North Star Liberal, which decided to launch by calling Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, fat and mannish. Of course, it’s okay because they also mocked the appearances of male politicians, which, er, only makes things worse. Also, it’s “snarky,” which is evidently now code for “place where people who claim to be liberals can ignore liberal values.”

For the record:

1. Fat jokes aren’t funny.

2. Jokes that portray women are mannish aren’t funny.

3. A site that claims to be “liberal” would understand that.

Yeah, you can steer clear of them. They aren’t liberal in any meaningful sense of the word.

UPDATE: I guess we can at least be glad they pulled the part making fun of Paul Wellstone’s death — which they used to attack Minnesota State Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, Minn. Incidentally, where were Paul and Sheila going again when their plane crashed?

On October 25, 2002, Wellstone died, along with seven others, in a plane crash in northern Minnesota, at approximately 10:22 a.m. He was 58 years old. The other victims were his wife, Sheila; one of his three children, Marcia; the two pilots Richard Conry and Michael Guess, his driver, Will McLaughlin, and campaign staffers Tom Lapic and Mary McEvoy. The plane was en route to Eveleth, where Wellstone was to attend the funeral of Martin Rukavina, a steelworker whose son Tom Rukavina serves in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Wellstone decided to go to the funeral instead of a rally and fundraiser in Minneapolis attended by Mondale and fellow Senator Ted Kennedy

Oh yeah.

You guys stay classy, now.

I am trying very hard to see where Newsweek’s choice to use Sarah Palin’s Runner’s World photo as their cover is a horribly sexist decision that belittles women everywhere. No, seriously, I am — I’m aware I’m not going to see a flaw the first time I look at something, and I find it not just possible, but likely that a major newsmagazine would use sexist imagery to depict the most popular woman in the GOP.

But I’m sorry, no matter how many times I’m told the sexism is obvious, I just don’t see it.

It’s not that the image doesn’t play on sexist tropes. Dear Ceiling Cat, does it ever. If it was a Photoshop job, I’d absolutely decry it for portraying Palin as a bizarre faux-patriotic fembot. I mean, look at it:

That’s out of control. And it reminds me of another image that mixed faked überpatriotism with extreme conformity to gender roles. You may remember this one. It was all the rage in April 2003:

The images are almost a perfect yin-yang of the conservative vision of female and male. Sarah Palin: athletic, but not so athletic that she can’t strike a cheescake pose. A mom, first and foremost, keeping the home fires burning (note the careful positioning of the Blue Star banner over her right shoulder). So in love with her country that she’ll desecrate the flag in order to show it. And George Bush: a total warrior with a big cock. Not concerned about family, but about blowin’ stuff up. A guy fighting in war (or, you know, avoiding it; same difference, right?). So in love with his country that he’ll use soldiers and an aircraft carrier in a premature photo-op to prove it.

Both of these images were calculated — Palin’s, to show she’s not one of “those” women, who choose sensible clothes when they run, but who is sexy all the damn time, because she can be. To show that she loves her country, war, apple pie, and the beautiful scenery you can see from her front porch, the one that was built with kickbacks she received as mayor. And Bush? Bush, of course, to show he isn’t a wimp like Clinton, but a true Warrior-King, one who literally conquered Mesopotamia himself.

Both photos also show something else, something hiding behind the artifice: that both Bush and Palin are Potemkin representations of these ideals. By trying to oversell the idea that they are perfect representations of their genders, Bush and Palin remind us of how hollow those representations can be. Bush is not a warrior, and he looks silly playing dress-up. Palin is not a pin-up girl, and she looks silly playing dress-up. Both took what could be powerful symbols and went so over-the-top with them that they look like fools.

That’s why Newsweek chose this cover. Not because it shows Palin as sexy, but because it shows her as a caricature of herself. As a sitting governor, Palin chose to engage in a photo shoot that would do a better job of validating the “Caribou Barbie” epithet than anything the most misogynist liberal could come up with. As Lindsay Beyerstein accurately says:

Predictably, Palin complained that Newsweek’s use of the image was sexist. Yes, the image was plucked from its original context. The whole point was that the picture was appalling it its original context. Newsweek is holding this picture up to the world and asking: Who does this?

The bottom line is that Palin’s a clown. She doesn’t get a pass because her chosen clown persona is stereotypically feminine.

She caricatures herself. Day in and day out. Good for Newsweek for pointing and laughing.

And that, my friends, is the point. One cannot point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin’s wallowing in sexist tropes without using the very sexist imagery that she herself approved of. Yes, the image is appallingly sexist. But that is not Newsweek’s fault. It’s Palin’s.

Using a photo shoot that Palin posed for and endorsed after the fact to make the point that Palin is a caricature of herself is not sexist. It’s good journalism. Believe me, I will defend Palin from true sexism wherever it rears its ugly head (like, say, this bit of “humor” from HuffPo, which is crappy, and simply an excuse to attack Palin for being a woman). But this is not a case of sexism being used to attack Palin. This is a case of Palin’s own sexism being used to attack Palin. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

First off, let me note that I hate Carrie Prejean as much as the next sentient human.

That out of the way, it’s time for me to defend Carrie Prejean.

As you may have heard, former Miss California USA-slash-anti-gay activist Carrie Prejean has a sex tape that’s gotten loose, and perhaps “several more” in the hopper. (No, I’m not linking to stories; keep reading, you’ll see why.) This is, of course, totes hilarious, as Prejean was trying to build a career around moralizing while still being a normal human with feet of clay. This tape, as I read from various liberal blogs and see discussed on liberal talk shows, is a tape of Prejean masturbating that she sent to an ex-boyfriend at some point. The ex-boyfriend is now distributing the tape, and telling stories of how Prejean allegedly wanted him to say she was underage when she made it — leading Michael Musto to opine waggishly that she’s just a typical girl, wanting to look younger than she is.

Hee hee, ho ho, sigh.

You know why Carrie Prejean wants us to think that tape may be illegal? Because she doesn’t want everyone and their twin sister to have video of her masturbating. Why? Because she didn’t release a video of her masturbating for worldwide distribution. She sent it to her then-boyfriend.

Now, yes, Prejean has been involved in moralizing. And here’s where I’m supposed to say that she has this coming, having the temerity to be a sexual being while criticizing others for their sexuality. But you know what? I’m having trouble believing that. Because while Prejean’s opinions on same-sex marriage may be wrong, it doesn’t therefore follow that it’s okay for someone she trusted to break that trust by sharing private videos with the public. Indeed, on the moral spectrum, I’m having trouble seeing why Prejean should be embarrassed by the sex tape, and a whole lot of reason to think that her ex-boyfriend is a major league asshole who women should avoid like the plague. Men too, for that matter.

Guys? It’s me, Jeff. Let’s say your wife, girlfriend, lover, friend with benefits, or friend without benefits is nice enough to send you a tape of herself in flagrante delicto. Guess what? She didn’t sent that to you and anyone you feel like forwarding that to. Unless your best friend, your preacher, your mom, Harvey Levin, Joe Lieberman, or J.K. Rowling was copied in on the email,¹ you shouldn’t send it to any of them without first seeking permission from the young² lady in question.

The reason, of course, is that this woman is choosing to risk a bit of her privacy to give you a momentary sexual thrill — perhaps many, depending on how lonely you are and whether or not your girlfriend goes to college out of state. You owe it to her not to run to your roommate and say, “Hey, look what this girl sent me!” Why this is so should be blindingly obvious — what said woman sent for your consumption may not be something she’d want her mom, her high school math teacher, Kevin Sorbo, or the crowd at an L.A. Lakers game to see. She sent it to you, personally, because she likes you and trusts you enough that you won’t go sending it to someone else. If you go sending it to someone else, that proves that you’re a scumbag who can’t be trusted, and while the woman may be guilty of not seeing that quickly enough, the only real jerk in this picture is you.

You see, it’s like sex. If you and your girlfriend are having consensual sex, that’s fine. If you invite your buddy in unannounced to start having sex with your girlfriend too, without clearing it with her? That’s rape. No, selling smutty pictures of your ex-girlfriend to TMZ isn’t rape. But it’s rape’s evil, less-reviled cousin, and it’s in the same moral ballpark. And just because we like to put the fault back on the Carrie Prejeans of the world for sending these tapes in the first place, the fact is that their privacy is being violated, while the ex-boyfriend in question is lauded for said violation. A moment’s foolishness in the name of lust or love is understandable; a willful betrayal of trust in the name of lulz or cash is reprehensible.

It’s sick and wrong. And it’s nothing to laugh about, even if the victim in this case has been moralizing about other things. For all her wrongness, I don’t recall Prejean arguing that LGBTQQ individuals should have their nude, intimate photos and videos released to the world. She’s wrong on marriage. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to laugh when she’s violated.

1. They may have been. Hey, I don’t judge. (back)
2. At heart. As long as you’re legal, I say feel free to send sexy videos to your heart’s content, no matter how old you are. (back)

[This post was originally published on Clarisse Thorne's blog, and is reprinted here with Clarisse's kind permission. All three installments may be viewed here.]

I’m about to assert something that makes me nervous, because I worry that people are going to stick me in the “asshole MRA” box. Don’t get me wrong: I certainly don’t think that women have it better, overall, than men do. But I do wonder whether it might be good for feminists to acknowledge that — although we don’t experience nearly as much privilege as men — there are a lot of advantages women experience that men don’t.

Because women aren’t seen as threatening, we have an easier time doing confrontational things like approaching strangers on the street. Because women aren’t seen as fighters, we stand a lower chance of being mugged than men do. Because women are seen as emotional, we’re given a huge amount of social space to consider and discuss our feelings. I can work with and be affectionate with children far more easily than a man could. I can be explicit and overt about my sexuality without being viewed as a creep.

And there are at least a few recurring complaints about how trying to be masculine can suck. First and foremost: that men don’t feel they’ve been taught to process their emotions, or don’t feel allowed to display them. Another: that they’re perceived as less manly if they don’t achieve success through a career, especially if they aren’t the main breadwinner for their family. A third: that men are expected to be sexually insatiable, or always to be sexually available.

Of course, it’s worth noting that the advantages women experience are almost always the flip side of unfortunate stereotypes. For instance, one might say that women get more social space for emotion because we’re stereotyped as irrational and hysterical. But that doesn’t change the fact that most of us easily grasp that space, while most men don’t. And if we can reject the Oppression Olympics for just one minute and stop thinking about who’s got it worse, it becomes clear that the advantages and drawbacks associated with being both male and female are intertwined. The two systems reinforce, and cannot function without, each other. The gender binary may not hurt everyone equally, but it hurts everyone. As those beautiful “Every Girl / Every Boy” posters say, the most obvious example is: “For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.”

I do suspect that it may not be psychologically realistic to ask people from our underdog-loving culture to embrace an image of themselves as privileged; my thoughts turn again to the trans man who hated the thought of being a white male. But if we feminists can’t work productively from a stance that acknowledges our social advantages, how can we expect straight/dominant/big-dicked men to do it?

Could feminist acknowledgment of the women’s gender-based advantages help pave the way for more men to acknowledge male privilege? Could feminist acknowledgment of the advantages on both sides of the gender binary help us better grasp what sucks about being a guy?

Am I citing Thomas Millar too much here? Well, at least once, he frustrated me. Amongst the comments on one blog post, I thought he was stating his views about stereotypical guys rather harshly. I suggested that it might be better to seek common ground, or at least to explain things gently; he said he wasn’t interested — “I think we all work with some people where they are and can’t soft-sell our views enough to deal with others.” He added, “If I’m going to alienate someone for saying what I think too bluntly, I’ll pick entitled cis het dudes.”

I won’t pretend I didn’t laugh when I read that — but I worried about it, too. I’ve had an enormous number of experiences trying to discuss feminism/sex/gender with men in which the men tensed, bristled, and closed me out. I don’t think it was always because those guys couldn’t stand the thought of losing their privilege, either. I think a lot of dudes have been led to feel that they have no place in gender discussions — that those discussions will always be about what men are doing wrong, and that no one’s prepared to work with them where they are.

All groups have outsiders. Movements inevitably form themselves around oppositional forces. As someone who’s spent her share of time feeling feminist rage, I’d say that being filled with feminist rage is totally understandable. And seriously, don’t get me wrong: I’m not giving unfeminist guys a free pass. I’m not happy about the fact that so many men are apparently alienated from feminism because us radicals are too confrontational — or too uncomfortably correct — for their fragile masculine egos to handle. (I’m being sarcastic! Mostly.) I’m really not happy about the fact that I’ve got to think about marketing anti-oppression — in a just universe, wouldn’t anti-oppression market itself?

But at the same time, I’m a realist. I know this isn’t a just universe, and I want to use tactics that’ll achieve my goals. Which are: I’d really like to find more men at my side in the sex and gender wars. I’d really like to talk to more guys who don’t see ideas stamped with feminism as an attack — rather, as an opportunity for alliance. Plus, if we’re going to think in terms of cold hard tactics, it’s worth noting that normative men hold most of the power in America. (That’s part of what we’re complaining about, right?) So swelling our ranks with The Oppressive Class means we can ruthlessly use their power for good.

Can we do better at making feminist discourses around gender and sexuality open to normative men, without driving ourselves crazy? How can we make our movement open to, and accepting of, normative men? Put another way, how do we convince normative men to support us?

Maybe we don’t need a lot of normative men in the camp of sex and gender radicals; maybe we’ll be happier without silly Gender Studies 101 questions clotting our discussions. Still, even if we don’t try to “recruit” them, I’d love to see more widespread analysis of masculinity and masculine sexuality amongst normative dudes … if only because getting a sense for their societal boxes might simply make them happier. If only because I think they’ve got their own liberation to strive for.

So at the very least, I’d like to contribute to an America where serious examination of masculinity and male sexuality can flourish.

That’s my final question. How do I do it?

[Reprinted with the kind permission of Clarisse Thorn. All three installments of this series (once they've all been posted) may be read here.]

In the 2006 documentary “Boy I Am“, a trans man talks about how one of his mental barriers to transitioning was the fact that after transition, he would be a “white male”. And, he laughs, the “last thing in the world” he wanted to be was a white male!

A year or two ago, I attended a lecture by Jackson Katz, a rather overtly masculine, cis male anti-abuse educator who lectures in colleges around the country. Bullet-headed and aggressive in stance, he said a lot of valuable things — particularly about how men ought to take ownership of problems we traditionally consider “women’s issues”. It’s certainly true that if we want to end male abuse of women, men must participate in the movement. But although Katz discussed some issues of masculinity, I heard little about how we can make things better for men. His proposition of a men’s movement was centered around correcting the things some men are doing wrong. (I attended in the company of my friends Danny, who blogs at Sex, Art & Politics, and Sammael, who started his own BDSM blog this year. Hey guys, got any good memories of Katz?)

Although they’re often watered down, many feminist concepts have gone mainstream. For instance, Americans have some consciousness of traditional feminist critiques about how women’s bodies are represented in the media. Indeed, that consciousness has become so endemic that, in a grandly ironic twist, marketers now capitalize on it to sell beauty products: the nationwide Dove Campaign for Real Beauty attempts to use deconstruction of the media’s representation of women to sell Dove soap. Americans are also quite aware of men as the privileged class — sometimes regarded outright as the oppressors.

But this shift in awareness about gender issues faced by women has not been accompanied by a widespread understanding of gender issues faced by men. And that creates situations like an activist working towards a masculinity movement that talks mainly about how men are hurting women, or a trans man who has trouble with the idea of transitioning partly because he doesn’t want to be a white man — one of the oppressors.

How can awareness of oppressive dynamics make it difficult for men to own their masculinity? Does male privilege ever make life harder for men? When does male privilege blind us to oppression of masculinity? There’s some mainstream awareness of gender issues faced by women; is there any similar awareness of the problems of masculinity?

A good friend of mine first caught my attention by talking about gender. We encountered each other at a BDSM meetup, and when I mentioned that I’d been thinking about the boxes around masculine sexuality, he launched into a rant about oppressive sexual dynamics. He gave me references to complex sexuality blogs and intelligently used words like “heteronormative” and “patriarchy”. But a month or so after we started talking, I mentioned his interest in gender issues … and he gave me a puzzled look. “I’m not really into gender studies,” he said.

He talks about sex, gender and culture all the time — but he also specifically identifies as highly masculine, and felt that to be at odds with identifying as someone who questions masculinity. As Thomas Millar writes: “There’s a huge unstated assumption that to even address the question [of male sexuality], for men, is to mark one’s self as ‘other.’ … cis het men are brought up to fear that their masculinity could ever be called into question. By even opening up a dialog, I think some folks fear that they are conceding that their sexuality is not uncontroversial.”

Men currently experience this problem in a way that women do not. In other words, women don’t risk being seen as unfeminine as easily as men risk being seen as unmasculine; nor do we have quite the same fears about it. In 2008, a group of researchers published a paper called “Precarious Manhood”. Their concluding statement: “Our findings suggest that real men experience their gender as a tenuous status that they may at any time lose and about which they readily experience anxiety and threat.” Earlier in the paper, they wrote that — although “our focus on manhood does not deny the importance of women’s gender-related struggles” — “Women who do not live up to cultural standards of femininity may be punished, rejected, or viewed as ‘unladylike,’ but rarely will their very status as women be questioned in the same way as men’s status often is.”¹

When is it to a man’s disadvantage to publicly examine and question masculinity? Surely the mere act of questioning and examining gender does not make a man less masculine; how can we work against the perception that it does?

At the same time, though, this isn’t a “with us or against us” situation: men who don’t choose to identify as non-normative also don’t tend to join the “opposition”. By “opposition” I mean folks like “Men’s Rights Activists” (on the Internet we call them MRAs). MRAs — at least according to my stereotype of them — are conscious of social and legal disadvantages suffered by men, such as the fact that men are at a severe disadvantage in child custody cases; at the same time, they’re blind to male privilege. It’s a deadly combination. My personal favorite MRA quotation ever is, “White men are the most discriminated-against group in the country.”² Mercifully, MRAs are a fringe group, but they make a big impression.

My “not into gender studies” friend once told me that although he frequently deconstructs problems of masculinity in the privacy of his own mind, he doesn’t like to publicly have those conversations because he doesn’t want to sound like an MRA. He said, “A lot of the time, men who want to think seriously about masculinity won’t talk about it aloud because we really don’t want to be that,” emphasizing “that” with loathing. He later added, “It’s very tricky to discuss masculinity yet avoid simply devolving into male entitlement. That’s the crux of the problem with the ‘Men’s Movement’ assholes — none of them are addressing the underlying problems of masculinity. They’re just whining about not receiving the privileges their cultural conditioning tells them to expect.”

How do the current “men’s rights movements” discourage men who might, in a different climate, be very interested in discussing masculinity? Assuming men can reclaim the “pro-masculinity movement” from MRAs, do any men feel motivated to do so? Can men occupy the middle ground between MRAs and LGBTQ, feminist, or other leftist discussions of gender — that is, can men find space to discuss masculinity without being aligned with “one side or the other”?

All too frequently in radical sex/gender circles, the theme has been blame. Men in particular are excoriated for failing to adequately support feminism — or criticized for failing to join the fight against oppressive sex and gender norms — but few ideas are offered for how men can be supportive and non-oppressive while remaining overtly masculine, especially if their sexuality is normative (e.g., straight/dominant/big-dicked).

There are fragments: some insight might be drawn from the ways in which many BDSM communities create non-oppressive frameworks within which we have our deliciously oppressive sex. With practice, one can get shockingly good at preserving a heavy dominant/submissive dynamic that still allows both partners to talk about their other needs. Surely that understanding of sexual roles vs. other needs could be adapted to the service of gender identity. Yet so many BDSMers still fall prey to the same old gendered preconceptions.

Don’t get me wrong: of course anyone would deserve plenty of blame if they refused to let go of their entitlement, or chose not to examine the ways their behavior might support an oppressive system. But I think men exist who are willing to do those things, yet feel blocked from relevant discussions because participating creates anxiety about their sexual or gender identity. It strikes me as unreasonable to attack them for that. Choosing to present one’s sexuality and/or gender identity in a normative way is not in itself a sin. It’s not fair to expect people to fit themselves into a box that doesn’t suit them — not even for The All-Important Cause of better understanding sex and gender.

Where can we find ideas for how men can be both supportive and non-oppressive, and overtly masculine? How can we make it to normative men’s advantage to analyze masculine norms? What does it look like to be masculine, but liberated from the strictures of stereotypical masculinity? How can we contribute to a Men’s Movement that encompasses all three bases — being perceived as masculine, acknowledging male privilege, and deconstructing the problems of masculinity?

1. Vandello et al. “Precarious Manhood.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 95, No. 6, 1325 - 1339. 2008. (back)
2. Kuster, Elizabeth. Exorcising Your Ex. Fireside, 1996. (I know, it’s hardly the most official of references — but isn’t it a great quotation?) (back)

This is the first of three guest posts, reprinted with the kind permission of Clarisse Thorn. This post originally appeared here on Clarisse’s blog. Once they’ve been posted, all three posts will be accessible at this link.

Due to irregular internet access while she’s in Africa, Clarisse may be slow responding to comments.

* * *

Over the summer, I wrote a 3500-word piece about masculinity. It touched on some themes I’ve messed around with before, most notably in my reviews of the Sex+++ documentaries “Private Dicks: Men Exposed” and “Boy I Am.” I fondly hoped that I might be able to do something “real” with it, but I’ve gotten rather immersed in my work here in Africa — and I’ve been having some trouble keeping up with America, due to irregular Internet access. Today, I managed to catch up with some of my blogroll and saw that Audacia Ray recently posted some thoughts about masculinity, including excellent links to various new frontiers in the masculinity conversation. Looks like the topic is really heating up — finally! I’ve been obsessing about it off and on for years, and it’s exciting to think that people might finally talk to me about it.

So, rather than letting my masculinity piece languish under a rug — since I’ll probably never be able to do anything official with it before the conversation moves on, anyway — I’m just going to serialize it here. (I’d post the whole thing at once, but I don’t want to inflict 3500 words on everyone’s blog reader!)

Questions I Want To Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 1: Who Cares?

Why do I care about masculinity?

I’m rather perverted, but not enormously queer. I present as femme, and — although I’ve been known to tease my sensitive (frequently long-haired) lovers for being “unmasculine” — I fall in love with men. At heart, I love knowing that I’m fucking a man.

However, because I’m cis and straight, I feel profoundly at a loss when trying to articulate problems of (for lack of a better phrase) “Men’s Empowerment”. The issues don’t feel “native” to me; I’ve intersected with these questions mainly through the lens of lovers and friends. Watching their struggle is demoralizing, but trying to imagine how I can give them feedback is more demoralizing.

A male friend once wrote to me, “I think you personally find expressions of masculinity hot, but you also have no patience with sexism. You’ve caught on that it’s tricky for men to figure out how to deliver both of these things you need, that you don’t have a lot of good direction to give to fellas about it, and that neither does anyone else.”

So:

How men can be supportive and non-oppressive while remaining overtly masculine?

On top of my limited perspective, there’s been an echoing lack of discourse — that is, very little mainstream acknowledgement of the problems of masculinity. The primary factor in that silence is that normative cis men themselves tend to be flatly unwilling to discuss gender/sex issues. Often, their first objection is that the discussion is neither important nor relevant. This is true even within subcultures centered around sexual analysis, like the BDSM world — I once met a cis male BDSMer who said, “Why bother talking about male sexuality? It’s the norm. Fish don’t have a word for water.”

But if masculine sexuality is water and we’re fish, why doesn’t that motivate us to examine it more — not less?

Don’t get me wrong: I agree that America’s sexual conceptions are centered around stereotypical male sexuality, and I agree that this is damaging and problematic. Believe me, I’m furious that it took me many years to reconceive “actual” sex around acts other than good ole penis-in-vagina penetration! But if American stereotypes and ideas of sexuality are male-centered, then surely that makes it more useful for us to be thinking about male sexuality — not less.

And those male-centered ideas of sexuality aren’t centered around all men — just stereotypical men. LGBTQ men are obvious examples whose sexuality falls outside the norm; fortunately for them, they’ve created some spaces to discuss that. But there are lots of other non-normative guys who aren’t gay or queer, yet feel very similar sexual alienation — and because there’s so little discourse about masculinity outside LGBTQ circles, they usually just don’t talk about it.

What does it mean to be a cis het man whose sexuality isn’t normative? Which straight cis guys don’t fit — and hence, feel alienated from — our current overarching sexual stereotypes?

Guys who identify as straight BDSM submissives are one fabulous example of non-normative men who are frequently alienated from mainstream masculine sexuality, but who often don’t have a forum. Men with small penises are a second. There are lots of others. In the words of sex blogger and essayist Thomas Millar: “The common understanding of male sexuality is a stereotype, an ultra-narrow group of desires and activities oriented around PIV [penis-in-vagina], anal intercourse and blowjobs; oriented around cissexual women partners having certain very narrow groups of physical characteristics.”

Still, that doesn’t mean that straight, dominant, big-dicked dudes who love boning thin chicks feel totally okay about the current state of affairs. It just means they tend to have less immediate motivation to question it. They also have less of an eye for spotting gender oppression, because — though they’ve got their own boxes hemming them in — they’re still more privileged than the rest of us, and the nature of privilege is to blind the privileged class to its existence.

A male submissive once told me, “Lots of heteronormative men know something is wrong with the way we think about sex and gender. I can see them struggling with it when we talk. They can’t put their finger on it; they have a hard time engaging it. But I engage it all the time; I have to, because my sexuality opposes it.”

When is it to a man’s advantage to examine and question masculinity and stereotypes of male sexuality? Which men are motivated to do so?

It’s tempting to assert that men whose desires fit neatly (or at least mostly) within the stereotype have it made — after all, their sexuality works within the norm so many of us struggle to escape. But I’ve had this assumption corrected several times, usually by smart “stereotypical” men themselves. At one point, while developing a sexuality workshop, I sent the outline to a bunch of friends. The original draft contained this paragraph: “Our sexual scripts favor a certain stereotype of men and male sexual pleasure, which makes it hard for women to figure out what we really want and what we really enjoy, and also makes it harder for non-stereotypical men to figure that out.” One friend sent that paragraph back, having quietly appended: “… as well as for stereotypical men to discover or explore new desires beyond the stereotypical script.”

When we discuss the limitations around sexuality from a non-normative perspective, how do we exclude normative people who might develop themselves in new directions if they had the chance? What do normative men stand to gain by thinking outside the box about masculinity and sexuality?

Unless you live in Minnesota or are really, really plugged in to state-level politics, you probably don’t know who Margaret Anderson Kelliher is. So allow me to introduce her. She’s the current Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, the second and longest-serving woman to hold the position. She’s also one of the DFL candidates seeking to replace incumbent Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2010. She’s considered one of the front-runners for the DFL nomination, along with a handful of others, like former Sen. Mark Dayton, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak (who has not officially announced, but who is widely expected to run), and former Minnesota House Minority Leader Matt Entenza. If nominated, she’d be the first woman to head a major-party gubernatorial ticket in the state’s history.

Oh, and she’s also a gossipy teenage girl.

That assessment of Speaker Anderson Kelliher comes from progressive Minnesota blogger Brian Fallidin. Fallidin has not endorsed a candidate for governor yet, but he’s been pretty supportive of Entenza thus far, which is a feeling that I, ahem, do not really share.

But that’s fine. Fallidin is allowed to like Entenza, just as I’m allowed to dislike him. I don’t know, ultimately, who he plans to vote for (I’m leaning toward Rybak myself, but am still persuadable). And he’s allowed to dislike Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a candidate who definitely has her flaws (as does, to be honest, every DFLer running).

But Fallidin crossed the line in his latest post criticizing Anderson Kelliher. Part of the post was about minor, inside-baseball type stuff (Anderson Kelliher claiming a supporter who apparently had previously indicated support for Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, a second-tier candidate), the sort of vaguely embarrassing mistake that hits every campaign. That’s not the part I mind. No, the part I mind is this:

It seems that Margaret Anderson Kelliher is doing a MAK-Attack on pretty much everyone these days. Her gossip girl comment originally reported in the City Pages where she said “You’re going to have a lot of fun doing a fact-check on what he says….” about Matt Entenza reminds me of that one girl we all hated in high-school–you know the one that desperately wanted you to like them, and when you didn’t they’d say nasty things behind your back?

Okay, quickly disposing of the substance of Fallidin’s complaint: Matt Entenza has a history of lying. It’s the reason I’ve vowed not to support him. Anderson Kelliher is allowed to raise character issues, especially as they relate to a candidate’s public conduct (and spying on your party’s endorsed gubernatorial candidate — while you’re running for Attorney General — is public conduct). Just as Entenza is allowed to raise the fact that Pawlenty drank the DFL’s milkshake last legislative session. These are legitimate issues for voters to discuss, and frankly, issues that should be brought up.

So it’s an absurd complaint. But more absurd is the way Fallidin frames his complaint. Here, reread the paragraph again, this time, with some emphasis added to the relative parts:

It seems that Margaret Anderson Kelliher is doing a MAK-Attack on pretty much everyone these days. Her gossip girl comment originally reported in the City Pages where she said “You’re going to have a lot of fun doing a fact-check on what he says….” about Matt Entenza reminds me of that one girl we all hated in high-school–you know the one that desperately wanted you to like them, and when you didn’t they’d say nasty things behind your back?

Now, Brian has told me via email that he didn’t intend to write anything sexist. And maybe he didn’t.

But damn, that’s pretty sexist.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with decrying Anderson Kelliher for brining up character if, for some reason, you don’t think character should be brought up in a campaign. But when you choose to focus on “gossip,” twice in two sentences, and when you compare the highest DFL officeholder in state government to “that one girl we all hated in high-school–you know the one that desperately wanted you to like them,” you’re not making a comment on Anderson Kelliher’s behavior. You’re making a comment on her gender.

Because women gossip — amirite, fellas? They just love to pick-pick-pick at people in the out crowd, not like men who get all brawny and manly and stuff. So girly, that gossip. Except, of course, that men gossip more than women, and also, nobody more fits the idea of a gossip than the guy who hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on Mike Hatch. But that, of course, wasn’t “gossipy,” because Entenza’s a dude.

But we’re not dealing with reality when we compare the Speaker of the Minnesota House to a high school sophomore. We’re dealing with stereotypes. And stereotypes are all about putting people in their place. Anderson Kelliher couldn’t be attacking Entenza for lying because she views him as a liar.¹ She must be doing it because that’s what girls do. And she’s a girl. A girly, girly girl.

I’m sorry, whether Fallidin intended the post as sexist or not, it was sexist. It belittled Anderson Kelliher and belittled women generally. I don’t care if you support Margaret Anderson Kelliher for Governor or not — as I said earlier, I’m not leaning toward her at the moment. But one should make that case based on her record as speaker and as a state representative, her positions on issues related to the state, and on her perceived ability to win the governor’s mansion for the DFL for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.

But Anderson Kelliher’s gender is not a reason to malign her, subtly or overtly. And while I dearly hope this is the last time I have to write a post like this, I know all to well that it will not be. If the 2008 primary fight between now-President Obama and now-Secretary of State Clinton taught us nothing else, it is that many progressives, sadly, are as willing to traffic in hackneyed, sorry stereotypes as the staunchest teabagger — if it helps their candidate win.

1. As further proof that women are not the only ones who gossip, let me just say that several little birdies have told me that there is no love lost between Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Matt Entenza, and that the two are bitter enemies going back to before the time when Entenza was Minority Leader and Anderson Kelliher was Assistant Minority Leader. But you didn’t hear that from me. (back)

From The Huffington Post:

An amendment that would prevent the government from working with contractors who denied victims of assault the right to bring their case to court is in danger of being watered down or stripped entirely from a larger defense appropriations bill.

Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.[...]

“The defense contractors have been storming his office,” said a source with knowledge of the situation. “Inouye either will get the amendment taken out altogether, or water it down significantly. If they water it down, they will take out the Title VII claims. This means that in discrimination cases, they will still force you into a secret forced arbitration on KBR’s (or other contractors’) own terms — with your chances of prevailing practically zero. The House seems to be very supportive of the original Franken amendment and all in line, but their hands are tied since it originated in the Senate. And since Inouye runs the show on this bill, he can easily take it out to get Republicans and the defense contractors off his back, which looks increasingly likely.”

This is possible because the bill is now in conference committee, where the House and Senate versions of the bill are merged into a single bill.

Kos has lots of contact info for Inouye, and more information (including the claim that various congressional staffers have anonymously accused Inouye of sexual harassment and in one case rape).

One of the more bizarre sub-plots from the bizarre story that is the faked balloon voyage of Falcon Heene is the YouTube video in which Falcon and his brothers claimed to be “not pussified.”

It’s a lovely video about how three young boys aren’t being “pussified,” and also, how they hate gay people. Hard to see how a family where dad has his children opine about how much they don’t want to be girls could go wrong, and so surprising that there have been, at the very least, allegations of domestic abuse against Richard Heene, the boys’ father.

Now obviously, this video is all about hating on the soi disant “feminizing” of American men, but it was the title of it — “Not Pussified” — that caught my eye. Because that links Heene back to one of the great moments in blog history.

Those of you who are newer denizens of the blogosphere may not be familiar with what is perhaps the ur-Men’s Rights screed, Kim duToit’s “The Pussification of the Western Male.” It is glorious in its awfulness, and I still hold to my initial response that it is the worst thing I have ever read, an opinion shared by many.

I don’t know that Heene read du Toit’s screed, but it seems pretty likely. At the very least, he picked up the word pussified from one du Toit’s readers, and then cheerfully passed it along to his sons. And that says something — for du Toit’s ideals are, to be blunt, awful.

The essay really should be read by anyone seeking to understand the mind of someone like Richard Heene, although I caution that it should not be read without a vomit bag by one’s side. It can’t be summarized, but here are a few choice passages:

We have become a nation of women.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time when men put their signatures to a document, knowing full well that this single act would result in their execution if captured, and in the forfeiture of their property to the State. Their wives and children would be turned out by the soldiers, and their farms and businesses most probably given to someone who didn’t sign the document.

[Several other examples of manly manliness deleted]

There was even a time when a President of the United States threatened to punch a man in the face and kick him in the balls, because the man had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s daughter’s singing.

We’re not like that anymore.

Quick interjection — du Toit is from South Africa. Yes, he now lives in America; still, I can’t help reading this and thinking, “who are you calling ‘we?’”

Now, little boys in grade school are suspended for playing cowboys and Indians, cops and crooks, and all the other familiar variations of “good guy vs. bad guy” that helped them learn, at an early age, what it was like to have decent men hunt you down, because you were a lawbreaker.

Now, men are taught that violence is bad—that when a thief breaks into your house, or threatens you in the street, that the proper way to deal with this is to “give him what he wants”, instead of taking a horsewhip to the rascal or shooting him dead where he stands.

[Several paragraphs of "proof" that modern men are weaklings deleted]

And finally, our President, who happens to have been a qualified fighter pilot, lands on an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like “swaggering”, “macho” and the favorite epithet of Euro girly-men, “cowboy”. Of course he was bound to get that reaction—and most especially from the Press in Europe, because the process of male pussification Over There is almost complete.

How did we get to this?

Remember, this was back in 2003, when our President was at his apex of manliness. Still, it says something that du Toit was swooning at the Mission Accomplished landing, doesn’t it?

In the first instance, what we have to understand is that America is first and foremost, a culture dominated by one figure: Mother. It wasn’t always so: there was a time when it was Father who ruled the home, worked at his job, and voted.

But in the twentieth century, women became more and more involved in the body politic, and in industry, and in the media—and mostly, this has not been a good thing. When women got the vote, it was inevitable that government was going to become more powerful, more intrusive, and more “protective” (ie. more coddling), because women are hard-wired to treasure security more than uncertainty and danger. It was therefore inevitable that their feminine influence on politics was going to emphasize (lowercase “s”) social security.

Yes, ladies — it’s your fault! Your fault that men no longer fight duels! Your fault that we no longer engage in fisticuffs, or drink until our livers explode! Blast you, and your belief that maybe it’s okay if drunken bar fights are not a daily occurrence in one’s life!

Kim du Toit whines for several more paragraphs about how television commercials show men as big doofuses, and therefore women are castrating bitches who deserve to be lonely (no, seriously: “What this guy is going to do is smile ruefully, finish his cereal, and then go and fuck his secretary, who doesn’t try to cut his balls off on a daily basis. Then, when the affair is discovered, people are going to rally around the castrating bitch called his wife, and call him all sorts of names. He’ll lose custody of his kids, and they will be brought up by our ultimate modern-day figure of sympathy: The Single Mom. You know what? Some women deserve to be single moms.”) and ranting about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (”A bunch of homosexuals trying to “improve” ordinary men into something “better” [ie. more acceptable to women]: changing the guy’s clothes, his home decor, his music—for fuck’s sake, what kind of girly-man would allow these simpering butt-bandits to change his life around?”) and embracing misandry (”Yes, the men are, by and large, slobs. Big fucking deal. Last time I looked, that’s normal. Men are slobs, and that only changes when women try to civilize them by marriage. That’s the natural order of things.”) Oh, and also supporting sports like dog- and cock-fighting. And claiming that George W. Bush is a real man who doesn’t have to prove it. And making racist statements. And then comes perhaps the most asinine four paragraphs ever written in the English language.

Speaking of rap music, do you want to know why more White boys buy that crap than Black boys do? You know why rape is such a problem on college campuses? Why binge drinking is a problem among college freshmen?

It’s a reaction: a reaction against being pussified. And I understand it, completely. Young males are aggressive, they do fight amongst themselves, they are destructive, and all this does happen for a purpose.

Because only the strong men propagate.

And women know it. You want to know why I know this to be true? Because powerful men still attract women. Women, even liberal women, swooned over George Bush in a naval aviator’s uniform. Donald Trump still gets access to some of the most beautiful pussy available, despite looking like a medieval gargoyle. Donald Rumsfeld, if he wanted to, could fuck 90% of all women over 50 if he wanted to, and a goodly portion of younger ones too.

This is what Kim du Toit called for: the manliness of Donald Rumsfeld, and the condoning of rape — for rape is understandable, given how mean women are. And only the strong propagate — those strong enough to take by force what is not given.

That is what manhood is to men like this. Compare with the “pussification” seen by sneering troglodytes like Heene and du Toit: men taking responsibility for themselves. Choosing to think before acting, talk before fighting. Picking up the floor, maybe washing the dishes. Cleaning ourselves. Not putting our children heedlessly into harm’s way. Behaving, in short, like civilized human beings are supposed to.

It does not surprise me that a man who would raise his sons to declare that they weren’t going to be pussified would be the same kind of man who would beat his wife. Would be the same kind of man who would use his children to get ahead. Would be the same kind of man who would commit several felonies, and lie to the police, in a vain effort to get on television. It doesn’t surprise me at all, because the kind of man du Toit praised, and the kind of man Heene claimed to be, is at heart a narcissist, far more interested in himself than anyone else in the world, far more willing to risk himself and his family than to change course and admit fault. If the pussification of the Western male means fewer men like Heene and du Toit, then all I can say is that we can’t get pussified fast enough.

This is mainly a post addressing New Zealand domestic politics, but I think some of the points I make have a wider relevance. In 1972, New Zealanders gave up their right to sue for personal injury in exchange for a national system of accident compensation. This system has provided counselling for survivors of sexual violence.

**********

When writing about my analysis of sexual violence and prisons, one of the points I keep coming back to is how centred it is on the perpertrator. It’s not a new or original thought to point out that everything about the way a criminal law system deals with sexual violence is entirely focused on ‘the offender’. The follow-on from this is our society’s way of dealing with sexual violence revolves around the court system.

A few year ago, I wrote about a nursing student, who was raped by a fellow student, after a typical, ridiculous, defence, the rapist got off. She had to drop out of school, because the school wouldn’t do anything to ensure she wouldn’t have to see her rapist regularly. I think it’s important to understand how structural the problems within our justice system are. These systems are not designed to support survivors of sexual abuse, and therefore they will always fail at that task.

But…

But, in New Zealand, we do have a system that is set up to meet, to revolve around, what survivors of sexual violence need. There are many things it cannot provide - ACC will not help student find a way to continue to study without seeing her rapist. But it can provide counselling and income support.

I don’t have any personal experience, or depth of knowledge, of ACCs sensitive claims system. I am sure, as it currently operates, it has flaws, and some people fail to get the help that they need. But, at the moment, it can be centred around what a survivor needs, based on her relationship with her counsellor (or his).

If these changes go through, it will be much harder, maybe impossible for ACC to be survivor-centre. Currently, a survivor can have up to four sessions of counselling to disclose their abuse, but the changes will cut this down to one session (or maybe two, Peter Jensen, the person in charge of the proposal, was unclear on nine to noon).

At the moment a survivor can access up to 50 sessions with a counsellor before they have to obtain a psychological assessment. The changes will require psychological assessments much earlier in the process, and that process will be directed much more by clinicians. In order to get funded counselling, a survivor of sexual abuse will require a DSM IV diagnosis.

This is not a survivor-centred approach to sexual abuse; it is a clinician-centred approach.

ACC has already begun tightening the screws. And in doing so it has turned funded counselling into another area where a survivor has to prove her (or his) experience – maybe not beyond reasonable doubt, but close.

Dr Kim McGregor explained how ACC restricts access to counselling on an interview on 9 to Noon. ACC declined cover for a young boy who had been sexually abused as the behaviour described: mood swings, tearfulness, and sitting alone sucking his thumb, did not necessarily have a clinical link with sexual abuse. They said these behaviours could just as well have been caused by settling into school and a new environment rather than the sexual abuse events.

Imagine the difficulty of someone who has survived sexual abuse will have in proving that the difficulties she (or he) is experiencing are directly and only a result of the abuse. Those who had what insurance companies call ‘pre-existing conditions’, could find support denied – if they had previously been depressed, how can they know that depression after the sexual abuse is a result of that abuse? (not a question that could be asked by anyone who cared about the experiences of survivors of sexual abuse, but a question that is being asked by ACC). While those who do not seek help for a long time, will have to prove the effects the abuse has had on them, and the more complex their survival strategies in the intervening time, the harder it will be for them to access the support they need.

The parallels between the perfect victim of the court system and the perfect survivor of ACC are strong. In both cases the onus of proof falls on those have been abused to prove either that there was abuse, or that that abuse affected them. Just as previous sexual history is used against survivors in the court system, ACC can use previous mental health history against survivors.

My point is not just that the changes to ACC need to be fought (although they do – Monday is a national day of action – come along), but to show how important, and how fragile, a survivor centred approach to sexual violence there is.

As well as pushing against these threats to survivor support, I want us to push further. I want us to imagine what a response to sexual violence which prioritised survivors look like.

Debbie Schlussel is best known for her rabid hatred of anything that can even tangentially be connected to Islam, up to and including falafel. So it’s nice to see her branching out into some good old-fashioned hatred of other things.

What has made Debbie angry? Well, it seems Disney’s messing with a character. You’d think it would be their positive portrayal of Aladdin as essentially a surfer dude that would have Debbie upset, but no — it’s far worse.

Either Disney is trying to appease “modest” Muslims or they’ve gone the way of the rest of Hollywood and are trying to make their feminine characters more masculine.

Quelle horreur! Disney’s making their feminine characters more “masculine!” Snow White has taken up the chewing tobbaccy! Ariel is arm-wrestling Aurora! Disney princesses are acting like three-dimensional characters with thoughts and desires of their own!

But worst of all…the most nefarious act…the unkindest cut…is what they’ve done to Tinker Bell!

Yes, that’s right! They’ve given Tinker Bell a different outfit to wear!

Now, you may look at that picture and say, “Wait — uh, isn’t Tinker Bell still pretty much dressed like, say, Tinker Bell might be if it was cold out? And mightn’t that be because in the new movie, it’s supposed to be fall?” Well, sure, those would be good points if you weren’t looking for proof that Hollywood is secretly trying to turn our children into the gay. But Debbie’s way ahead of you.

Yes, Disney claims that it’s new Tinker Bell release, “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” out on DVD on October 27th takes place in the fall when weather is cooler, but the weather has never affected Tinker Bell couture before. It’s a cartoon character, not a weather dependent human.

Yeah! She’s a cartoon character! Therefore, there’s no reason to try to make any attempt at a realistic portrayal of her. After all, if girls see that even fairies can get cold when it’s cold out, they might start questioning whether they too should put on tights with their skirt, maybe switch to boots when it’s slushy out, or put on a hat when the wind’s blowing. And it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump until they’re moving to Taxachusetts and marrying their girlfriends. Which the Muslims are, evidently, in favor of. Or something.

Now, you might be sitting there at your computer, banging your head against the keyboard, saying, “Jeff, I mean, not only is Tinker Bell not dressed like a linebacker, she isn’t even dressed in such a way that challenges conventional beauty norms! Far from being dressed like a lumberjack, she’s dressed…well, actually, still pretty scantily!” Well, sure, but Debbie thinks she’s not dressed scantily enough, and this will turn your daughter gay.

There’s nothing wrong with rebranding something to keep up with the times, but turning a charming, cute girly character into some masculine, butch action star is stupid. Unless your audience is strictly WNBA. And that’s called mass-market suicide.

See? Debbie doesn’t want your daughters becoming butch or masculine, and for that reason, we need to make sure that Tinker Bell is displayed in as sexy a way as possible, so that girls can see how hot she is. Because…that will keep girls from becoming fans of the WNBA, like those people.

If you’re a parent who thinks the new covered up version is a welcome change in a sexualized world, think again. Tinker Bell has been wearing a skimpy dress for decades (watch the slide show). That’s what nymphs who fly around with magic wands do.

Um…Debbie? Yeah…there aren’t actually nymphs. They’re mythical creatures. Also, even if nymphs did exist, that wouldn’t mean much, as Tinker Bell is a faerie. They are also mythical. Disney is telling a story about a character that they have nearly as much ownership of as J.M. Barrie; they can kinda, sorta depict her however they want to.

Oh, and I did view the slide show, and guess what? Even Disney worked through a number of different designs before settling on the Tinker Bell we know today. Not all were dressed in skimpy outfits, some were depicted as “tomboyish,” some as akin to the Blue Fairy, some almost alien. Not to mention that Disney was adapting her from Barrie’s characterization, in which she was portrayed as a tinker, hence the name. Funny, when thinking of traditionally “feminine” jobs, tinsmith is not the job that comes first to mind.

I can’t imagine Disney redoing the cast of “The Lion King” and dressing them for the North Pole.

You can’t? I can, if they were really going to do a “Lion King Meets Santa” Christmas special. Of course, they’d never do that, because they’re in the pocket of Big Islam.

This isn’t about putting your girls in a less sexually-saturated world. It’s about putting them in a more emasculated one, where the men are girls and the Tinker Bells are men.

And that’s never a good thing. As I always say, matriarchical societies die. They simply don’t have staying power. Butch Disney characters for girls is not a positive development.

Yes, Tinker Bell is a man, because she wears leggings. And men are totally women, because…well, we never got to that, but I’m sure it’s probably because now we can’t masturbate to our children’s videos anymore. Alas.

The fact is that Tinker Bell is a female character, and would be if she was wearing hockey gear. She would be if she cut her hair in a buzz cut. She would be if she took up a job as a truck driver. She would be if she were gay. None of those things affect her gender. They only affect our picture of what gender roles are supposed to be.

Well, to hell with gender roles, if they tell women that they can’t wear warm clothes when it’s cold out. To hell with gender roles if they tell women they can’t be adventurous, can’t be athletic, can’t be “tomboys,” because that will make them less female. To hell with gender roles if they say that men must always break the paths, and suffer in silence, because it’s not a man’s job to feel. To hell with gender roles if it says anyone has to behave or dress or think or feel a certain way to simply be the person they are.

Ironically, Debbie can’t help but throw anti-Muslim barbs into even this misogynist post. Ironic, because in truth, Debbie believes exactly what the most hardened adherent to Shari’a Law believes — that men and women are fundamentally different, and that straying outside the defined gender roles for either is something that must be proscribed. It makes me wonder why she fights so hard against those with whom she so clearly agrees.

(Via S,N!)

I take back any bad thing I’ve ever said about Sen. Al Franken, DFL-Minn.

Why do I do this? Because in his brief tenure in office, Franken has shown himself to be exactly the kind of senator we need more of — bright, driven, and possessed of a sense of justice. He’s not getting things done by grandstanding or being a comedian; he’s getting things done by writing good legislation and getting it passed.

Take the case of Jamie Leigh Jones. Please.

You probably remember the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, the woman who was raped while working for KBR in Iraq. After reporting the rape, KBR responded to this grievous act by imprisoning her in a shipping container, so that she couldn’t tell anyone. When she finally convinced a guard to give her a cell phone, she managed to get a call to her dad in Texas, who worked with Rep. Ted Poe, R-Tex., to get her home. KBR responded to the actions of its employees by banning cell-phones.

Jones was unable to prosecute her assailants, so she attempted instead to sue KBR. But because her contract provided for arbitration for any workplace disputes, she was unable to; her only route for compensation was arbitration, a process that is a) better used for minor contract disputes, as opposed to cases of rape and false imprisonment, and b) decidedly tilted in favor of employers. She’s made some headway — the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that her case should be handled outside of arbitration — but that’s headway for her, and it’s only come after four years of legal fighting. Any woman — or man — who lives outside the 5th circuit who is similarly treated will have to start from scratch.

On Monday, Franken worked to extend those protections, when he successfully attached an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would defund contractors “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”

Franken’s speech on the floor was spot on:

Theres a lot of horrible in there, but the nut graf (which I ganked from ThinkProgress) is as follows:

The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.

It would be nice to think that this sensible amendment was simply passed on a voice vote, all members of the Senate opposing the idea that someone who was raped and imprisoned would be prevented from seeking justice. Alas, that was not the case; the amendment passed 68-30, with all Democrats (save Robert Byrd and Arlen Specter, who did not vote) and 10 Republicans voting in favor, and 30 Republicans — 75 percent of the caucus — opposed.

The list of pro-rape Republican senators is as follows: Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Bond (R-MO), Brownback (R-KS), Bunning (R-KY), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Gregg (R-NH), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Kyl (R-AZ), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Vitter (R-LA), Wicker (R-MS).

Obviously, the amendment still has to go through conference committee, but one suspects its future is bright; certainly, the House is unlikely to water this down. And for most people, that’s a good thing; justice demands that those who are egregiously wronged are able to sue for redress. Yes, most Senate Republicans may view the idea of allowing lawsuits to be quaint, especially when compared to corporate profits. But most humans recognize what happened to Jamie Leigh Jones to be an unconscionable crime, and there is nothing quaint about making sure it never happens again.

A few choice quotes

What he was accused of is not only considered rape because she was underage, and not only because he gave her drugs and alcohol to set it up, but also because he did it while she was saying no and telling him to stop.

There’s nothing ambiguous about that.

That is an account of a rape.

And

This plea bargain was set up by the family and their attorneys because they saw no other way to protect this girl from a trial that would take away her anonymity and subject her to an endless media frenzy. They did not set up that plea bargain because they had any doubts about being able to prove her original charges. They set up the plea bargain because they saw a system that could not adequately protect this child, so they felt that they had no other choice but to compromise and settle for something less than justice.

In the way he always does, Jay lays things out incredibly clearly, and absolutely demolishes every single objection from Polanski’s supporters.

Basically, what it comes down to is that Jay Smooth is a badass and Roman Polanski is a jackass.

Oh, sorry, I meant rapist.

Please do not comment unless you accept the basic dignity, equality, and inherent worth of all people

1. If you believe this, at best it would make the victim’s mother an accessory. However, you’d have to believe the victim’s mother intentionally pimped her daughter out for a casting couch rendezvous, then took her daughter to the police to press rape charges within a few days — which seems like more than a stretch to me. None of this, incidentally, changes the fact that Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old; no matter how crappy a parent is, you don’t get to rape their child. (back)
2. As Kira helpfully notes in comments at my site, it should be obvious to anyone that “too much force” is equal to “any force.” But it should also be obvious that rape is bad, and a lot of Polanski supporters seem unable to get that, so I think I’d best footnote this. (back)
3. I’m not arguing that women and men are in fact treated equally; they are not. But most Americans would agree with the statement, “Women and men should have equal rights.” The concept is generally accepted, at least in theory. (back)

As we noted the other night, Roman Polanski holds duel French and Polish citizenship, and both nations’ governments have been assiduously lobbying for his release, because evidently both governments believe that being famous allows you to rape kids. This has allowed leaders in both countries to join Hollywood in declaring that this is really just a case of American puritanism. Yes, we silly Americans, believing that forcibly raping a child is something that should be punished! Surely our European brethren are much more sophisticated, and understand that it’s okay to drug and rape a barely pubescent girl.

Except — funny thing — it turns out that far from finding Roman Polanski to be a charming guy who makes swell movies and just once kinda sorta raped a child, and then — funny story — only entered into a relationship with a fifteen-year-old for a while, the European public seems to view Polanski as a creepy pederast rapist who should probably face the music.

We start in Poland, home of Anne Applebaum’s husband. Do the Poles think Polanski should go free? Only about as much as they detest the polka:

One of these steps is an appeal letter to Hillary Clinton. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner are sending it jointly (Polanski holds dual citizenship – Polish and French). The main reason the authorities have now started to take a low-key approach is their electorate. An opinion poll published today shows that less than 25 percent of Poles would like to see Polanski escape another trial. “This is a very surprising result,” says Jan Stolarz, a sociologist with a polling organization.

He told ABC News that “in light of the near-hero status Polanski enjoys here, this is very telling. People no longer believe that achievement can buy you immunity and that all are equal before the law…This is very encouraging,” adds Stolarz.

Results of the opinion poll are reflected by many Web site comments. Most readers would like to see Polanski extradited to the U.S.

“I’m ashamed that my president and a few ministers are protecting a pedophile,” reads one. “Law is law and money cannot buy you justice. Polanski, Obama or Mr. Jones — in a lawful state all are equal.”

To many Poles, Polanski had been an iconic figure. Events from 30 years ago, his past, were just an ambiguous blur, certainly nothing that could overcast his greatness.

Today, there seems to be a change. With Polish public reaction so vocal and negative, with the past once again revealed, Polanski’s tarnished image may never recover in his homeland. Only a handful of politicians and fellow artists appear to be dedicated to saving the icon.

Huh! You don’t say! It seems that the folks in New Europe¹ don’t think it’s okay to excuse an artist for raping a child, just because he happens to be famous. But we all know how those Eastern Europeans are. So Soviet. So repressed. Why, they eat barszcz! And pirogies! Hardly a nation full of extra savoir-faire. So let’s turn to the nation that gave us the beguiling word coquette, la République française.

One would think that France would certainly have rallied around Polanski. This is, after all, the country that gave us Maurice Chevalier, best known for “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” Lock up a man simply because he got a bit forceful after experiencing le coup de foudre? Quelle horreur!

Now, let me preface this by noting that I have not been able to locate a scientific poll of French attitudes on Polanski. But the anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that far from seeing Polanski as the victim of a femme fatale and a repressed America, they feel that whatever the director’s œuvre, his actions seem pretty close to meurtre de sang-froid:

Marc Laffineur, the vice-president of the French assembly and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling center-right party, the UMP, took issue with the French culture and foreign minister’s remarks supporting Mr. Polanski, saying “the charge of raping a child 13 years old is not something trivial, whoever the suspect is.”

Within the Green party, Daniel Cohn-Bendit — a French deputy in the European parliament whose popularity is rising — also criticized Sarkozy administration officials for leaping too quickly to Mr. Polanski’s side despite the serious nature of his crime. On the extreme right, the father and daughter politicians Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen also attacked the ministers, saying they were supporting “a criminal pedophile in the name of the rights of the political-artistic class.”

Meanwhile, an international team of lawyers was fighting Tuesday to free Mr. Polanski from a Swiss jail, where he’s being held for possible extradition to the United States. The arrest last weekend of the 76-year-old filmmaker as he arrived at Zurich’s airport to attend a local film festival is quickly exposing deep fault lines between his supporters in the arts, entertainment and politics and his increasingly outspoken critics.

[...]

Marie-Louise Fort, a French lawmaker in the Assembly who has sponsored anti-incest legislation, said in an interview that she was shocked that Mr. Polanski was attracting support from the political and artistic elite. “I don’t believe that public opinion is spontaneously supporting Mr. Polanski at all,” she said. “I believe that there is a distinction between the mediagenic class of artists and ordinary citizens that have a vision that is more simple.”

The mood was even more hostile in blogs and e-mails to newspapers and news magazines. Of the 30,000 participants in an online poll by the French daily Le Figaro, more than 70 percent said Mr. Polanski, 76, should face justice. And in the magazine Le Point, more than 400 letter writers were almost universal in their disdain for Mr. Polanski.

That contempt was not only directed at Mr. Polanski, but at the French class of celebrities — nicknamed Les People — who are part of Mr. Polanski’s rarefied Parisian world. Letter writers to Le Point scorned Les People as the “crypto-intelligentsia of our country” who deliver “eloquent phrases that defy common sense.”

Mon dieu! It seems the oh-so-above-it-all French are, like people everywhere, properly horrified by the rape of a child. Far from being a sign of American prudery, the arrest of Polanski seems to most of France and most of Poland the way it seems to most of America: as the reasonable outcome of a thirty-odd year flight from justice.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. It always seemed to me to be absurd to believe that the French would see rape as a trifling matter. Still, as with the general left-right agreement in America, it’s heartening to see. And it’s a reminder of just how out on an island Polanski’s strongest supporters are.

1. Just wanted to see if I could get all y’all old-school blog readers to flash back to February 2003. (back)

The fallout from the arrest of Roman Polanski has been interesting and, in many ways, heartening. While there have been many posts defending Polanski — I touched on some yesterday, as did the redoubtable Kate Harding — most bloggers on the left and the right alike have condemned Polanski and praised the arrest. I know, one shouldn’t be surprised that there’s general consensus that someone who drugs and rapes a child, then flees jurisdiction to avoid punishment is someone who probably deserves to be arrested, but it’s still nice to see.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that everyone sees things this way. The film and artistic community, alas, seems to feel that raping a 13-year-old girl is okay if it happened a long time ago, and the perpetrator is famous. Even the liberal Huffington Post has been an epicenter of this activity, mainly because Arianna Huffington has a lot of famous friends who don’t seem to understand why it is that people would want a child rapist brought to justice. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy gives us the usual run-down:

Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.

He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.

Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.

We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it.

Interesting how Lévy sort of elides a few things, such as:

• The crime Polanski committed
• The fact that Polanski pled guilty to the crime
• The fact that Polanski is only beyond the statute of limitations because he’s successfully dodged extradition for 30-plus years
• The fact that the vast majority of Holocaust and Stalinism survivors aren’t rapists
• The fact that common criminals are often apprehended like common criminals

Lévy then helpfully provides a list of artists and filmmakers who you can safely avoid doing business with, including Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Pascal Bruckner, Neil Jordan, Isabelle Adjani, Arielle Dombasle, Isabelle Huppert, William Shawcross, Yamina Benguigui, Mike Nichols, Danièle Thompson, Diane von Furstenberg, Claude Lanzmann, and Paul Auster.

Ultimately, I think the phrase “common terrorist” at the start of Lévy’s screed gets to the heart of the difference of opinion between the European view of this matter and the American one. There is much to like about Europe, but there is no question that culturally, there is a more rigidly defined hierarchy of classes. Polanski is part of the “right kind of people,” and therefore his sins can be forgiven, ignored, swept under the rug.

American culture is not so willing to ignore criminal conduct. Note: I didn’t say totally unwilling. Being rich and powerful can get you out of punishment, whether you’re O.J. Simpson or Ted Kennedy or Dick Cheney. But there is at the very least the notion that this is a bad thing, that justice should, in theory, treat all criminals the same. That a rich, powerful child rapist is no better than a poor child rapist, and that each should face equal punishment.

Reading Lévy’s post and others like it, I don’t get the sense that Polanski defenders believe this. I think they feel that Roman is a famous guy who’s made great art, and all he did was have a little sex with an underage girl, so hey, why not just forget it? Why arrest him as if he was a criminal, when he’s really a swell guy?

Well, because he is a criminal. A confessed one, one who refused to serve his sentence. One who has been evading justice for three decades.

Now, justice may take the form of Polanski having the charges dropped; there is at least some evidence that there were ex parte communications between the prosecutor and the Judge in the case. I’m not an attorney and don’t know how California courts would remedy that, but I do know that they can’t remedy that so long as Polanski refuses to stand up and face the court. By his stubborn refusal to come back and deal with legal matters through legal channels, Polanski acted as a common criminal. And criminals get arrested; I’m sorry, M. Lévy, but they do.

Finally, I find amusing the fact that Polanski is probably in jail today specifically because of the actions of his attorneys:

Roman Polanski’s attorneys may have helped provoke his arrest by complaining to an appellate court this summer that Los Angeles prosecutors had never made any real effort to arrest the filmmaker in his three decades as a fugitive, two sources familiar with the case told The Times.

The accusation that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office was not serious about extraditing Polanski was a small part of two July court filings by the director’s attorneys. But it caught the attention of prosecutors and led to his capture in Switzerland on Saturday, the sources said.

Polanski, 76, was taken into custody at the airport in Zurich, where he was scheduled to headline the city’s film festival. Details of his appearance were widely available on the Internet. Variety also reported his planned attendance in August, the month after Polanski’s attorneys had filed two separate documents with the 2nd District of the state Court of Appeal asking for a dismissal of the 32-year-old child sex case against the filmmaker.

In both, the lawyers alleged that the district attorney’s office in effect benefited from Polanski’s absence, because as long as he remained a fugitive, officials could avoid answering allegations of prosecutorial and judicial wrongdoing in the original handling of the case.

Yeah, you know, that was probably a really stupid thing to argue. My guess is that to some extent, the L.A. District Attorney’s office was letting this go, not so much because they didn’t believe in the case but because it’s a hassle to try to get someone arrested overseas and then extradited to the U.S. But when you argue that there’s a conspiracy to try to cover up wrongdoing in the case, and that’s why nobody’s trying to bring your client in, you’d better be damn sure that’s the reason why nobody’s trying to bring your client in. If it isn’t, there’s a good chance that the prosecutor will go after your client, hard, to prove they have nothing to hide. And that’s doubly true if your client is a child rapist.

It’s funny. If your average guy were to rape a 13-year-old girl and then flee into exile rather than paying for his crime, pretty much everyone and their twin sister would agree that he was a scumbag who deserved nothing less than the hammer of justice brought down upon him. Turn that average guy into a rich artist with good connections, and suddenly the crime wasn’t that bad, the girl was probably asking for it (or her mother was, whatever), and it’s really close to fascism to put the guy through the indignity of being extradited to face justice.

I’m having trouble picking out just what my favorite instant rape apology is; there are several good ones, so I just thought I’d share a few of the best.

One of the better ones is from novelist Robert Harris, who was collaborating with Polanski on an upcoming film:

Robert Harris, a British novelist who said he had been working with Polanski for much of the past three years writing two screenplays, expressed outrage over the arrest….”I am shocked that any man of 76, whether distinguished or not, should have been treated in such a fashion,” he said in a statement, adding that Polanski had often visited Switzerland and even had a house in Gstaad….”It is hard not to believe that this heavy-handed action must be in some way politically motivated,” he said.

Why, he had a house in Gstaad! And, and, he’s…uh…old! Clearly he shouldn’t be held accountable for actions he took when he was a poor, foolish boy of…(adjusts glasses, reads text)…just 44 years old. The idea!

Of course, some might say that it’s shocking that a girl of 13, whether “consenting” or not, could be drugged and raped by a man almost three times her age. But I bet she doesn’t have a house in Gstaad. So there.

Joan Z. Shore of The Huffington Post argues that the girl was asking for it, or at least her mom was, and besides, she was almost of age, so…yeah:

The 13-year old model “seduced” by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It’s probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence.

Fun fact: the age of consent in 1977 in California was 16. It’s now 18.

But of course, the age of consent isn’t like horseshoes or global thermonuclear war; close doesn’t count. Even if the age of consent had been 14, the girl wasn’t 14.

As for whether the girl’s mother “thrust” the girl onto Polanski (which she didn’t; testimony at the time indicated the mother was unaware of the photo shoot), it wouldn’t matter if the mother delivered her daughter naked to Jack Nicholson’s hot tub herself, and helped Polanski get the Quaalude ready. No parent can consent to their under-aged child having sex.

Also, of course, this entire line of argument sort of goes out the window when you remember that Polanski drugged and forcibly raped the victim [warning: link goes to graphic grand jury testimony that may be triggering], which kind of makes the age of consent utterly moot. (Incidentally, the fact that she was underage makes the force utterly moot. You can’t be 44 and legally have sex with a 13-year-old in California. Statutory rape has the word rape in it for a reason.)

Many, many articles cited the fact that the victim, now grown up and 45 years old, has said she wants the case to be let go, because each time it gets dredged up it brings up painful memories of her being raped. I choose the Telegraph because its headline puts the word victim in scare quotes, because…something:

In January, [the victim]¹ filed a legal declaration in Los Angeles formally requesting that the outstanding charges against Polanski be withdrawn.

She said Los Angeles prosecutors’ insistence that Polanski must return to the United States before dismissal of the case could be considered as a “cruel joke being played on me”.

She also voiced anger that authorities had detailed her grand jury testimony in related hearings to the case.

“True as they may be, the continued publication of those details causes harm to me, my beloved husband, my three children and my mother,” she said, adding that it was time for closure.

“I have survived, indeed prevailed, against whatever harm Mr Polanski may have caused me as a child,” she said. Polanski had taken flight, she said, “because the judicial system did not work.”

I understand the victim’s feelings on this. And I sympathize, I do. But for good or ill, the justice system doesn’t work on behalf of victims; it works on behalf of justice. And while the victim is no doubt hurt by Polanski’s drawing this out for decades, ultimately more women would be hurt by a justice system that allowed convicted rapists to avoid punishment simply because they were rich and could afford to flee jail. Ultimately, the victim’s feelings must be considered, but they can not be the determining factor in whether a prosecution goes forward.

I said at the beginning that I was having trouble picking out a favorite rape apologist. But I must confess, I think I’ve settled on one. That would be The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum, declaring that Polanski’s arrest was “outrageous,” because he’s famous:

There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers’ fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.

He can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski’s mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland. His pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by the followers of Charles Manson, though for a time Polanski himself was a suspect.

I am certain there are many who will harrumph that, following this arrest, justice was done at last. But Polanski is 76. To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular. Nor does it prove the doggedness and earnestness of the American legal system. If he weren’t famous, I bet no one would bother with him at all.

Yes, it’s true, if Polanski wasn’t famous, he wouldn’t be in this mess, because he wouldn’t have had access to Jack Nicholson’s house while Jack was out of town. And he wouldn’t have been able to flee to France. And he wouldn’t have been able to live comfortably for 30 years. But hey, the poor guy had to forgo his Oscar! The horror!

Ultimately, Applebaum’s argument is pretty foolish. Admittedly, there’s been all sorts of tragedy in Polanski’s life, but that doesn’t justify his committing several felonies. Most Holocaust survivors did not grow up to become rapists.

But it’s worse than that. You see, you may not realize it, but Applebaum is married to a guy named Radosław Sikorski. Now, that’s pretty uninteresting, until you realize that Sikorski is the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs. Who just happens to be actively lobbying to have Polish native Polanski’s charges dismissed.

This is something Applebaum somehow forgot to mention in her column.

Time for another blogger ethics panel, I guess.

1. If you really want her name, click through. I don’t publish the names of victims of sexual assault. (back)

Roman Polanski, a convicted child rapist who has been living in exile since fleeing punishment in 1978, was arrested on Saturday night in Zurich, Switzerland, on an international warrant. Polanski, 76, has been living in France since he pled guilty to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. Polanski had made the plea deal in order to avoid the more serious charges of rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious acts upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor.

Polanski said in his defense at the time that the 13-year-old child was “sexually experienced,” and “consented,” thus arguing that somehow it would be okay for a 44-year-old to have sex with a 13-year-old in Jack Nicholson’s hot tub even if he hadn’t drugged her, which he had.

Polanski, who has directed a number of films, including Chinatown and The Pianist, had traveled to Zurich to accept an award for his filmmaking. The arrest outraged the government of France, which evidently doesn’t feel child rape is a serious crime. French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he was “stunned” by the arrest, adding that he “profoundly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already known so many during his life.” Mitterand did not comment on the fact that the ordeal was being “inflicted” on Polanski because he raped a girl, and avoided justice for three decades.

A number of people who’ve worked with Polanski and pretended not to be aware that he once raped a child also came to his defense, arguing that he raped a child a long time ago, and was a really charming guy, and rich and stuff, so he should be allowed to get away with rape and with fleeing punishment for rape.

It remains to be seen whether Polanski will ultimately be extradited to the United States. His attorneys have vowed to fight extradition, and Polanski, as a man of means, is able to hire expensive attorneys. Nevertheless, the arrest serves as a reminder that whatever his skill at directing or his ability to make small talk at cocktail parties, Roman Polanski is a man who drugged and raped a kid. And by his actions he is making sure we never forget it.

Now, I’m a heterosexual man. And as such, I will freely confess that I like breasts. They’re definitely in my top five body parts human beings have, even though only about 50 percent of human beings have them.¹

That said, the thing about breasts that I generally like the most is that they’re usually attached to living, breathing women, and I like women, because, you know, they’re people. Many of them are people I like, and consider friends. All of them are worth far more than the breasts attached to them; that should go without saying.

Because women have breasts, they can get breast cancer. That’s a bad thing. Happily, there are a number of organizations out there working to combat this disease, and that’s great, because finding treatments for breast cancer will keep women alive. And since I have a number of women who are friends and family of mine who I’d like to stay alive for as long as possible, I’m foursquare in favor of doing things to improve their health.

That concern, I should note, is completely distinct from whether I want there to be lots of cancer-free breasts for me to stare at. Because, you know, if breast cancer was a disease that simply deflated breasts and had no other effects whatsoever, I’d say it was a pretty meaningless thing to cure. Indeed, given that one of the more common cures for breast cancer is a radical mastectomy, current breast cancer treatments are properly focused on protecting women at the expense of their breasts. And I’m all for that, because the loss of a breast or two is infinitely less tragic than the loss of a human.

Evidently, though, I’m crazy to think this way. Really, the important thing is the breasts. Canada’s ReThink Breast Cancer says so, and who am I to argue?

Now, the dumbest thing about this ad — other than that it mysteriously features a group of stereotypically Soviet submariners from bad movies of yore — is that the focus of the ad is squarely on saving “boobs.” Because, you know, men (and women, I guess, but mostly men) like “boobs.”

Well, sorry, but I’m not so worried about that. Yes, if by happy accident breast cancer treatments manage to reduce the number of mastectomies, that’s great — but it’s great because mastectomies are painful, difficult surgeries that put women through a great deal of pain and suffering.

I don’t care about breasts.² Oh, I like them fine, but I’m not that worried about them. The women they’re attached to are what concern me, them and their friends and their families. Unlike the insinuation of the ad, I actually care about women beyond whether they’re attractive enough for me to ogle. And I daresay that this does not differentiate me from the vast majority of men in the world.

Believe it or not, but men are capable of empathy. We are capable of feelings other than lust and rage. And we are capable of realizing that the reason breast cancer research needs funding is because it will keep more women alive longer. And that is unquestionably a good thing.

I’m insulted by this ad. Because I don’t need to “rethink” my attitude toward breast cancer. Just as we don’t need an ad urging that we must save the penises by researching prostate cancer, we don’t need an ad telling us that curing breast cancer will save breasts. If it saves women, that’s quite enough, thanks.

(Via Judy Berman)

1. Some women don’t have them, some men do. Hence, roughly 50%. (back)
2. Using the word “boobs” makes you sound like an 11-year-old. (back)

Shayne at No, Not You writes this brilliant list:

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect the answer the first time, you are commiting a crime- no matter how “into it” others appear to be.

Abyss 2 Hope and Girl With A Pen have more serious takes on the same topic.

(Via.)