like some men. You could answer my post, requesting I leave it at that. I’d honor that, regardless of whether I feel answered. IOW don’t bother unless you feel like it; you already said you don’t. Thanks for saying something, even if just to explain why you haven’t.
This comment was written by Angry Scientist.Report this comment to the moderators
October 27th, 2006 at 9:59 am
In the last few weeks, I’ve seen dozens of angry responses to me that I don’t think were hostile. It’s certainly not the case that I take all challenges as hostile. I do think your words were hostile, though. If you didn’t intend them as hostile, maybe I misread you, but you should also consider the possibility that you wrote your post in a way that communicated hostility, regardless of your intent.
Duly noted. Your personal purity has been maintained; congratulations. I’m sure that your rejection of an alliance that I never even claimed will have many real-world repercussions in which victims of sexism and misogyny, who otherwise would have gone wanting, will thereby be assisted.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 27th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Didn’t Alsis say something earlier about a trans-bashing post on your blog? If my memory is correct, then she has indeed read your blog, and this comment is thus inaccurate.
Not that it’s ever a requirement to read a comment-writer’s blog, anyway. If your comments here can’t be read on their own merits, without having to read your blog, then they aren’t doing their job.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 27th, 2006 at 10:23 am
If you are going to use the language of “jumping to conclusions”, this is, in essence, a demand/request to read your blog. People are entitled to judge what you post as a standalone post. Hell, AFAIK you haven’t even linked to the parts of your own damn blog which are relevant. So someone is not only expected to read “your blog” but ALSO to find whatever happens to be hiding in your blog to support their point……. right. Like that’s gonna happen. If anyone takes the time, you should thank them.
When you say “take the time” you obviously mean “take the time to read your blog.” I’m sure he could understand them if YOU took the time to post them where he reads, ya know? Or took the time to explain them better?
See the first quote in this post, as well as the implication of the second quote in this post. If you don’t expect anyone to read your blog, stop referring to your freakin’ blog already.
Yes. Every single person made this up. That we all seem to generally agree on what you were (or were not) communicating is surely evidence of a vast conspiracy. In fact we are all secretly the same person. And we troll on your blog hourly. /sarcasm
And if you “don’t care” then (as said above) why post? It’s AMP’S BLOG, so unlike you, he actually has a vested interest in “correcting the record” as you put it. You don’t–especially since you aren’t coming back under your own admission. Nobody here will think anything different of you of you stop posting, I don’t imagine.
You are prolonging a conversation about ending a conversation. And you’re doing it in a manner which is, I must say, annoying as all hell. Please go away.
p.s. If you find this post offensive, it’s not, because of a deeper implication vis a vis feminist theory. The explanation for why it’s not offensive is, of course, on my blog. Go find it yourself.
p.p.s Actually, it’s not on my blog at all! heh.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 27th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Actually, Amp, it was Kim (basement) that actually read the trans-bashing thing over there. I think I’ll pass on having a look, myself.
What I find interesting is that over and over again, I wanted AS to explain his repeated use of this pron-promoting domain to promote his own site. Seems to me that it shouldn’t have been all that tough for him to clarify why it’s all right for him to fight the devil with the devil’s own instruments even as he insists it’s not all right for you. But, never mind. Not worth my energy anymore. I’m going outside. :/
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
November 1st, 2006 at 3:48 am
Does the Left Hand Know What the Right Hand’s Doing? Ampersand of Alas, a Blog has been catching serious flak from his large feminist audience for cutting a deal with pr0n websites to boost their Google rankings via links from his own highly-linked site. Brandon Berg at Catallarchy explains why, even if you think pornography is teh evil!!!, the rage is misplaced:
This comment was written by Notes from the Lounge.Report this comment to the moderators
December 14th, 2006 at 5:41 am
given the other content on Barry’s domain — not because I don’t like Alas, or Barry, but simply because it runs counter to my principles and goals at this time. Anyway, if you’ve somehow managed to miss this whole thing, here’s some links: The new Alas post detailing the sale of amptoons.com. A good round-up of posts on the issue at Creative Destruction. Posted in Random, Feminist Movement | 6 Comments »
This comment was written by Definition - A Feminist Weblog.Report this comment to the moderators
January 12th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
I didn’t bother to save the link, but there was a thing on Digg.com about google changing their algorithms so that page rank is no longer dependant on the number of links.
Your buyer just got screwed. Hope the new owner doesn’t sell Alas! to somebody really nasty.
This comment was written by Johanna.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
[...] http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/10/11/i-sold-amptoonscom-comments-are-now-open/#comment-192830 “Yeah, it’s true, some of us don’t see pr0n as as big a deal as some other people, no. Then again, some take some other issues a bit more seriously, perhaps. [...]
This comment was written by Creek Running North » On blog policy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2007 at 8:10 am
I must have been pre-occupied when Amp sold the place and missed the firestorm of controversy. I’d seen this thread near the top of the recent posts lists several times and didn’t know what to make of it.
This time I decided to look a bit deeper and now I’m even more confused. When I went digging around I saw that most of the cartoonists who are listed as “regular artists” are posting left-of-center and otherwise progressive ‘toons. Which I’d think of as a good thing.
Given that, in my observation, the sale of the amptoons domain has increased the amount of progressive cartoon art, what, again, is wrong with the sale of the domain? I actually tried really hard to find something objectionable, but couldn’t. Could someone with an axe to grind please post a link to something here that is anti-feminist or at least not-completely-progressive?
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:41 am
[...] As folks may recall, last year “amptoons.com,” the domain that hosts “Alas, a Blog,” was sold to someone whose business is “optimizing search” results on google. (His clients are mostly porn sites. Details about the sale are here.) [...]
This comment was written by Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Update On The “Amptoons.Com” Domain Sale.Report this comment to the moderators
March 12th, 2008 at 7:35 am
[...] analysis of this juicy, juicy scandal or a nuanced position on the age-old debates about sex work, porn, blowjobs, on and [...]
This comment was written by I think I found a new subhead for my other blog « Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.Report this comment to the moderators