Box Turtle Bulletin tells a bit of fascinating history: One magazine, a gay rights magazine¹ published in the 1950s.

The occasion was the Post Office deciding that One was not criminal to send through the mail, a decision that greatly improved One’s prospects. The editors declared their lack of gratitude in an editorial printed on the cover:

Your August issue is late because the postal authorities in Washington and Los Angeles had it under a microscope. They studied it carefully from the 2nd until the 18th of September and finally decided that there was nothing obscene, lewd or lascivious in it. They allowed it to continue on its way. We have been found suitable for mailing.

…But one point must be made very clear. ONE is not grateful. ONE thanks no one for this reluctant acceptance. It is true that this decision is historic. Never before has a governmental agency of this size admitted that homosexuals not only have legal rights but might have respectable motives as well. The admission is welcome, but it’s tardy and far from enough. As we sit around quietly like nice little ladies and gentlemen gradually educating the public and the courts at our leisure, thousands of homosexuals are being unjustly arrested, blackmailed, fined, jailed, intimidated, beaten, ruined and murdered. ONE’s victory might seem big and historic as you read of it in the comfort of your home (locked in the bathroom? hidden under a stack of other magazines? sealed first class?). But the deviate hearing of our late August issue through jail bars will not be overly impressed.

God, they fucking rocked.

Click through and read the entire Box Turtle Bulletin post — it’s fascinating stuff, including the first pro-gay-rights Supreme Court decision in US history (fifty years ago last week), and brief mentions of John Gielgud and (shamefully) the ACLU.

1. Judging from the tiny snippets BTB quotes, it seems that they were very much focused on gay men, not on lesbians. (back)

As the Presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama heats up, race and gender have come to the forefront of the discussion. I have heard many people suggest that we stop talking about race and gender and “get back to the real issues.” While I agree that most race and gender based personal attacks do not address real political issues, we should not forget that racial and gender issues are real issues. We should not forget that racism and sexism are still fundamental problems in the US.

Let’s think about it…

The race and gender gaps in earnings are real issues.

The mass incarceration of black men is a real issue.

Violence against women is a real issue.

Racially motivated hate crimes are a real issue.

Gender and race based job discrimination are real issues.

Race and gender disparities in health care delivery are real issues.

Affirmative action is a real issue.

Stereotyping is a real issue.

The list could go on and on.

I know many Americans are uncomfortable openly discussing how race and gender influence our political system, but this doesn’t mean that these issues are not “real.” Denial won’t erase social inequality. It’s a shame that many people would rather purge discussion of racism and sexism from the public discourse than actually work to give people an equal shot.

Please use this thread to post whatever you’d like; linking to your own stuff is encouraged.

By the way, I’m off to Florida for a week, and I’m not sure how much internet access I’ll have.

And Bean emailed me this story:

Dog retrieves his best friend - a cat buried in the garden
Russell Jenkins

A pet dog missed the family’s dead cat so much that he dug up his grave and brought the body back into the house.

When Oscar’s owners woke up the next morning they discovered the dog curled up beside Arthur, the late cat, in his basket.

His owners, Robert Bell, 73, and his wife, Mavis, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, believe that the dog had licked the cat clean before falling asleep.

Mr Bell said that the two pets were constant companions. Arthur, who was a large cat, used to help Oscar to climb on to the sofa.

Oscar, an 18-month-old Lancashire Heeler, had watched Mr Bell dig a grave in the garden and then lower the cat into the hole.Mr Bell said: “He had managed to climb out through the cat flap in the night, obviously with the intent to get Arthur back. Bearing in mind that Arthur was a huge cat, Oscar must have used all the strength he could muster.

“Then he pulled him into the basket and went to sleep next to him. Arthur’s coat was gleaming white. Oscar had obviously licked him clean. It must have taken him nearly all night.”

Arthur is now reburied in a secure grave. And Oscar has a new playmate, a kitten called Limpet.

I also enjoyed the first comment left by a reader:

If Oscar has broken the law, he should face the full force of the same, whether by means of tasers or detention, it doesn’t matter. Just because he is no doubt a very cute and adorable canine, doesn’t mean he should be let off with just a warning (”No!, Bad boy!”).
We need to celebrate species diversity yes, but we are all equal before the law.

From Consumer Health Digest (January 8, 2008):

“Kimkins” diet fraud unmasked.

Eleven former members of the Kimkins Diet Web site are suing Kimkins founder Heidi “Kimmer” Diaz for false advertising, fraud, unjust enrichment, and negligent misrepresentation. The complaint alleges that (a) Heidi Diaz falsely claimed to have lost 198 pounds in one
year, but in fact remains morbidly obese, (b) members’ lifetime memberships were unjustly terminated, (c) Ms. Diaz made unjustified claims that the diet is safe, (d) members using the diet plan suffered medical complications that included hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability, and menstrual irregularities, and (e) Diaz’s Web site displayed phony “success” stories that used photographs she obtained from Russian and Ukrainian sites with ads from women who wanted to meet prospective husbands.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys are seeking certification of the suit as a class action. Last June, Diaz attracted national attention and collected more than $1 million through PayPal after the supermarket tabloid Woman’s World published her claims with before-and-after pictures purporting to show how her appearance had changed. However, the “after” picture was not Diaz but had been downloaded from a Russian site. KTLA-TV has broadcast segments of a deposition in which Diaz admits to lying.

Her Web site contains a “confession” in which she rationalizes what she did but maintains that her program is effective.

Virtually all weight-loss plans make promises that will not be delivered for the vast majority of their clients. This one only stands out, I think, because of the fake photo scam.

To conclude my three day Joss-a-thon I’m going to review Tales of the Slayers. This is a collection of short comics about the lives of 8 slayers in different points in history. Although my reviews are usually spoiler-ific this review will be much more spoiler free. The very shortness of the stories means they rely on their plot twists, so while I do talk about the set up, I’m not going to tell the endings.

What stands out from me, particularly compared to season 8, is how interesting the art is. Very different styles of art are used for different stories, and they reflect often reflect the times the stories are set in. This is particularly effective with the story set in 1930s Germany.

The quality of the stories is extremely mixed. Two of Joss’s story’s are brilliant. The first is very short, and is about the first slayer. It is just one moment in her life, and sets up the rest of the stories.

Joss’s second story, set in the middle ages, is written in verse (which I bet made Joss very happy). It is a simple story, told from the point of view of the Watcher, but is very effective

Jane Espenson’s Regency era slayer is beautifully done. The author’s voice is deliberately modelled on Jane Austen, and works perfectly. Jane and Joss were the only authors who used the literary forms of the time they were writing about, and it makes their stories much stronger. I think they also both understood the limits of the space, and had the right sized story for a very few pages. Really the authors only had time to set up two characters, and one plot turn, and Jane and Joss both do this very well.

The other stories, set in Revolutionary France, America at the time of colonisation, Nazi Germany and 1970s New York, are less successful. The most dire is Sonnenblume, set in Nazi era Germany. It’s slightly less subtle than being hit over the head with a mallet (which is a real shame, because, like I said, the art is very good). I found the Revolutionary France story similarly trite, possibly because it was trying to deal with something very big in a very small space (or possibly just because Amber Benson doesn’t have very interesting ideas about revolutionary France). The story set in America at the time of colonisation, works for the first few pages, but relies on simplistic statements as a substitute for character development, and in the end appears to be making an argument for assimilation. Nikki’s story is OK, but not particularly interesting.

The comic ends with another Joss story, this one about Fray. By itself this short piece isn’t even a story (and I was disappointed, because after several stories of in period or practical clothing, Fray is wearing a very short, loose, cut off top, which you absolutely wouldn’t be able to fight in. I guess I should be glad no-one found a place in the story to have a bath). But it ends with Fray finding, and reading the Watchers diaries of previous slayers.

In the end despite the mixed quality of the stories, I would definitely recommend this to any Buffy fan. Because what it does do so nicely is expand on the idea, implicit in the Buffyverse, that struggle has a history and each generation in that struggle is connected to those that have gone before it.

The latest Disability Blog Carnival is up at [with]tv where Connie Kuusisto (also blogging at Planet of the Blind) has compiled a collection of links on “Disability in the Media.” Check it out! 

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade

The latest Buffy comic has a backstory. Last year Darkhorse ran a competition inviting 100 word essays on ‘How Buffy Changed My Life’ - Joss would chose the winner who would then appear in one of the comics. The winner was Jarrod’s essay, he wrote about his wife’s schizophrenia, and how they’d watched Buffy as she was getting sicker and sicker. Robin appears in this story, she is a minder who has to guard unstable reality fields (or possibly demons). It’s well done, and the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Although I don’t know that much about schizophrenia, so I don’t know how well the storyline reflects reality.

Overall I liked this comic, although I remain unsure about the genre. I’m going to like any comic which has Buffy and Willow talk about their relationship. Of course, the bitter part in me, that does believe in showing not telling, would have rather that they’d had Buffy and Willow have a relationship in season 6 an 7, than explain to us with small words what’s going on.

I loved the little details of this story, the ever developing ‘Anywhere but Here’ was really fun (and a nice little bit of continuity). I loved that we found out where the money was coming from, because it really annoys me when fiction ignores economics. I love even more that Buffy is stealing from Swiss banks, not being particularly fond of banks and all.

I wasn’t so happy about the Dawn revelation, if this is the final twist (and it may not be) it does bear a striking resemblance to her being punished for having sex. I love giant dawn; I love her giant suitcase of clothes. I don’t love punishing female characters for having sex.

The comic ends with Buffy and Willow walking off separately. It’s clear that this season is going to be about stripping Buffy of her allies. I can’t help but feel that we’ve seen that before and, like I said in my last review, these plotlines would be anchored better if we had more idea what normal was for the relationships between these characters.

On the art front, this is the first story arc in a Buffy comic which hasn’t involved a female character taking a bath. It was almost comical how hard the artists appeared to work to draw Robin so that she didn’t look like a comic book girl.

It’s going to be a long year in electoral politics. There’s an election in NZ, an election in the US, possibly even an election in Britain. Unless I somehow limit myself I could spend every day making fun of the awful things New Zealand politicians say (Judith Collins and Sue Kedgley I’m looking at you) or pointing out how far right the US Democratic candidates are (none of them would be the most left wing person in the the National party caucus - and National is the more right wing party in NZ). That’s not what I think matters in politics; I think what matters in politics is resistance.

I’ll still criticise government actions every day of the week. But the shit that comes out of politicians mouths while campaigning, and the promises they make - that’s not that important. This is particularly true in America where elections have reached their baroque period - very intricate affairs that don’t reference anything outside of themselves. It makes them oddly fascinating, which is why I will be following it, but not a place where progressives, let alone radicals, can expect to get change.

So to kick off my new tradition I will say Shut Up Gloria Steinem.

I’d also like to recommend a fantastic talk by Gary Younge Katrina to Obama: Black Leadership in the Post Civil Rights Era. Gary Younge is black and lived and started writing in Britain, but now he lives in America and is the Guardian correspondent. Any of his stuff is well worth checking out (he wrote a wonderful book about travelling in the path of the Freedom Riders). This talk looks at some of the issues discussed in this thread and Grace Boggs post. I should warn peoplethat the questions are of the sort that will have you reaching for your taser,* but Gary Younge answers them brilliantly.

* Remember that much publicised film of someone being tasered at a John Kerry rally? My friend Larry argued that if tasers do exist there are much worse uses for them than stopping people who ask ridiculously long, annoying, self-important questions at public meetings. I was initially shocked by his callousness, but have since through a few public meetings and became almost convinced.

So I’ve got behind on my Buffy comic reviews, so I’m going to review the last three episodes of the Faith arc together. As expected Faith becomes close with the evil slayer who is a member of the English aristocracy (mostly by fighting the gargoyle), and then (again not suprisingly) Gigi is trying to kill Buffy.

It was well done, Faith was well captured, and Gigi worked as a character. Gigi’s Warlock friend seemed very much a cardboard cut-out, but that’s all he needed to be I guess.

And in the end the story wasn’t about Gigi at all, but Faith, Giles & Buffy’s relationship. But there were serious problems in the execution. This plot-line lost a lot of its power because we had no idea of what Buffy and Giles or Buffy and Faith’s relationship had been like since Sunnydale hit into a hole, so it wasn’t anchored to anything.

I think maybe it’s a problem with the genre, because there seems to be a lot of ‘telling’ rather than showing going on. Characters explain exactly what their motivations are, whether it’s Twilight or Faith. The ratio of fight scenes to conversations is so much higher than it was in the TV, so there doesn’t seem to as much space for character, which I miss. I do enjoy the comics, and like the ideas, and where the characters are, but I’m just not convinced by the way it’s told.

Talking of problem with comic books. The baths! Never in the history of literature have female characters been so disproportionately cleaner than their male counterparts. Why do Faith and Gigi make plans in the bath?

No, I know the answer, it just pisses me off.

Tomorrow I’ll review the ‘Anywhere But Here’ and then maybe I’ll review Tales of the Slayers (which I got ages ago). I’ve been remiss in the Joss content for a few months.

Come join Persian Arts Festival as we celebrate the publication of Roger Sedarat’s first book of poems, Dear Regime, which won the 2007 Ohio University Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. Dear Regime has been praised by writers such as David Lehman, Kimiko Hahn and Nahid Rachlin, who has written that it is “a stunning collection of poems that vividly captures all aspects of Iranian culture.” Roger Sedarat is a professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

When & Where

Wednesday, 1/16/2008
6:00-8:00 PM
The Bowery Poetry Club (click for location and directions)
308 Bowery @ Bleecker Street
$12 cover buys one drink

Information
www.persianartsfestival.org

To sign up for the open reading, send an email to PAF’s Literary Arts Director, Richard Jeffrey Newman: poetry@persianartsfestival.org

Shab-e She’r at the Bowery Poetry Club will run from 6-8 PM on the third Wednesday of the month through May 2008.

In 2006, inspired by Racialicous, I put up a post of the top trends in race and racism for 2006. Given the popularity of that post, and the general enjoyment I get from discussing folks’ perceptions of trends, I figured I would make a list again this year. Here is the list in no particular order:

1. Return of the Noose and Lynching Metaphors–Nooses were everywhere this year. Some think the Jena 6 Case brought the noose as a hate symbol back to the forefront. In reality, it’s hard to know if there actually were more hate crimes this involving the brandishing of nooses, since there are not concrete statistics kept on this. Diversity Inc., which attempted to keep track of noose incidents across the US, notes 67 noose incidents across the US¹. Whether or not the rates of noose related hate crimes were up, discussions of the noose and it’s connection to lynching were everywhere even CNN had a special called “The Noose An American Nightmare.

2. Rise of Black Bloggers as a Political Force– While I have noticed a big increase in the number of African American blogs since I started blogging in 2005, this was the first year black bloggers seemed to coalesce as a social force. Group blogs like the Afro Spear and What About Our Daughters helped focus debate on cases such as the Jena 6 and Dunbar Village. Now to be fair these were just two groups of bloggers, several more independent bloggers² also helped shed light on stories that were generally ignored in the mainstream media. In some cases like Jena 6, blogs were created specifically for the issue at hand, and those blogs helped organize thousands of people to write, march, and speak out. Thanks to the organizing power of black bloggers thousands of protesters turned out in Jena, LA and this was just the most widely known social movement fueled by black blogs.

3. Anti-Chinese Rhetoric–You’d think there was a vast Chinese conspiracy to poison American children and pets if you watched one media outlet after another report on product recalls. The problem with most of these stories is what they didn’t tell you. For example, most toys sold in the US are from China, so it should come as no surprise that most of they toys being recalled are from China. For a good comparison, checkout recalled food products, since most foods eaten in the US are grown in the US, you will see a list with many US based growers and companies. Does this mean we should not eat food made in the US? What reporters also didn’t tell us is that most toys were recalled for design problems not manufacturing problems, and guess what? The toys weren’t designed in China. Furthermore, only a tiny portion of Chinese made toys were actually recalled. The vast majority of Chinese made toys were safe! I think the popularity of Chinese toy phobia, is related to some of our general stereotypes of Chinese people in particular and Asians in general. It reminds me a little of the 1980s when similar comments were made about Japanese products. It seems that every time an Asian country starts to become a strong economic competitor these stories emerge. I’m not disputing that there are problems in China’s labor and safety standards, and I think the plethora of stories on rampant pollution in China are accurate, but the primary people harmed by these social problems are the Chinese people. Furthermore, the American news media’s rhetoric greatly exaggerated the extent and significance of these problems. I can help thinking that the smear campaign is also related to the upcoming Olympics being help in China, but that remains to be seen.

4. Xenophobia and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment– Immigrant haters were out in full force this year. In fact, the xenophobes have single-handedly attempted to turn the word illegal in a noun. Bigots like Lou Dobbs banged the anti-immigrant drum the loudest. They encouraged Americans to believe that illegal immigrants were destroying America. They opposed laws that would allow undocumented children, who were brought to the US by their parents, to get college financial aid; they separated breastfeeding mothers from their infants; they blamed undocumented immigrants for crime even though studies have shown immigrants have a lower rate of crime than native born folks; and some even suggested the US get rid of birthright citizenship. What is incredibly fascinating about most of the debate on immigration is that most Americans don’t have a clue about immigration trends and laws. Today’s immigrants are wealthier and more educated than ever, but this doesn’t seep into the debate.

5. Asian Male TV Characters– Late in 2006, Racialicious had a series of posts on the 5 (Part 1; Part 2) most fascinating Asian Male TV characters. There was a time not long ago when there weren’t even 5 recurring Asian male characters on network television. While there is still a long way to go, I think this was a relatively good year for Asian men on TV. I even noticed more commercials with Asian men in them, and as atlasien noted in a recent comment, several reality TV shows had Asian cast members prominently featured. Some may wonder why I said Asian men and not Asian women. Although I don’t have any numbers in front of me, the representation for men seem to increase much more rapidly.

6. “Model Minority” Black Immigrants–This was one of my predictions for 2007, and I was right about this one. There were several stories about African and Caribbean immigrants, focusing on the grand achievements. While some people think comparing African American blacks with foreign born blacks provides evidence that African Americans could really do better if they just “worked harder” and stopped “using the race card,” they miss how immigration law shapes the social status of foreign born blacks, especially African born blacks. Given the current structure of immigration policy, most of the African born blacks who are able to come to the US come as professional and students. The number of refugees and poor immigrants is fairly small, but the number of diplomats, professors, and students is fairly high. My partner and his relatives are good examples of this–He and his sister were the first to arrive in the US. His sister has a PhD, speaks 5 languages, and is a translator for the United Nations, and my partner was a excellent sprinter who was able to convince three Division I American Universities to give him track scholarships based on his race times in Nigeria. For both of them, it was the demand in the US for their talents, combined with a great deal of determination, that brought them to the US, but they hardly represent the typical Nigerian.

7. College Racism–Oh how I wish I didn’t have to put this on the list again, but a quick look at Vox Ex Machina,, which maintains the definitive list, reveals numerous incidents of racism on college campuses. From nooses to racially themed parties to rogue newspapers and all kinds of other incidents, students were busy this year. Often, the racist students posted their racist handy work on facebook and other social networking sites. I’m not really sure if today’s college students are any more racist than the college students were back when I was in college (mid-1990s). Social scientists could use survey data to track racial attitudes of college students, but the colorblind ideology is so prevalent that students know how to give the “right” answers even if their behavior belies such sentiments.

8. Celebrity International (Transracial) Adoption–I’m not sure if this trend fits better into 2006 or 2007, but nonetheless, it seems like every celebrity wanted to adopt a child from outside the US. Following the lead of Madonna and Angelina Jolie, numerous celebrities were rumored to be looking to adopt. I don’t think many of these celebrities will actually follow through and adopt, but there is something unsettling about transracial, international adoption being hip and cool. We are talking about the well being of children, but when adoption seems to be a media fad, I can see many unprepared and otherwise ignorant people adopting for the wrong reason and not respecting the rule of law like this French charity in Chad.

9. Begging to Apologize to Blacks via Al Sharpton–Apparently, racist whites have anointed Al Sharpton the “King of Black America” because every two bit loser who made a racist comment this year went begging to apologize to black folks via Sharpton (and sometimes Jesse Jackson, who must be second in line to the thrown). Don Imus, Michael Richards, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and I’m sure others who I have forgotten, all either went on Sharpton’s show or begged to meet with him. Do I really need to say anything else?

10. Using Racist Comments By Whites To Talk About How Blacks Need to Change–This may be number 10 on the list, but it was by far the most annoying trend of the year. It seems like every time a well known white person made racist comments the discussion ended up being refocused on how blacks need to fix themselves. I dedicated a full post to this topic in Oct. because I just couldn’t take it anymore. In fact, many of these discussions remind me of of children’s excuses for bad behavior. For example, let’s say I find little Timmy’s hand in the cookie jar. What’s the first thing little Timmy says, “Well Sarah did it, too?” Now, any good parent is not going to be fooled into turning Timmy’s cookie theft into a reason to punish Sarah. Unfortunately, when it comes to racism, many in white America act just like little Timmy, so racist comments from Don Imus and other whites turn into discussions of the pathologies of Blacks.

So there you have it, my list of the top trends in race and ethnicity.  I realize that this list is very US biased, so I’m curious to see what some of the readers outside of the US noticed in their countries this past year.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Do you agree that these were popular trends?

1. Unfortunately, they do not specify a time frame for the 67 incidents. (back)
2. Sorry I don’t have the space to promote everyone’s site here, but a quick scroll through the blogroll on the left will reveal some great blogs that are often overlooked. (back)

Steinem’s op-ed can be read here.

From Angry Black Bitch:

After reading Steinem’s Op-Ed I felt invisible…as if black and woman can’t exist in the same body. I felt undocumented…as if the history of blacks and the history of women have nothing to do with the history of black women.

When I read “Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).” I felt both attacked and ignored at the same time.

I think of the women and men in my family who were not extended the protected vote until 1965. I wince at the lack of acknowledgment for the black women of Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery who had to march with their brothers in the 1960s to attain the vote because the suffrage movement abandoned them in a Southern strategy to get the vote in 1920.

And there it is again…that invisibility; like a brutal weight that I am so bloody tired of carrying.

When I consider Steinem’s “So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?” I’m left confused.

What country does Gloria live in where race barriers are taken seriously? I’d love to know…shit, maybe I’ll move there. But I’m a black woman and this is America where none of my barriers are given more than a token consideration and I’ll present this Op-Ed as exhibit A in that argument.

From A Woman’s Ecdysis:

Look, I’m not going to go head to head with Steinem and argue what is most pressing for womyn in America - race or gender. What I do know is that as a US womyn of color living in this country is that the two are so inexplicably interlaced that I resist ANY individual that pitts once against the other, especially a White mainstream feminist. What I find most often, too, is women like Steinem (White liberal women) call gender over race. Let’s rally all the women together once more because we’re all being denied the right to vote and the men of color are making it into the boardroom before any of us are.

There’s a reason why I use the word gender/ace as one entity. I cannot separate the two.

More folks posting on this subject: Reappropriate, The Debate Link, Diary of an Anxious Black Woman, Pandagon, Feminist Law Professors, Jack and Jill Politics, Tiny Cat Pants, and Silence Isn’t Golden. And Side Notes and Detours. (If you’ve posted about this, or know of a post about this you think is good, feel free to leave the link in the comments.)

UPDATE: This isn’t the first time Steinem has discussed race during a presidential election — one of her “top ten” reasons for opposing Ralph Nader was Nader asking an American Indian, Wyona LaDuke, to be his running mate. Steinem bizarrely saw this choice as an anti-Indian move on Nader’s part.

The recently posted Carnival of the Godless is your source for all sorts of atheistic joy.

Visit! Comment!

There’s been a brilliant discussion about Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti’s Call for Submissions for ‘Yes means Yes’.Firefly, BlackAmazon, Sylvia, Tekanji, Chris Clarke, Sudy, Magniloquence, and Theriomorph are just some of the people who have written about the original Call for Submissions (and when the discussion became about the criticisms of the proposals there were more fantastic posts Sly Civilian, brownfemipower and Ilyka Damen for a start). The discussions has been far-ranging and it’s well worth tracking through the links, following the trackbacks and reading the comment threads.

So it seems a little ridiculous for me to be responding to a revised call for submissions for Yes means Yes. The debate has well and truly gone beyond that, and some women of colour have, rightly, cried enough. But I stopped blogging in a timely manner a few months back, and I have a tangent I want to dart off in. A tangent much informed by the posts above.

There’s a new sentence in there that’s response to criticisms like Firefly’s:

The use of sexualised violence to dominate and control people isn’t addressed by consent-based activism, and often there’s no legal protection against this kind of assault because it occurs in government institutions or is otherwise mandated by the state. For instance, women in Australian prisons are subjected to daily strip searches and cavity searches, where no hygiene is observed. Evidence shows that these women exhibit similar symptoms to rape survivors. Sisters Inside, a women’s prison advocacy group, have a research paper about it here.

The new Call for Submissions lists a potential topic for the anthology as:

Beyond consent: state-sanctioned and institutional rape that even the healthiest sexual culture won’t stop

The most obvious problem with this statement, that I might charitably call a wording problem, is that implies that you could have a healthy sexual culture and still have state-sanctioned and institutional rape. I don’t believe that’s true, and I hope that Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti don’t either. But I think this wording problem reveals a problem with analysis. Institutional and state sanctioned rape are part of our sexual culture. ¹ Some stories:

A thirteen year old girl in a logging town walked past a police station. She knew the police officer, he worked on search and rescue with her parents. He called her inside. He raped her.

A woman went to the police to make a report about being sexually abused by a relative. The male police officer interviewed her alone in his car, he put his hand on her knee. Then, years later, he rang her up at 1am, told her he’s coming over and demanded sex. He forced her to perform oral sex and left.

Or, we’ll move to another time and place. A woman grew up in a revolutionary movement in exile. She was raped when she was 13 by the men involved in those movement all friends of the family. She grew up the movement won, or sold out, and one of those revolutionary friends of the family became vice-president. She was at his house and he raped her.

Brad Shipton, Jacob Zuma and the Murapara police officer who still has name suppression all wielded institutional power granted by the state and they were also all acquaintances of the women, or girl, that they raped.

Police officers, politicians, employers, border guards, soldiers, priests, and prison guards* have huge power over so many women’s lives. They can demand sex in a way that makes it clear that the answer must be ‘yes’; they can all ignore ‘no’. They can do this to women they know and to strangers. The more power a rapist has over a woman the easier it will be for him to rape her, the more entitled he will feel to her body.

These are not a side category of rape - our understanding of rape must include an understanding of power. I think that means that rape is, by definition, beyond consent. If a man has the power to force a woman to have sex with him, and is prepared to use that power if she does not give consent, then that limits her ability to say ‘yes’ as well as ‘no’.

I might put things in a different order than they did in the call for submissions. I would also say that until we build a society that doesn’t give men the power to rape, female sexual pleasure is always going to be constrained by the fact that our ‘yes’ may be irrelevant.

There’s a Möbius strip involved, obviously, and I do believe that one of the things that give men the power to rape is the belief that women’s sexual pleasure is irrelevant. But it’s not the only place men get power from, and, most importantly, there are intersections between the different sorts of power men have - they can’t be understood in isolation.

* not intended to be an exhaustive list

1. In this post I am writing I am writing about women who are raped by men. I didn’t acknowledge that in the original post. I think the circumstances under which the majority of rape against males happens underscores the relationship between rape and power. But that wasn’t what I was exploring in this post (back)

Fanfic, for those who don’t know, is when fans write new works featuring copyrighted characters and settings created by another author, generally without permission of the copyright owner.¹ So, for example, if I write a short story featuring Harry Potter or set on the Starship Enterprise (or featuring Harry and the Enterprise), that would be fanfic.

In the comments of Making Light, science-fiction writer Jo Walton writes:

Fanfiction can hurt writers and here’s how — sod money, money has nothing to do with it, this is a totally emotional argument.

If other people can take my characters and my universe and write their own things about them, wrong (and it’ll always be wrong, to me, because I know what wasn’t in the story and they can’t) while I’m alive and don’t want them to (dead is different, this is about the inside of my head and my creativity, which won’t be an issue when I’m dead), then I’m not safe to let my stories and my characters out there because they might be desecrated. The thought of it makes my throat close up. Just reading this here and thinking about it will probably stop me writing any more today.

If I’m not safe to publish, I won’t.

That might not hurt anyone except me, and the other writers who feel this way. There are probably quite sufficient writers who don’t feel this way that there would still be books. But there definitely wouldn’t be any more of mine.

I’m sorry that Jo Walton feels that way, and if I wrote fanfic I would definitely refrain from writing any featuring her characters or settings.

However, some writers are deterred from writing by the prospect of criticism. But I don’t think anyone would say that therefore criticism should be discouraged, or argue that this is a good reason for criticism to lack legal protection. That some writers are hurt by the prospect of reader response, in whatever form, is unfortunate, but not a reason to outlaw the response.

(Please note that for all I know, Jo Walton thinks fanfic should be fully legal and as protected as any other writings. I have no idea what her opinion on fanfic and legality is.)

Now, those who want fanfic to be illegal, but criticism to be legal, might respond that criticism serves some valuable functions, and I agree. But I don’t think criticism serves any function that fanfic doesn’t also serve, albeit in different ways.

1. I’m sure someone out there has written a definition with fewer holes in it. (back)

An invitation to feminist and anti-racist commenters only:

Say what’s on your mind that’s against the moderation rules.

For now the only caveat is no Amp-bashing, please. If you feel you really, really need to do it, write about it on your own site and post a link here.

This piece by Grace Boggs linked, widely, by bloggers I respect. I agree very much that viewing Obama’s candidacy in the context of the movements that made it possible is vital, and will show Obama lacking. Although I disagree with some of Grace Boggs’ interpretation of that struggle.* But the paragraph of her argument that was mostly widely quoted, is the one I disagree with most strongly. Maybe I’ve interpreted her in a way differently from what she intended:

But neither Obama’s ethnicity or Hillary’s gender is enough to earn my support. Neither is calling on the American people to confront our materialism and militarism or challenging and proposing alternatives to corporate globalization. At this critical period in human history that is what we should be requiring of ourselves and of any presidential candidate, whatever their race, gender or religion.

The American people are not a problem that could be solved by a president calling them to be more virtuous. Yes we must organise to fight and resist capitalism and imperialism, but the President is the enemy in that fight, not the standard bearer.

Capitalism and militarism are systems that are the job of the American president to maintain. Holding American presidential candidates up to ideals they would never meet is far better than pretending, or believing, than a multi-millionaire lawyer is an ally of the working class. But if you create an image of the ideal American Presidential candidate then you are propagating the idea that the right American president could make things better. We make our own history, it is not made for us by our leaders. Democratic party candidates for president are not our leaders in building another world.

Whether or not we win the writers strike, how strong the movement for housing in New Orleans becomes; whether the protests over what happened in Jena were a one off or a springboard; whether the strikes in Buenos Aries continue to grow; how so many other protests, strikes, and movements develop over the coming year. Those questions are critical to how far we get towards liberation over the next four years, which Democrat and Republican candidate wins the nomination for president is not.

Vote, don’t vote; support don’t support; endorse, don’t endorse. But don’t limit the world you dream about tothe crumbs promised by Clinton, Obama, or Edwards, and don’t expect anyone better to come along. The work we need to do isn’t done anywhere near the voting booth.

* In particular, the characterization of the sit-ins as ’small groups’ - the freedom movement was a mass movement in cities and towns across the south, and it wasn’t small in the North either.