I'm skeerdy

Am Me Feminist? (Also: Coda)

2009-04-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

"I have always been into gender equality (not feminism, which is really one-sided)"

Jesus Christ, sometimes I really hate my culture. I mean, it's not even that poor idiot's fault; it took me a long damn time to outgrow that line of bullshit too. This is not just what we let people think, y'know. This is what we teach people with every afterschool special and every portrayal of a "feminist" in anything ever and every time we let Rush Limbaugh talk and every movie like the DtDVD Wonder Woman and every civics and history class that breezes past the Women's Rights Movement like it were the War of 1812 or something.

Seriously, it's like trying to win a knife fight with nothing but a bar of soap.

Such is the lament, in toto, that Bluefall expresses. And I have to say, my very first thought on reading it was: I like how it's "we let" Rush Limbaugh speak as if anyone could shut the guy up.

I'm also struck by the final simile, comparing what I assume is intarwub debate with deadly battle. Did no one know this battle was coming? Was it an ambush? Why did one side not secure a knife of their own?

But in the comments section of all that was a link to JaneGray's reposting of an essay from Tomato Nation: Yes, You Are.

Are what? A feminist, it seems, if you "believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes". The rest of the essay belabors this point: regardless of any other factors, if you truly believe in this notion, then you are a feminist.

So then, I guess I am a feminist. I've said before that I believe in at least as much as that statement describes (though I confess to doing more hoping for than working towards). And yet, like the aforementioned "idiot", I don't identify myself as a feminist. Which makes me, what, the Bizarro feminist or something?

In any case, the original essay makes a good point about defining one's self as a feminist, by cutting out all the dogma and assigning a clear, objective definition to the word. Were it truly that simple, I'd really have no problems going around, saying, "yep, feminist, that's me".

But Bluefall and the others in the comments section of her post discuss the media perception of feminism and place most of the blame on the usual suspects, such as Rush Limbaugh and the Reagan Era.

I'm sure Rush willingly contributes to any misunderstandings wherever he can, but the thing is, the reason I (and others, it seems) don't care to carry the feminist label is not because of Rush or some patriarchal conspiracy/propaganda, no. As liberal-leaning as I am, I'm not likely to let some right-wing talk show gasbag implant "feminazi" in my head.

It's feminists themselves that make me not want to be labeled a feminist; it's feminists who, it is my impression, largely reject me as being a feminist.

From JaneGray's comments section:

Feminism is an extremely important movement that has fought long and hard so that we women could be considered actual human beings with actual rights. So it makes me sick to think that the term is being rejected by modern women just because a few man-hating nutjobs have dirtied it.

Now, maybe I've had bad luck. Maybe it's been my fate to encounter the writings (and sometimes responses here in my own blog) of mostly the real wingnuts of fangirl feminism, and that if feminism as a whole were measured, the resultant "average feminist" would seem like a far more reasonable creature.

On the other hand, the fact that there are "feminist study" courses would suggest that, for a lot of people, "feminism" means far more than the dictionary definition, otherwise, there'd only be one class, right? Open the dictionary, read it, and "that's it, see you next semester!"

But no, you can learn all kinds of other things, such as the partiarchy, privilege, the male gaze, and probably a quart of even more esoteric terms, terms for which if you profess ignorance or disbelief you are likely to get regaled with "it's not my job to teach you Feminism 101", implying that yes, there's more to feminism than just seeking equality.

Hell, Bluefall and company take the recent Wonder Woman DVD-movie to task for promoting the wrong kind of feminist message. Apparently their standards for equality don't match up to the movie's standards. Do they accept the movie as being a feminist work, despite its flaws?

I have criticized many things written or said by self-professed feminists; I do not accept many things they take as givens, and feel many stances claimed by feminists are in opposition to other important issues. Whose determination takes precedence: mine, if I say I am a feminist, or the feminist who criticizes me, telling me I am not?

Mad Thinker Scott has often identified himself as a feminist, and has just as often been called anything but feminist by feminists. I prefer to avoid that sort of argument entirely...

_____________________________

[[FOOTNOTE]: Not really apropos of the point I wanted to make, but there's a line in the original "Yes, You Are" essay that bugs me: "You don't have to write a twenty-page paper on Valerie Solanas's use of satire in The S.C.U.M. Manifesto, and if you do write it, you don't have to get better than a C-plus on it." It bugs me in that I have a hard time seeing Solanas' manifesto as being satire, considering this is the same woman who 1) shot Andy Warhol; 2) stalked him by phone after getting out of jail for shooting him; 3) drifted in and out of mental hospitals until she died. It's satire only if you take Rush Limbaugh's various "Feminazi" comments to also be satire, and just as I believe Rush to be in earnest when he says it even as he brushes it off with one of his "oh ho ho, I'm just laughing at things, I'm just having fun", so too I get the sense that Solanas was "joking" in the same forced-smile manner. Not that I really know what either Limbaugh or Solanas is/was thinking; nor do I know if satire is really how the original author of the essay viewed Solanas' manifesto. Just wanted to mention.]

_____________________________

This blog hasn't had much traffic (or more precise, a lot of comments and reaction, I really don't know how many folks are just lurking and reading this) since When Fangirls Attack had its recent long downtimes; that's just as well, because I haven't had much to say. A lot of things I started to say (but deleted) were retreads of mostly the same old opinions I've been saying since I started this blog.

This blog has never been my primary activity (or even my only blog); it's been kept separate and anonymous to allow me to express unpopular opinions to an audience I think is, in some instances, capable and willing to persecute those who disagree. So if I'm feeling like I'm repeating the same things over and over, it may be time to hang this up for a while. Anyone chancing upon this blog for the first time is welcome to browse the archives; quite possibly you'll find a post that has relevance to some new issue regarding comics and feminism (and a couple other matters besides). The characters and comics involved may change, but the issues will probably be the same for some time to come, and I'm going to be too busy to keep on repeating myself.

I could be wrong; some new blogstorm may strike and prompt an entirely different train of thought, in which case I may decide to weigh in once again; barring that, however, I foresee this blog becoming very inactive in the future.

(Now watch someone link this and I get a bazillion hits).

Until we meet again.

You Can't Lasso the Truth with the Lasso of Truth.

2009-04-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'm going to make a bit of a liar out of myself.

Though I'm backdating this to appear to have been written on April 10th, the fact is that it's real early in the AM on the 19th as I'm typing away. I had one more thing to say, but I didn't want to mess up my "final" so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish post by plopping in one more thing after I'd just said "that's all folks". So with the magic of Post Options I'm shuffling the deck just slightly. It's not intentionally a trick (I'm explaining it, after all), but if you didn't read things closely you might be fooled into thinking this post was written earlier than it actually was.

How appropriate, then, that this post is about Truth.

Perhaps you have (like me) been following Noah Berlatsky's essays on Wonder Woman. Not sure I entirely agree with all his conclusions to date, but there's certainly an intriguing insight into the character going on there. One of the things he's posited lately is that Wonder Woman's lasso worked best when it was an all-purpose device for controlling people and not just a kinky lie detector. (And I'm not sure when the change happened, myself, but I suspect it could have been gradual. If you have total control of a person, supposedly you could compel them to tell the truth, and that might have morphed over time, the other aspects of control ignored and eventually forgotten.)

What should come up in his latest post on Wonder Woman but a mention of Bluefall's response to his truth vs. control musings, and having just been reading a different Bluefall post for my "previous/last" entry, I was curious enough to see what was up.

Here is a highly edited selection of her comments:

I know there are people out there who don't like the Truth thing. That's because, like this guy, they don't get the Truth thing. It's a peculiar sort of blindness for an internet generation, but there you go.

First, it's entirely ridiculous to say that self-knowledge is in any way related to purity. You know who's probably the most famous example of complete, vigorous, thorough self-knowledge in Western culture? The friggin Devil. That guy always knows exactly who he is.

Self-knowledge isn't about purity.

It is, however, the very essence of self-control. This, anybody who's spent ten minutes in psychotherapy can easily tell you. If you ever hope to stop yourself from doing something, you must know that you're doing it, and you must know why, so that you can know when you're about to and stop yourself before you start. What's the very first thing you have to convince an addict? That he has a problem. This dude mocks Diana's self-analysis in League of One as navel-gazing purity, and would prefer her commanding herself not to abuse her power. Seriously, how do you not notice what she's asking herself? It's right there on the page - "am I abusing my power"! Look at that, Diana struggling with self-control!

As for that power itself... again, I don't understand how anybody who's ever met the internet can fail to understand this, but knowledge is the foundation of all power. Secrets win and lose wars. Propaganda can build or destroy entire economies, and widespread dissemination of the truth brings entire religions (or cults) to their knees. Technology does not come from people exerting control - rather the other way around - and to bring us a bit back on topic, Batman does not win with prep time, Batman wins by knowing everyone's weaknesses. Truth is the most powerful thing there is.

Batman breaks your finger, big fucking deal. It's just pain, and your hatred can help get you through it; you were Willie the Snitch before he broke it and you'll be Willie the Snitch once it heals. But Wonder Woman makes you see yourself... how do you recover from that? How do you survive having your actual sense of identity completely shattered? You were Willie the Snitch yesterday, sure, but you can't be tomorrow, or ever again, not now that you've had to acknowledge what Willie the Snitch really is. And that is a far more horrifying prospect than some temporary mind control bullshit that goes away once the lasso is gone.

Truth is everything. Control over the Truth, over what is known and to whom, is the single most powerful weapon humanity has ever known. All an atom bomb can do is destroy. Control of the Truth can make something never have existed in the first place, or make something utterly unlike it used to be, or create something entirely new.

Reading this I had a flashback to some old arcade video game, the kind with plastic guns, where you try to shoot the bad guys who keep popping out of doors and past windows, and you've got a bead on the last bad guy, you pull the trigger and WHOOPS the lady with the baby carriage strolls in front of your virtual .45 Magnum to regrettable splattering.

There's a lot right about what's being said, but at the same time there's some truths missing from the equation.

But, back up: I always wondered if anyone had ever written a story where some crime boss tried to game Wonder Woman's lasso of truth. Suppose he tells his minions that he's going to be at a series of locations at specific times. In actuality, he's flying to Mexico or somewhere totally removed from the action. Wonder Woman, tracking him, shakes down a few of his thugs and uses the lasso to find out where he's gone.

They don't really know, but they think they know, so maybe they tell her where he'll be, but what happens is that she rushes to these various locations and meets instead horrible deathtraps or even just bombs set to go off at the aforementioned specific times. Meanwhile, crime boss yuks it up on his private jet until WW defeats the bombs somehow and saves the day and captures the bad guy.

That's the thing about the lasso: there's Truth, and then there's what we believe to be true.

If you are taught from birth that the Sun orbits the Earth, and this idea is never challenged, then when you repeat this idea you aren't exactly lying, but you aren't exactly telling the Truth , either. A lie detector will not register this as a falsehood, because that's what you believe. Still, modern science has pretty much proved that it's the other way around.

And that's just an objective fact; consider the answer to the question "what is the best color"?

Wonder Woman using her own lasso on herself and asking "am I abusing my power" doesn't fail because it's "navel-gazing", it fails because there's a damn good chance Wonder Woman doesn't have a freaking clue.

It depends on how the lasso works, and I confess I'm not deep enough into the mythos to know, but: Let's suppose for one train of thought that the lasso reveals the Truth as the individual under its power sees it. So in my above example, henchmen can give factually erroneous information they believe to be true. For another train of thought, we might assume that there's some external force that determines Truth, so that in my example, the thugs might somehow be compelled to reveal information they cannot actually know, like the boss' location.

Latter first: I can't recall any example of this ever happening, so I'm going to assume that's not the official method of operation. It'd open up a whole can of worms, such as: what agency is this that determines the Truth, and by what standards is it being judged? If Wonder Woman asks herself this question under the power of an externally-driven lasso, then the answer depends on how this other agency (the Gods, perhaps?) views her actions. But this stumbles in fiction, if you explore it too closely: the answer, of course, depends not on an omniscient being but the author of Wonder Woman's latest adventure, with all their own too-human biases. What is the value of the lasso's power of truth when written by a creationist? Or an atheist?

But in the former situation, it comes down to whether in her own heart of hearts Wonder Woman believes she is or isn't abusing her own power, and really, if she's self-aware enough to actually ask the question, I'm not sure whether extra prompting by the lasso is going to help her know the answer any better than without.

Because here's the thing about Willie the Snitch: Most of us know when we've done something considered "bad" or otherwise frowned upon by society at large. Willie doesn't avoid being locked up by the cops by being ignorant of his transgressions. But it's easy for Willie to get around all his faults by rationalizing them, justifying them in some way. It's not his fault, you know. Times are tough. It isn't fair. He has to get by. Sure, he stole a bit, but he's gotta eat somehow. Yeah, maybe he put that guy in the hospital, but the other guy started it, he had it coming. He feels bad, sure, but there really wasn't any other way...

Even if Willie was wrapped in the lasso and forced to somehow examine the Truth of his own life (and is Wonder Woman actually going to do that? She probably is more interested in where the jackass who's setting bombs for her is hiding rather than asking Willie some leading questions towards his greater self-awareness), the only Truth he's going to get comes from his own head, complete with his rationalizations (which, even if stripped away, would only be a life-shattering experience if Willie had enough of a conscience to still feel guilt or shame). And the same goes for Wonder Woman, noble though she may be. Unless you go for external truth, which goes right back to what I said before.

The anti-aborton nutjob who bombs a clinic probably sincerely believes that his act, though it flies in the face of a lot of Christian notions like forgiveness and not killing people, is justified by the lives of the unborn he may think he's saving. That is Truth to him, and making him ask the question "is this the right thing to do in this case" is only going to receive an answer of "well, of course it is!"

Self-awareness is not actual Truth. It may lead to more personal honesty, but if anything it breaks down existing inner truths with doubts and questions. That in and of itself does not reveal truth. It is useless to be aware of one's self if you are not also aware of your own position and perspective relative to those around you, to be able (and willing) to compare facts and premises between yourself and others. To break addiction, an addict must admit they have a problem, but to admit to having a problem, you have to accept the premise that you are mistaken about something. Your personal truth: "I don't have a problem" has to be somehow replaced with an external truth: "yes, you actually do have a problem".

(This is, of course, what starts Internet Fights, two or more people who each Know That They Are Right, and burn up keystrokes and bandwidth attempting to prove it, to supplant the other's Truth with their own. Internet people are often not really particularly self-aware, in the sense that they prefer not to ask difficult, challenging questions about their own beliefs.)

So there's how it stands: If the lasso has an external source for Truth, Wonder Woman can be assured some higher power is monitoring whether she abuses her power, but then we have to question the source and veracity of that power and its Truth; or, all the Truth revealed comes from within, and isn't inherently True at all, leaving Wonder Woman to assume she is or is not abusing her power based on her own assumptions. And that's why Wonder Woman's self-truth session fails.

EDIT, June:

So it seems "nevermore999", who left a comment on this post as "bookwormwithanattitude" - I think, I'm never good at juggling other people's multiple aliases - has made a post that challenges my position on the Lasso of Truth as stated above. It's on Scans Daily and cross-linked on her own blog, the latter with this bit:

That is my argument. Anon is welcome to refute it in his own blog, we'll link it on WFA. I will not refute his refuting, because I've said my piece, I've represented another side to the argument, and I'm content with that, and I have too much experience with internet arguments to be caught in a circlejerk. I just wanted the good readers of WFA to know there's another side. I would appreciate it if Anon did NOT come over to my blog to argue with me, when and if he sees this. I did not do the same for him, when he first posted it, I posted a kneejerk reaction, but I hope he'll forgive that.

Well, unless someone's checking this old post for updates, I doubt WFA will link to it (did they ever link it in the first place? I think Noah Berlatsky did...) I like the "I know I flamed off at you first but pleeeeeese don't dirty up my blog with your presence" bit. I suppose it's about as close to an apology as can be expected.

The sequences shown in the Scans Daily piece were, indeed, new to me. I have not bought a Wonder Woman comic, hmm, probably since Byrne's run, so most of my experience with the character has been based on earlier adventures.

I contend still that the earlier use of the lasso was, to my best recollection, never that dramatic or intimate - these pages are the first I have ever seen Wonder Woman actually jump into another person's head and poke around.

And, okay, that could be fairly traumatic. I mean, hell, you're some racist scumbag and WW has you tied up and then holy crap Wonder Woman's eyeballs are huge and you're falling into them and suddenly she's talking about your dead hooker mom and--

And then somehow that leads to the Nazi's confession about all the evil plans he and his cohorts had for WW and the Amazons.

...Uh? Did I miss the logic here, somehow? And when did Diana's lasso turn into her own private Abu Ghraib? Because what we just saw was Wonder Woman trotting out this guy's traumatic childhood and rubbing his nose in it before getting to the germaine point, being the plot against her people. What do we do next? Waterboard him or bring up that time his girlfriend broke up with him at the Prom?

Look: Oldschool Wonder Woman didn't do any of this. All she would have had to do around 1979 was tie the guy up and say, "tell me what the plans are!" and the guy would stiffen up and grunt, "no - but - something makes me! These are the plans..." and that would be that.

Now, she apparently has to reveal all of the truth of this one guy, break the guy entirely (someone mentioned in comments, to the point of catatonia) to get at this one particular kernel of truth. I'm detecting a serious loss of efficiency here.

Well, while this certainly means the way the lasso operates is currently much different than the method I'm familiar with, it still doesn't really refute my points. For one thing, it still doesn't mention whether this "truth of the soul" has anything to do with "truth as absolute fact" - remember my example of goons having been given false info to pass onto Wonder Woman? What if everything this Nazi knew about the plans was a lie, fed to him by treacherous partners? Okay, I don't know how it actually was in the story, but it would have been a good example.

But more important, this whole argument from the other side still turns on the idea that being confronted with the raw truth of things is such a powerful, moving experience that one must be emotionally transformed by it - and I don't buy it. Truth is not of itself empathy, is not emotion. Obviously this particular character is still hurting, still traumatized by his past and who his parents were - but what if he'd been some other guy, hardened, inured - "Yeah, my Mom's dead, she turned tricks, my Dad was a murdering scumbag, big deal, I never liked either of them." This "truth of the soul" only works if you assume that everyone has a compassionate, caring soul, even if it's hidden in secret dark places, and that when confronted with one's misdeeds and troubled past, guilt and shame will automatically kick in somehow.

And that's just it: I see people on the news all the time that commit absolutely horrifying acts of depravity and seem to show no signs of remorse, and I have a hard time believing that some of these monsters have any kind of conscience to reach, let alone that a replay of their horrible experiences would stir it just by virtue of being played back on the lasso's internal TiVo.

Go back to the Nazi - why should his crap childhood shake his faith in anything? All we see is that he doesn't like Wonder Woman bringing it up inside his own head, but we never see anything beyond that, no "here's where your crap childhood made you take the wrong choice and here's why it's wrong, and therefore your life is a lie and your brain shuts down now," no, all we get is him reacting badly to some bad memories and it's all over.

Make man cry, man see lie. No, sorry. It's a bit too simplistic for me.

There's even a reference to some other Scans Daily post (here), a much longer sample that revolves around Wonder Woman screwing up by letting her impulses get in the way of the "real truth" - which sounds great, except it's really a cop-out, since all the various perspectives shown are entirely subjective, even the one settled on at the end that sets everything back to rights, at least as far as Wonder Woman is concerned. What's the truth? Depends on who you ask, doesn't it?

Right now, it's Gail Simone's standards for truth that hold sway. Tomorrow it could be, I dunno, Geoff Johns or hey, Judd Winick. The problem with portraying an absolute morality-based truth in comics is that no author can actually come up with absolute truth, only a fictional construct disguised as truth (why did WW's lasso dissolve? Because Joe Kelly told it to), and for it to work you have to be willing to just sit back and let the author tell you that it works and just not question it at all. It's magic! It just happens! God from the Machine!

And that's the truth.

When Retards Speak

2009-04-05T02:03:00.000-07:00

Women being able to hit men and it be funny is not a double standard. That assumes that men and women under present social conditions are equal or nearly so. But they are not. The prevalence of male on female rape and domestic abuse is enough of an indicator that men (as a gender) oppress women (as a gender). In this context, an oppressed person striking back at an oppressor esp. in self-defense can be empowering and funny. That’s not to say such violence is free of problems, but it is not hypocritical.

Complaining about women hitting significant others is like privileged white boys whining “why can’t we say the n-word if they do?” So, why not quit whining and start working to end domestic and sexual violence if a comic book portrayal of a women punching her husband bothers you so much?

--"Other Bob"

Other Bob totally nailed it.

We don’t live in a world where domestic abuse figures are equal. Men are the overwhelming majority of abusers. Period. If we ever live in a world where that number approaches anything resembling equal—when men who beat women are as rare as women who beat men—then you can start making a big deal out of things like this story created by men (primarily) for men.

Getting huffy over a fictional “husband-battering” in a medium that is overwhelmingly male-oriented is insulting to real victims of abuse.

--"BHayes"

More evidence that people are

A) prone to rationalizing their own dogmatic points of view; and
B) stupid.

The above comments come from "mbrady"s Newsarama blog, where he mulls over the seeming lack of reaction to Black Canary decking her husband Green Arrow. (Actually there was some reaction, but not a whole lot as far as I've seen.)

Remember me referencing the "inequality" argument last post? Well, this is a prime example. According to "Other Bob", the fact that women have been oppressed justifies (and makes hilarious) any abuse they dish out to members of the opposite sex.

But by that kind of reasoning, the last Bush Administration and its subordinates were perfectly justified in using methods of interrogation some would call torture. Because, you know, terrorists crashed some planes and killed lots of people, so because of that act of evil, the US should be able to get away with its own morally objectionable acts. (Or, if you're more left-wing than I am, you could say that years of US fiddling in the Middle East justified slamming planes into the World Trade Center.)

Inequality does not automatically grant virtue to the disadvantaged. To think otherwise is the same kind of reasoning used by religious fanatics.

To top it off, look at how "Other Bob" paints the incident: "In this context, an oppressed person striking back at an oppressor esp. in self-defense can be empowering and funny."

Really, this is sanctioned prejudice, a way to label one group of people as "the oppressors" and then justify everything done to harm them as striking some kind of blow for justice. The Israeli kid blown up on a schoolbus, or the Palestinean child vaporized by a tank? Part of the Zionist Occupiers, or the Savage Terrorists, and therefore perfectly acceptable targets.

But wait: Was Black Canary being attacked by Green Arrow? (No.) Did the incident occur because Green Arrow was oppressing Black Canary in some way? (Not from what I've heard.) She was pissed, and she hit him, not because women have been oppressed by men, but because she was embarrassed by his actions.

The lack of parity between genders is a serious issue, but that is not the reason why a man beating his wife is bad, it's because most of us believe (at least in theory) that hurting someone you supposedly love is wrong in an absolute sense. It would be wrong if it were a couple of gay guys or gals, and it's wrong if a woman hits a man. If advantage affects whether or not this is wrong, then if Something Happened and men became the disadvantaged sex, hitting your wife would no longer be reprehensible, but a blow for equality and worth a chuckle.

If you can justify her hitting him on the basis of oppression, you are leaving open the concept that under certain circumstances it's okay to smack your partner around, and that means that you're into the gray area where if you can justify it for the right reasons, it'd be just fine for Green Arrow to haul off and clout her once or twice, too.

If the primary argument against a man beating his wife is that, as a man, his gender has oppressed his wife's gender and he is perpetuating that inequity, then fine, there's no hypocrisy involved. But if that's what you really believe, you need serious counseling. If, like a sensible adult with at least a double-digit IQ, you feel that beating your wife is wrong because it's just wrong to beat people you say you love, then excusing Black Canary's punch is indeed hypocrisy, and can be nothing else.

An Adolescent Stunt

2009-04-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

During a journalist rant session at GDC last week, Heather Chaplin, a writer who covers the games industry for grown-up outlets like NPR, railed against what she sees as a business dominated by "stunted adolescents."

"You aren't men," Chaplin told developers. "You are stunted adolescents."

--Heather Chaplin, via an
article by Keane Ng

Apparently, Ms. Chaplin is disheartened by the fanboy-pandering aspects of the video game industry, to wit: violence and sexist titillation, so much so that she decided to vent some steam directly at game developers.

Okay, I'll concede that a lot of video games are sold more towards one half of the population than the other. And sure, it would be nice if the medium matured to become the equal of, um, er, Hollywood, pop music and prime time TV. Sure.

But reading the above quote, I couldn't help but think: Wouldn't there be an absolute shitstorm if some guy had spoken to a room of women in this way?

Tex Tosterone steps to the podium at Yaoi Con, fixes the auditorium full of manga artists and writers with a steely gaze, and passes judgement:

"You aren't women," he remarks. "You are stunted adolescents."

Holy Crap! Leave aside any general criticism this straw man may be making against creators of a woman-oriented product, he's done what? Denied women their identity as women, and infantilized them all at once! He presumes to be able to judge women and tell them whether they qualify as such based on his standards - not those of any actual women!

I suppose this is the time someone chimes in to talk about "institutionalized" behavior, and how it's worse when men are sexist or denigrating to women than vice versa because they're the ones in power. Maybe, but it's not that much worse, and that argument always, always reeks of an excuse to get away with behavior one would not tolerate in others.

Let's Talk About "Assumptions".

2009-02-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

But, alas, this is how the male gaze works. The artist makes the assumption, consciously or no, that everyone looking at the image is a het man, a het man who objectifies women just like him.

--"Crowfoot"

Or does he? Or does she?

To talk about the male gaze and objectification in comics is all fine and dandy, but it is somewhat telling when someone complaining about the assumptions of an artist drawing Power Girl makes a number of broad, sweeping assumptions themselves.

Assumption 1: The artist is male.

Did anyone read either the Power Girl or Terra miniseries drawn by Amanda Conner? Plenty of cheesecake, plenty of shots from angles that serve to draw focus to women's body parts. She has the advantage of being a great artist, with a solid grasp of anatomy, but she's not afraid to play up the sexy, even at the risk of contributing to this 'male gaze' thing.

The examples Crowfoot brings up may have been all drawn by men, I didn't check. But I did check enough to see that many of the images she links to are on a Power Girl fansite with a whole gallery of images from both professionals and (seemingly) amateurs. It seems a little disingenuous to me to broadly smack a brush on the professional comics industry using fanart to bolster your claims. (And I like how the one example cited as being "good" has Power Girl folding her arms over her breasts, concealing them. Bad breasts. Stay hidden.)

Assumption 2: The artist is obliged to make art that appeals to every last cranky person on Earth.

"You aren't serving MY needs as an audience member, therefore you fail art!" You know, I realize it can be frustrating when it's hard to find the kind of comics (or other media) that you like to read, tailored to your personal preferences, but what is with this recurring idea that people making this stuff are somehow obligated to appeal to everyone, or avoid hurting anyone's feelings, or any of that stuff? Is there any reason this should not be called entitlement?

Assumption 3: The artist makes any kind of assumption, conscious or otherwise, about their audience.

Oh, I'm sure some do, but I'm also sure some people drawing Power Girl do it simply because they want to, and whether they think anyone else viewing the picture shares their particular viewpoint enters into the equation not one bit. How can you tell who does and who doesn't? Why, gosh, you can't.

And finally:

Every time I see female characters drawn this way I want to grab the artist and shake him “stop fantasizing jackass and draw me some awesome comics!” I feel like I’ve just been unwillingly brought into his porn fantasy. I mean, ew! Dude! Put it back in your pants! We don’t want to see that, or know it!

...You know, if there were scenes in a comic of a homosexual couple being affectionate, or (as has happened) a male superhero were to be portrayed with prominent "bulging", and I freaked out with disgust and went "ew, I don't wanna see your gay fantasy stuff", I could easily be called a homophobe. Is it heterophobia when someone has a spasm over heterosexually-appealing material, particularly what they perceive as someone else's sex fantasies?

I think you could make that case.

Look, If You Don't Need More Female Superheroes, Send Them Over HERE, Dude.

2009-01-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

Look, I may not appreciate a superheroine for the same reasons a hardcore feminist might. Maybe what I like about Wonder Woman is the fact that she runs around not wearing a whole lot. I watched more hours of Xena Warrior Princess than I should admit, more to see Lucy Lawless packed in leather than to see her kick ass, but the fact that she did kick ass didn't put me off.

Maybe my reasons and motivations aren't feminist-approved, but still: I'd go to a Wonder Woman movie in half a heartbeat. It could be co-written by Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solanas and I'd still go (well, since they're both dead, I guess that in itself would be a novelty, but anyway). Oh, sure, it'd be possible to screw it up, after all, I like Halle Berry, I like the Catwoman concept, but somehow, they made a Catwoman movie that failed to interest me even enough to rent it (what an ugly costume)! But if we assume that they'd at least make half the effort on a Wonder Woman film that they've put into the last couple Batman and Superman films, I can't see me not going.

So do I need someone pontificating about how a Wonder Woman movie isn't going to appeal enough to women to justify making it? Hell, no, and dude, SHUT THE FUCK UP. What're you, gay? (No offense to gay people.) Even if you're right (which I doubt), nobody needs you to talk people out of making a Wonder Woman movie. Even if it's the male audience that would make the movie a flop or a success, what makes you think men would not want to see a Wonder Woman movie?

Come ON. It's Wonder Woman!

DUDE.

Seriously.

Happy 2009, Fence-Sitters

2009-01-07T09:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a thought I can't believe I didn't have earlier.

People who are victims of child abuse sometimes become abusers, themselves. I have heard estimates ranging from 10% to as high as 40%. And the probability that a victim will themselves turn to abuse can be affected by things like a dysfunctional family or other social factors, it's true.

If we go by the standard that even one abuser committing abuse is one too many, then would society not be justified in compelling all victims of child abuse to register for a "potential sex-offenders" watchlist of some sort? After all, considering all the abuse that we know happens, even taking the low estimates means that there's a disturbingly large contingent of child abusers being created every day.

So we should watch and monitor them, for their own good, for the good of society. No, don't bother with "blaming the victim" arguments. If this prevents even one child from being harmed, isn't it worth it? Were you abused as a child? Well then, we should keep an eye on you, eh? Just in case.

Isn't this a perfectly reasonable proposal?

Except it isn't, unless you're an alarmist, paranoid about what might happen, willing to punish the majority of victims for the transgressions of a few. Unless the "PC fascism" that right-wing talk-show hosts keep harping about really does become as bad as they predict, I can't see a proposal like that becoming a real law, simply because the invasion of privacy and loss of freedom would be too great for most people to tolerate.

In the Neil Gaiman post referenced a couple times earlier in my blog, a self-described "fence-sitter" wrote to Neil asking "if just one child is saved, isn't it worth it?" And Neil wrote about freedom of expression and censorship and ultimately convinced the fence-sitter to come down on the side of less censorship.

This is my opening statement for 2009, and it is directed at anyone who wants to take out certain things in comics, wants to suppress certain works, wants to clean up objectionable material on the basis that it might trigger some bad person's darker urges, or might teach someone the wrong thing, or, frankly, have any impact at all.

Because what you want to do is, in effect, the same thing I've described above. It is justified in the same way: "if only one can be saved". Only you'll never know if one is saved or not, and you'll punish many for the sins of a few.

Free Speech... But Only For Me.

2008-12-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

This is getting slightly ridiculous, I think after this there's gonna be a blog moratorium on this for a while. But for now...

I can only speak for myself, of course... although I have been critical of Valerie D'Orazio's stance on the Simpsons porn case and related issues, I haven't seriously called for her silencing on any issue, though I have floated the idea that perhaps she should be subject to the same forces that some bring to bear on media they find distasteful. That isn't me becoming what I hate in others, it's trying to point out, "see? annoying when it happens to things you care about, ain't it?"

Honestly, I haven't delved too far into the comments section of many of the Occasional Superheroine posts I've read, because who has the time for that? So it may be that she is receiving unreasonable arguments from people on the Free Speech side of things.

But if others are misinterpreting what she says, I think it's only fair to point out that she seems to be reinterpreting the arguments of others herself. And, some folks may very well understand what she's saying, or failing to say, and taking her to task for exactly that.

To wit:

"So I shed no tears for the absence of porn based on underage cartoon characters on the Internet. Nor will I miss feeling like a party to an illegal act every time I do an image search for cartoon and comic book characters.

However, there must be a rather sizable number of people actually visiting these XXX cartoon parody sites -- not just those who get off on such images, but just regular people looking for some gross-out humor. Will the latter category find themselves roped in with these crackdowns, even arrested? Would having an illustration of a "Peanuts Orgy" on your hard drive be enough to convict you as a sex offender?

It would be helpful, I think, for these boundaries and determinations of what is or is not legal to view and download to be clearly delineated and widely broadcast, as to prevent misunderstandings."

This is what I wrote in my first post on the Simpsons child-porn case. Please note the last two paragraphs.

Of course, this post has been misquoted and misrepresented ad nauseum. Why?

I believe it's because within that post I dare to merely suggest that there might limits to moral conduct. That, I think, is the real problem.

That might be a problem, but it's not exactly my problem.

The issue I have with Valerie is the same one I've had with many on the feminist side of the spectrum since I began blogging. The idea that media ought to be censured for some supposedly greater good.

What does Valerie believe about this idea? Not that drawn child porn is bad, I'm pretty sure she thinks it is, but, well, let's let Valerie say it herself:

The biggest question I received in this debate has NOT been, "do you think people who possess Simpsons child porn should be arrested."

It's been:

"Why do you think illustrated child pornography is harmful when it's just drawings?"

The latter question, you will note, she doesn't bother to answer (at least not in this post), she just calls it "naive" and moves on. That in itself is kind of troubling, in the way discussing Jesus is with a fundamentalist; you know that faith is involved and certain things are just accepted as fact on belief alone and no discussion will really get anywhere.

But she also, at least nowhere I've read, doesn't answer the other question, the one about being arrested. And that's a bit more worrying.

Kind of ironic too, since what I did read of one comments section called for people to say something along the lines of "I support the right of people to make and possess drawn child porn" (and for the record: I support the right of people to make and possess drawn child porn). So let's pose the question to Valerie (in a purely rhetorical fashion, I doubt she reads what's over here) and everyone else: Do you believe those who make and possess drawn child porn should be arrested, jailed and/or fined?

No, I'm not just talking about those who might accidentally get it smeared on their computers while walking through the Internet late at night, I mean everyone, all of them, the righteous and the perverts alike. (In a practical sense, after all, what laws get applied will be far less discriminating than even Valerie herself.)

Also high on the iron-o-meter is Valerie's complaint that all this is abridging her own freedom of speech, and you can read that and see practically word-for-word things I've written talking about people trying to squash what they consider sexist or otherwise wrong.

Oh, but I like this part:

A Danish cartoonist who makes fun of Mohammed is allowed to have free speech -- but the offended Muslim who marches through the streets to protest it is held up as a symbol of a repressive mindset.

I've been seeing offensive and stereotypical portrayals of Christians in comics for at least the past fifteen years straight -- but I see no complaints from the same pundits who decry other stereotypes in comics. Why is that? Why is it ok to use the symbol of the evil preacher over and over and over again, but if that brand of stereotyping was done regarding any other religion it would be thrown off the stands?

Why is the person who possesses illustrated child porn supported and befriended by comics celebrities, fandom, and pundits -- but the same respect for "free speech" is not extended to me? Why?

1) The offended Muslim who merely marches has the right to do so, but we can still call that person repressive, if what they want is to forbid another human from drawing whatever the hell they want: because it IS repressive, and so is trying to get stuff taken out of comics, and so is opposing drawn child porn. When imposing your moral code upon others passes from persuasion to coercion, that's repressive.

And then the Muslim who issues fatwas, death threats, guns or bombs, that's something else entirely.

2) Here's a thought: conservative Christianity has attacked and ridiculed those who disagree with their viewpoint for decades if not centuries in America. They like to crow about how they are the dominant religion in the US (meaning they should always get their way, majority rules), but when they happen to get caught in less-than-favorable criticism, they're quick to whine about how across the globe they are a minority and then paint a picture with coliseums and hungry lions and persecution, wah.

Maybe nobody outside of Christianity actually feels sympathy for Christianity and the negative stereotypes. Maybe the stereotypes used by prominent Christian figures themselves have something to do with that.

3) Maybe because their brand of free speech doesn't endorse arresting or fining you for practicing yours.

It's free speech -- but only for some. Those who do not fit in with the "program" do not get the benefit of free speech or respect. Those people must be thrown out of their jobs, ostracized, and attacked.

Isn't this exactly what people are saying about Valerie? Isn't the case being made that free speech isn't about standing up only for what you do approve of, what you do believe in, but standing up for it all, for the right of people to say stuff you actively hate?

And drawn child porn is part of that "all", right? Especially if we're talking legal actions, right??

Why pretend you are tolerant? Stop the charade, already, and embrace your fascism. J. Caleb Mozzocco, embrace your fascism, embrace your intolerance. Stop pretending you are some beacon for free speech when you are just a Karl Rove hangover and a mediocre blogger to boot.

I didn't catch what this "J. Caleb Mozzocco" said, but this just begs a question, no, several questions:

Does Valerie consider herself "tolerant"?

Does Valerie believe that she is in favor of truly free speech?

If "Yes", why does drawn child porn seem to not fall under that umbrella?

If "No", why does Valerie feel entitled to the considerations of Free Speech when she herself isn't willing to extend those considerations to others?

Does hypocrisy in others excuse hypocrisy in one's own self...?

Mary, How You've Grown.

2008-12-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

And one more thing:

When Mary Marvel debuted her black costume in Countdown, after receiving Black Adam's mystic powers, that was what Black Adam said. Certainly she didn't look particularly demure. And chunks of the blogosphere began to froth.

Okay fine, raping your childhood, despoiling pure innocent classic characters yadda yadda yadda.

But with the flap about this latest picture, now we're adding the fact that she's either a minor, or "barely legal".

But is she?

Oh, sure, in the original classic stories, and even when DC started making "Shazam" stories in the 70s, Mary Marvel looked pretty much the same normal or superpowered.

But as her brother shows, that doesn't have to be the case. He gets aged (well, he did before he got transmogrified and took old wizard Shazam's place), swapping between being a young lad and a strapping mature he-man. In fact, depending on who wrote the story, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel often seemed like two discrete individuals.

What was he? A little kid that inhabits a grown man's body? Or a separate individual who swaps places?

This raises the question: just what is Dark Mary Marvel? Adam said, "how you've grown," which would seem to imply that her form matured. Is she a teenager in both forms? A teenager who becomes grown? Two separate entities? How would you differentiate between minor Mary Marvel and adult Mary Marvel, anyway? Do you have to give her a huge bust just to show she's grown-up? She doesn't look particularly immature in the pic Alex Ross has painted. How do you tell, besides just assuming she's of some certain age? (As if pictures have ages, anyway.)

Here's a more interesting question: if drawn child porn is as reprehensible and evil as real child porn, does that not mean that the image is more important than the substance? That what appears in front of your eyes is what counts? Therefore, just to make it easy, take Billy Batson as an example. If Captain Marvel were to have a sexual experience, would it be statutory rape? Captain Marvel sure looks like an adult, but he may have the mind of a minor, so, what is that, exactly? And by extension, what is that with Mary Marvel?

It's a simple choice.

If adult Captain Marvel and/or adult Mary Marvel are taboo, sexually, then it is the inside, the heart and soul if you will, the mind, that counts. That, regardless if they have adult bodies, they are off-limits because of their minds.

If it is the exterior shell that counts, then it's the image, the exterior form, that matters. Captain Marvel is not off-limits, because he has a fully-grown adult body, and it is natural to view him in a sexual way if you like big buff guys like that. Same with Mary Marvel, if her body is that of an adult.

But here's the thing: If you think drawn child porn is bad and harmful, you are proposing that it's the image that matters there, too. If it looks like an underage person, that's what it is.

That is in direct opposition to a stance against the Mary Marvel picture, if your complaint is that she's underage: because she doesn't look underage, not in that picture.

So to anyone protesting this new Mary Marvel picture on the basis that Mary Marvel is underage: Just what is it you're objecting to? Because once you get down to the facts of the matter, it's kind of hard to tell...

Do you really even know, yourself?

Behold, the Highest of Horses. I Call Her Stilty.

2008-12-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

And yet, comic book bloggers are going to still complain about this image and that. It's inevitable. And implicit in those complaints is the idea that though these images and stories are "imaginary" -- they have a potential to negatively impact others. And if those images have a potential to negatively impact others -- that means they are not essentially "harmless."

--Valerie D'Orazio, again.

There you have it. The core idea that fuels the fight. The idea that pictures have the potential to negatively impact others.

Break it down. Pay attention to what she says.

The idea that the images can impact someone. Not the certainty, not the fact written down, proved by science, no: the idea.

A potential to cause harm. Again, not a certainty, no, it might, if the stars align properly, cause harm. Maybe.

If those images can harm. Not that they necessarily will.

Valerie wants, so many people want, not just feminists, so many want to deprive you of something they feel is repellent. After all, you don't need it, do you, really? It's just your freedom. And they want to do it for what they feel are the noblest of reasons.

But they are the most ethereal of reasons, as well.

Let's be clear: we're not talking about the right to protest something. Valerie doesn't have to worry about going to jail because she spoke out against things she objects to. All she has to deal with are cranky bloggers. You want to talk hypothetical situations, harm and risks? I feel a need to remain anonymous because I am well aware that many people hate what I preach: drawn images should not be censored or banned by governments or moral busybodies. My risk of being pursued by some self-same busybody is far greater, since for some suspicion equals guilt, and association equals complicity. Because someone thinks drawn child porn is the same as real child porn, and because defending drawn child porn in some eyes means that I must like it, then I risk real persecution, should someone decide to make a call and point out where "the guy who likes kiddy porn" is.

No, I'm being silly? Tell that to Christopher Handly, or the guy who's going to jail for Simpsons porn.

Let's put it another way: Do you seriously think that the reductions in freedoms that resulted from the Patriot Act (or the equivalent in countries besides the USA) have made us safer, or, as propagandasts claim, it has preserved our freedoms?

Do you think, seriously, that jailing a guy who posesses Simpsons porn is going to make even one person safer? By what measure?

That guy is really in jail. And you cannot find one single person who you can point to and say "that person was saved from rape or child molestation because we banned such-and-such a work, or made this-and-this illegal".

Lastly, if we are saying that any drawn image is "okay" because it's only imaginary and not hurting anyone, should there be any complaints about racist imagery? For example, those who are against Memin Pinguin. Or how about Jack Chick? To rail about Jack Chick's portrayal of a number of groups of people -- homosexuals, Catholics, Pagans, etc. -- would be really railing against free expression, right? Even to be critical of the images undermines one's stated belief of "images are harmless." If the images are truly harmless -- why criticize them? Why not just live-and-let-live, like one big happy family of creative ideas in a free society?

Again, "criticize" isn't the issue. It's the seeming endorsement of jail time for cartoons. Should Jack Chick or whoever makes Memin Pinguin go to jail for hate crimes? Do the cartoonists who drew unflattering representations of Mohammed deserve the death threats?

I don't think so. Does Valerie?

[For the record, I am of the "even Nazis have a right to speak" brand of free-speech supporters. So I believe Jack Chick and others, though their ideas are terrible, still have the right to express those ideas, and always should have that right.]

Let me float an idea out there. If Valerie does not believe in "live and let live" when it comes to images, then should she be exempt? After all, if she doesn't believe in truly free speech, then that's a moral stance I disagree with. Do I think her writings won't let some of this stance bleed into them?

So do I think I or anyone else should read the forthcoming Cloak and Dagger miniseries? Do I really want to see Cloak and Dagger beating up evil cartoonists, busting up rings of Eros Comix readers? Should I propose and/or support a boycott of this series or any other she writes? Rack her up there with Frank Miller or Greg Land or the late Michael Turner or whoever else is on the hit list this week?

After all, that's how it works, right? Speak out against porn and panty shots. Pressure publishers to get your way. Drive out what you dislike, what you feel might cause harm, so that nobody else can have it. Because Cloak and Dagger might harm free speech. And all this is, in fact, within the bounds of Free Speech. And nobody would feel outrage that something might be taken away from them, because protesting and boycotting isn't really censorship.

Not really.

[Edited/Afterthought: You know, it just occurred to me that Dagger, depending on who's written and drawn her, has sometimes been depicted as a minor, wearing that costume with the dagger cut-out in areas precariously close to the danger zones. And does Cloak ever wear anything besides his cloak?

So you have a possibly naked guy hanging around with a barely-legal (or possibly not legal) teen in a daring, skin-exposing outfit.

So, hmmm.]

Riding My Snowboard Right Down the Slippery Slope

2008-12-18T09:15:00.000-08:00

The issue of gay marriage really isn't my "thing", as far as this blog goes. I believe gays should have the right to get married, but I don't preach about it here. After all, this blog has been a mechanism for insulating me from retaliatory bullcrap from the kinds of people who can't tolerate dissent or uncomfortable ideas. I don't think I'm sexist; I'd rather not have someone going around saying how sexist I am behind my back (on the internet, where you never know whether something is going to fall into the lap of, say, your employer). However, if someone were to spread the word that I supported gay marriage, well, I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where that would have little impact should it come out. So I normally don't have to exercise caution over that issue, and don't shunt it to this blog when I wish to speak about it.

But as will become obvious as I write this, I've had a thought where discretion is probably a good idea, so ta-dah, here it is.

Mad Thinker Scott's been discussing the antics of Mike Huckabee lately, and for the most part, he's been doing a good enough job picking the guy apart that I couldn't add anything meaningful. But watching the clip of Huckabee on the Daily Show reminded me of the continual refrain from many conservative opponents to gay marriage: "Well, if we legalize gay marriage then we'd have to allow all the other wierdos who want to get married! What about polygamists or incest or what if a guy wants to marry a dog???"

This is designed to appeal to the "ick factor" built into most humans, the line that, when crossed, makes one go "eew". It's evident that for those who oppose gay marriage, the idea of a gay relationship itself crosses that line; recognizing that others don't share that view, the tactic is to equate gay marriage with other things that make people go "eew".

This places someone trying to argue for gay marriage in an awkward position of having to scramble to distance gay marriage from all these other nasty things or simply call it a "slippery slope" argument and dismiss it without actually discussing it. That or avoid taking the bait entirely and changing subjects, because who would dare defend all that other nasty stuff?

Well, me. (Albeit anonymously.)

Here's my thesis: who actually gives a fuck into what relationships consenting adults arrange themselves? Polygamy? Well, there's good reasons not to do it, just for the legal and emotional headaches, but as long as everyone in the arrangement is truly willing, why not, and why would anyone care?

Incest? Well, inbreeding isn't smart, but as long as everyone's an adult and there's genuine affection, why should it matter, otherwise?

Okay, I'm not going to defend bestiality. Issues of consent and all that. But any other thing that involves humans of legal age (in other words, things that are not already inherently illegal), I would think there'd really be no reason to forbid marriages among just about any combination you can think of.

Except that "ick factor".

And that's what a lot of things come down to, isn't it? Someone gets a squirmy feeling in their belly just thinkin' about all them queers havin' queer fornications, and praise jaysus we has ta stop this gay marryn' thing raiht naow! It all comes down to people being so repulsed by things that shouldn't actually be any of their damn business that they want to deny those who practice said icky stuff the right to practice that icky stuff, regardless of whether it actually affects anyone else at all. I've said it before: I do not believe that one's personal distaste should become legally binding policy.

Meanwhile, someone sees a superheroine get mistreated in a comic and is disturbed by the position of the character's body on the floor.

Meanwhile, someone reads a comic and sees a picture of a fully-clothed girl sitting on her bed and says, "ew, gross."

Meanwhile, someone else in Iowa opens a box of manga imported from Japan, and gets the same feeling looking at all the cartoon pictures of gay sex and young girls.

Meanwhile, Valerie D'Orazio reads the story of the guy convicted of having Simpsons-based cartoon porn and thinks, "Good, serves him right."

And meanwhile.

And meanwhile.

Why It Fails

2008-12-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

Pornography and Rape: Is There a Connection?

The literature in this area is substantial and growing. A few examples follow:

In a comparative study of rape rates in the USA, Scandinavia, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Court (1984) found a connection between the availability of pornography and the level of rape. He specifically refutes earlier studies that purported to show otherwise, particularly in relation to Australia, where the uniform crime data:
actually support the case for an increase [in rape rates after the liberalisation of pornography] quite convincingly (Court 1984, p. 158).
In the USA, the eight major men's magazines (Chic, Club, Gallery, Genesis, Hustler, Oui, Playboy and Penthouse) have sales that are five times higher per capita in Alaska and Nevada than in other states such as North Dakota--and rape rates that are six times higher per capita in Alaska and Nevada than North Dakota. Overall a fairly strong correlation was found between rape and circulation rates in the fifty states, even with controls for potential confounding variables, such as region, climate, propensity to report rape and police practices (Milne-Home 1991; Baron & Straus 1985 cited in United States Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography 1986, p. 944-5).

--Marlene Goldsmith
Sexual Offenders and Pornography: A Casual Connection?

The above was linked to by Valerie D'Orazio in an attempt to buttress her stance that bad things in the media (specifically porn) cause bad things in real life. It appears in the comments section of that post I linked to last time, and since by that time in the debate people were throwing around (and/or rejecting) references to Wertham and Orwell, I kinda wonder how many actually bothered to read this and other links.

But the problem with the theory behind this document is the same problem with Wertham's reasoning regarding crime comics: Correlation is not cause.

Wertham was convinced that kids were reading crime comics and getting "worked up" by the sex and violence therein to the point where they'd start committing crimes of their own. But anyone even vaguely familiar with genuine scientific methods for establishing facts knows that you do not start out with a conclusion and then work backwards to find the proof. Such an approach taints the process with bias, colors the result. It's easy to "prove" damn near anything that way, but there's no real truth inherent in that process.

Wertham assumed that crime comics were the cause of youthful crime; from that he gathered anecdotal evidence showing that juvenile delinquents of various stripes read crime comics and were corrupted by them. His research (at least what is revealed in his writings), however, ignores or glosses over many other potential causes for the delinquency, such as poor parenting or societal pressures. What's more, it nearly ignores the possibility that he got it backwards: that kids were attracted to crime comics because they were already in a reprobate frame of mind.

To her credit, Goldsmith does give a nod to the "correlation is not cause" idea, and she ends with what she calls theories, without declaring them facts. Still, what she writes appears to be working from a foregone conclusion: porn causes rape.

I've quoted two things above to demonstrate the, frankly, bullshit nature of this reasoning, as well as compare it with Wertham's own writing. For example, here's Wertham's own words, as I've quoted before, from an article he wrote:

Dorothy Thompson recently wrote about comic books: "The harm done is incalculable, even if it results in no overt acts, and even if at last it is overcome by other influences."

What's so wrong with that? Compare it to the quoting of Court by Ms. Goldsmith, above.

This is not evidence of cause and effect.

This is the quoting of someone else who believes in the same thing as those who quote them, but neither quote offers any proof of the actual cause and effect, just a declaration that there is such a link. That's not real truth. That's an attempt at truth by aggregate; "See how many of us believe the same thing? It must be true!" I shouldn't have to tell anyone that a majority opinion is never a failsafe guide to what's right and true.

Not only that, but there's the issue of whether your sources are trustworthy. I don't know who this woman Wertham quoted is, so how do I know her opinion means anything regarding this issue? I never heard of Ms. Goldsmith before now, let alone this "Court" person, so have I any reason to trust their judgment?

You know who can get away with this kind of stuff? The Bible, and Dick Cheney. (That's right: The Bible, whose main evidence for its own truth is itself, and Cheney, who has a history of releasing "facts" about stuff to sympathetic ears, letting them spread the word, and then quoting those self-same ears when someone asks him where he got his data...)

As for the rest: Look, I can see how people make these connections. Kids see crime comics, and they commit crimes! People see porn, and want to commit sex crimes! You see things with similar themes, and think there must be a connection, you assume there is one and work from there. But that's called jumping to conclusions, no matter how supposedly obvious you think the connection is.

So according to Goldsmith, there's increased porn circulation in Alaska and Nevada, and higher incidence of rape as well in those states. She also claims this trend holds even with "controls for potential confounding variables, such as region, climate, propensity to report rape and police practices". Region and climate are variables? What about population density? The percentage of the population who've been convicted of crimes? The fact that both states have Republican Governors? If you framed your quest right, you could make a strong case that Sarah Palin was as responsible for an increased rape rate as the availability of porn.

The truth is, there's so many variables at large that trying to find a "cause" for rape in porn is difficult at best, unless you're willing to give up honest, unbiased fact-finding and just go with your gut. Well, my gut tells me that it's far more likely that a high porn-to-rape rate is a symptom, not the cause: those likely to commit rape are more likely to consume porn, not the other way around.

But that's just my gut, my instinct. I don't know that for a fact, and there is, to my knowledge, no clear unbiased proof that porn causes rape, either. How will we ever know the truth?

I don't know. I don't know of anyone willing to look at the issue from an objective, unbiased position. I don't know who would be willing to abide by such a study if one did occur. Without those things, all we have is theory and emotion, and really, more should be required.

This is why the refrain "if we could save even one person from rape" fails. You can't say for certain that any censorship would save anyone from anything. Certainly nobody claims that eliminating porn would make all rapes cease. Where then is the guarantee that if I just let people take porn out of my reach, X number of women would definitely never be raped? There can be no such guarantee as things stand now, and the guaranteed loss of freedom if porn and other objectionable material is banned is not as yet outweighed by the nebulous "maybe" of rapes that might be prevented.

Gee, Thanks a Lot, MOM.

2008-12-12T00:49:00.001-08:00

The last thing is, I think child porn of any type and brutal sexualized violent material is unhealthy, and kills your soul a little bit every time you see it and get off on it. If you want to indulge in it, and you are not harming anyone, fine -- but I feel it is unhealthy, cancerous. It's not something kind to do for yourself, even if it gives you immediate gratification.

And if we, as a society, can support the right for this type of porn to flourish and be distributed -- we are not separate, without responsibility, off-the-hook. How quaint to say, "I support the right to view drawn child porn, but I hold no responsibility for my fellow man or woman or child who may be psychologically crippled or physically harmed as a result of it."

--Valerie D'Orazio

The question, for me, is even if we only save ONE child from rape or attempted rape, or even just lots of uncomfortable hugs from Creepy Uncle Dave, is that not worth leaving a couple naked bodies out of a comic?

--"Jess", from Neil Gaiman's blog

I once would have thought that, steeped in feminism, which usually rejects the overbearing, patriarchal notion that Daddy Knows Best, some folks would be wary of falling into an overbearing, matriarchal position where Mommy Knows Best.

I find it somewhat amusing to read the Occasional Superheroine blog and see a hesitance to voice certain opinions for fear of the reaction; welcome to my blog, structured so as to remain anonymous while I challenge a few feminist orthodoxies (such as porn causes rape). Or, hell, Scott the Mad Thinker's blog. (His even better, since my readership seems to be minimal at the moment, while he still gets all kinds of criticism for doing the "There's so much rape in comics! No there's not!" back-and-forth again.) Negative reactions? Oh yeah. That goes multiple ways.

So Valerie is all in favor of banning drawn representations of children having sex. And, you know, she's wrong to think that way, but it's her right to have a wrong opinion. And hell, if Neil Gaiman couldn't convince her (like he ultimately convinced "Jess"), if a dogpile of opposing opinions on her own blog doesn't sway her, hey, fine, I won't try to change her mind. Write her off as one of the lost, get on with life.

I do, however, think this viewpoint ought to be opposed. And I could reiterate and regurgitate many of the points raised by so many others in that comments section. I've said most of them in one form or another before, and may again, but this time around, I want to come at the issue from a somewhat different angle.

So to Valerie and those who think like her: Cut it out. You're not my goddamn Mom.

I don't care what your views on drawn child porn are. I don't care what my views on drawn child porn are. What I do care about is that you in effect want to tell me I can't do something over some nebulous worry that it will cause something bad down the road. You'd have a better chance of convincing me of the evils of cigarettes and alcohol, and look how well Prohibition and the War On Drugs worked.

As a responsible adult, I take measured risks every day, as do we all, and just as I wouldn't expect to have my own right to drive a car, drink, smoke, own a gun removed because other people are idiots who are too irresponsible to keep from doing themselves or others an injury, so too do I resent the idea that just because other people are jackasses who can't or won't control their urges, I should have the right to view material that other people dislike taken away from me.

No, I neither need nor enjoy Simpsons porn (blech). That's not the point. Whether or not I choose to indulge in any of this stuff should always be my decision, not yours. And no matter how much you dress it up by referencing the bad acts of others, the end result is that you're looking to take away some of my rights.

Really, what a ~~patronizing~~ matronizing attitude! "Don't run with scissors! You'll put an eye out! And that porn is going to give you soul cancer!"

You don't like it? Fine. Want to protest it? Lovely, be my guest. But if you want to play Mommy, tell me I can't do something (for "your own good", it's always for your own good), and then run to Papa Government to spank me when I go ahead and do it anyway, that's when I tell you to cram it.

If issues of Free Speech fail to convince you, then let's settle on the more basic premise of you not telling me what I can or cannot do.

Especially if you have similar issues about others telling you what you can and can't do.

Far Better Than I Could Ever Say It Myself, From a Man You Should Greatly Respect

2008-12-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES.

There should be no doubt at this point; you have been given the word.

Mary Sues Me for Violating Bechdel's Law

2008-11-28T21:34:00.000-08:00

I'm writing a screenplay. (Actually, no I'm not, but just play along, okay? the magician says as he reveals the trick before the show.)

Mary is a cheerful, athletic woman with only one dream: to play football in the NFL.

She's buff and energetic, but at a distinct disadvantage against some of the huge testosterone factories they breed for the game. Still, she wants to try, wants to give it her all, wants to live the dream.

First she must fight the system that prevents women from playing on men's sporting teams right out of the gate; overcoming that she must deal with the prejudices and sexism from managers, coaches and fellow players. Most of all, for her own dream, she must not only withstand all this but also go out there and play a badass game of football, proving to herself and everyone else that even if she isn't the best, she can be a valuable addition to a team.

Scores the winning touchdown, gains grudging admiration, roll credits.

Whattya think? Could be, from a feminist perpective, powerful and uplifting, hm? And heck, maybe it could attract some non-feminists with the prospect of a sweaty woman hitting the showers. Or maybe the yaoi enthusiasts, if the showers are co-ed.

Anyway. If you're not fond of football (heaven knows I'm not), just plug Mary in to some other male-dominated profession. First woman surgeon, if you want a historical piece, maybe?

No, maybe it's not an entirely original plot, though I've only heard of it in kid/teen/young adult fare, the girl who wants to play sports as an equal with the guys, at least as far as the rougher sports go. (If you have heard of some "woman joins the NFL" movie, feel free to mention it.)

The only problem with this premise, from a feminist standpoint, is that it doesn't live up to Bechdel's Rule. Or rather, it could, but doing so would be incidental to the purpose of the story. After all, the focus is on Mary and the people she finds in the NFL, which one assumes will be a mostly male group. So right there, it's quite possible that the very first part of the rule is broken: At Least Two Women. You could shoehorn Mary's friends or members of her family in there, or introduce some woman character in the managerial staff as a foil, but that has nothing to do with the main plot, it's just window dressing.

The other parts of the rule, Who Talk To Each Other About Something Besides a Man, would likewise be superfluous to advancing the story, and particularly difficult, if Mary's trying to unload her frustrations over male behavior during her quest.

There's been quite a bit of citing Bechdel's Rule over time, but it's worth keeping in mind that many rules such as this one have their flaws, and it's probably not a good idea to treat them as absolutes. (Hint: do you call it Bechdel's Rule, or Bechdel's Law?) Not only does one have to reject Mary's story if you strictly adhere to the rule, but how does it work in a practical sense? In the original strip, the rule is presented as the only conditions under which a movie is watched: how do you know beforehand whether the movie complies with the rule? Do you send in people with lesser standards to vet the movie for you? Or does it all boil down to some sort of binary pass/fail judgment after the fact?

You know what it reminds me of? There's a stereotype about men and women watching movies that's common enough that it crops up in commercials and popular media a lot these days. You know the one, where a couple has gone to see some movie the woman is really interested in, and the movie turns out to be some overwrought "chick flick" with drama and romance and tears (for bonus points, make it a foreign art film), while the guy is bored out of his mind, wishing he was watching something with a greater quantity of naked breasts and explosions.

It's actually a form of prejudice, taken at face value. Certainly if you're determined to only watch movies that live up to a predetermined set of guidelines so that you're never ever annoyed by your entertainment choices, hey, that's your call. But in the end, Bechdel's Rule serves only the concern of feminism or female empathy with female characters, it says nothing about the quality of the story itself.

In a similar vein, I'm getting pretty tired of hearing "Mary Sue" being used by people critiquing various media.

Look, there's only a few instances where I think that phrase is an appropriate way to critique something: One, if you're discussing fan-based works, and two, if you're a submissions editor.

The term, after all, originated in fanfic and fans who submitted ideas to the owners of popular franchises. "Mary Sue was so perfect and wonderful that both Spock and Kirk fell in love with her and argued about who would escort her to the Starfleet Cotillion", or whatever. Fans who wanted to bend existing characters to their will, make them submit to whatever fetishes they harbor, by providing an extraordinary foil as a catalyst.

Which may be interesting to the fanfic writer and whoever shares their particular kink, but is usually pointless and boring to everyone else. Not to mention that Paramount (or whoever owns whichever franchise is being fanfic'ed) isn't likely to embrace these creations. The label does have its uses.

But lately I'm seeing "Mary Sue" applied to a very wide variety of things, many of which are sanctioned by the owners of whatever franchise is being used, or even fully original works made by a single creator. And the variety of offenses qualifying as "Mary Sue" has expanded as well, to encompass not only that which plays to fannish wish-fulfillment but characters that simply display a lot of extraordinary qualities.

And that's silly. It's doubly silly when applied to superheroes, which are by definition extraordinary. And like Bechdel's Rule, the standards are too often applied as a prejudicial checklist with little regard for the quality of a story.

After all, Superman is the quintessential example of the Mary Sue character, nearly unbeatable for much of his fictional career, with token achilles' heels to offset the fact that he can move planets. But the things that some would call him a "Mary Sue" over do not prevent writers from making interesting stories with the character, even if it is a bit more difficult and challenging to provide meaningful conflict.

And if "armchair psychiatry" is considered a faux pas, then the charges of "Mary Sue" that imply the author is inserting their own self into a story must rely on the critic sinking deep into that overstuffed La-Z-Boy; how can one know these things unless the author confesses?

What I would like to impress upon anyone who bothers to read this far is that personal dislike is not, in and of itself, effective critique. I suspect too many lean on rules and labels, not as general guidelines, but as crutches to avoid the hard work of serious thought regarding the substance of what they read or watch.

Yaoi Told You So

2008-11-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

So.

Neil Gaiman comments on the recent obscenity case from Iowa, and it turns out there's not only lolicon involved, but yaoi as well.

Remember me telling you that this case could have broader implications than "ew, he's a perv that likes little girls"?

Well now it does.

I will be really interested to see how yaoi fans choke down this conflict between having their own fetish on trial for obscenity with any distaste they feel for lolicon material.

Warning: You Might Not Be a "Mature Reader".

2008-10-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

Multiple things today, if anyone's still out there:

MATURE READERS

An addendum to my last post on the "torture porn/people should be making decent comics" subject: Greg Burgas performs the not-unexpected trick of saying he doesn't want "to go all 'Won’t someone think of the children?' here" and then tacking the reverse-flip BUT into the routine and complaining that there's no "mature readers" label on Nightwing #146.

Well fine, but that right there shows where someone's attitude is towards the medium and its maturity. Because if you walk into a Barnes and Noble and look at the many books there, in only the most extreme cases is a book ever labeled "mature readers". (In point of fact, I can't think of ever seeing anything like that. Usually a book with explicit visual imagery is shrink-wrapped to prevent curious little fingers from browsing for naughty bits, and I don't know of any text-only paperback that's screened in any way to prevent someone from reading some lurid romance sex scene or sci-fi ultraviolence.)

It's books for children and for "young adults" that are singled out and put in their own ghettos; the mark of Cain goes on those books, not on even the most salacious pulp-style paperbacks. To call for any comic to carry a "mature readers" label is to acknowledge that on a fundamental level that you think the medium as a whole is intended for kids; that you do not consider comics a mature medium at all.

Just so's you know.

IMMATURE YAOI READERS

Can I just say how much I enjoy hearing about this story, that a gay guy was upset by the blatant objectification going on at some yaoi-oriented convention? Because I will say it, anyway. One of the things I like about it is that those defending the con and its activities are using many of the same defenses used against charges of sexism and misogyny brought by some feminist fangirls. The only real difference is that yaoi is pretty straightforward about being by women and for women; mainstream superhero comics are ostensibly for both genders.

I'd be more sympathetic to the idea that a genre that says it should be accessible to either gender should tone back some of its excesses if it weren't for the fact that anyone with a shred of awareness greater than that of a fruit fly should well know that in practice, superhero comics are made mainly by men and for men.

All that aside: ha ha, female fans are just as warped and pervy as male fans when given their own playground.

READERS OF IMMATURITY

It just keeps piling up, doesn't it? Now some guy in Iowa is on the hook for obscenity, related to comics imported from Japan. Already the assumption is that the material that sparked the investigation was of the dread "lolicon" variety, but as pointed out elsewhere, it's been established that laws designed to equate drawn child porn with real child porn are unconstitutional, so all they can do is charge the guy with "obscenity". (Which puts the USA up one over the UK, at least.)

In the comments section of that last link, an interesting point is implied: that what the prosecutors really want to do is bust the guy for possessing drawn kiddy porn, but they can't directly, so they're continuing on with something they think can stick instead.

I'd be willing to believe that theory, having stumbled upon the Adult Swim Message Board and this particular topic, featuring a few thoughtful opinions, as well as a few examples of genetic brain disease rearing its bulbous, hydrocephalic head. I mean, there's one guy intoning darkly about how there's "got to be more to this", which is, I'm inferring, shorthand for "I just KNOW this guy has got real child porn and is probably molesting real children right now based on the fact that he has lolicon manga". Sadly for his deductive reasoning, it's quite correctly pointed out that if there were other more serious charges that could be brought, they'd already be brought.

The other drooling retard likes to go on about how society has a right to excise bad elements from itself, which is a great theory, but is too often a justification for a small but loud minority to impose their will over the true majority. Not to mention that "weeding out the undesireables" is the same kind of rationale that leads to things like, oh I dunno, institutionalized racism.

Now, you may be reading this (or maybe not, with the way WFA's been... should I start linking to Journalista?) and rolling your eyes, thinking "well, there he goes defending child molesters again". But let me suggest to you that whatever you think of lolita manga, you should be very concerned about how this case turns out.

Because, since it's about obscenity, not necessarily child porn, it doesn't have to stop here. For instance, what about yaoi? Remember, you may exist in a tolerant Internet world where two idealized gay guys can happily fornicate on your screen, but do you think it's so beyond the realm of possibility that some hick postal worker from Iowa would react just as negatively to visual sodomy featuring two guys (and let's face it, some of those subjects don't always look particularly ancient, either) as they have to lolita porn? Even if you consider the latter worse than the former, you have to be aware that others see it all as filth, beyond the pale. Let them cross one line, and all you get is that they're that much closer to the next line. And the next line may be "torture porn".

That'd solve the issue, wouldn't it? You wouldn't need to put a "mature readers" label on it, because it wouldn't be allowed to exist.

Wouldn't that just make the medium healthy, mature and respected?

ADDITIONAL: Adding this link to Tom Spurgeon's comment on the matter, to which I want to say, right on, or "motto", like the LJ kids do it.

I Loves Me Some Torture Porn!

2008-10-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. Not like that.

So via Journalista, I've learned that Nightwing #146 (There's been that many issues of Nightwing? Dang) is a depraved cesspool of "torture porn", featuring the death, both illusory and real (as real as anything in a comic is, of course) of some woman character Nightwing was trying to protect. Don't read the title, don't really care. However, the ancillary discussion brings back the old canard about comics and how they should grow up, and by grow up, (some) people mean become more mature, more meaningful (as opposed to sexy and violent, goshdurnit), and not only that, comics fans should learn to discern quality from crap (goshdurnit!), and stop telling everyone else they really thought Infinite Fanboy Bloodorgy #666 was right up there on a par with Gravity's Rainbow.

It occurs to me that those who critique comics and bemoan the lack of maturity in modern superhero comics are looking at this thing completely ass-backwards.

What a lot of folks seem to be doing is setting a high bar, expecting certain standards of literary quality to be delivered to them, and then bitching and moaning whenever what is thrust into their mitts does not meet that standard. Whatever it is.

But if you picked up Nightwing #146 expecting something more profound than "Nightwing beats the bad guy" or "Nightwing fails to beat the bad guy", if you weren't prepared for "torture porn", I contend that you are quite probably a fool.

Seriously.

For one thing, this measuring current comics by the standards of 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s comics and so forth, comparing them to the innocent, pure days of yore, it's just nostalgia. It's your dad or grandpa grumbling "why, back in my day the heroes were heroes!" Superhero comics have this kind of shock content in them now. Deal with the present, for good or ill. This mumming of outrage at each new desecration of your childhood is passé, don't you know this is how comics are by now?

Also: Thomas Pynchon was reviewed for the Pulitzer Prize; the people considering the novel probably were never within fifty yards of whatever the current Mack Bolan book at the time was, let alone cracked it open, let alone entertained the slightest notion of voting for some Destroyer book to win the Pulitzer, not that it would ever have been nominated except maybe as someone's joke. "Very funny, Jim, now let's get to the real nominations."

Greater literary expectations brings a certain amount of filtering to it; dropping pulp and schlock and things below a certain benchmark from the radar entirely.

If you're going to be elitist, be god-damned elitist. Serious art-film critics don't even bother with the question of whether American Pie 8 lives up to the potential of the artform; it is beneath their notice.

Look: there have been serious, artful, friggin' deep, oblique comics around for quite a while now, so maybe there's not as many as some people would like, but they're there. But if you're worried that the medium of comics isn't going to be taken seriously because of all the juvenile blood and boobs, I counter with: how can the medium be taken seriously when supposedly serious people are inflicting themselves with this stuff and then bawling about it? When Mr. Serious Art Critic dignifies the crap by responding to it, instead of just chucking it in the trash? Yeah, the Lester Bangs-inspired review style of snarking That Which Does Not Measure Up apart into its component particles is soul-satisfying, and even fun to read for others (up until the point the reviewer begins to run out of clever new ways to snark the same ol' crap and descends into spiteful unintended self-parody), but what that in no way does is suggest to the reader that These Comics, Hmm, There's Some Potential For Great Works There, no, all it says is Here's Some Guy Bitchin' About Crap.

Other media are NOT repeat NOT deemed "mature" or "worthwhile" on the basis of whether the mass of it measures up to some rarefied ideal. Pick any other supposedly mature media you like: is it not as a whole dominated by crap? Does not Sturgeon's Law apply to any and all? And is not crap consumed in great quantities by the public at large, regardless? The difference is that if I'm getting opinions from some source with a supposedly more highbrow bent like, say, NPR musical reviews on the radio, I can be pretty sure I'm not going to hear a soft but intent voice whining about how Paris Hilton's album is some form of Pop Leprosy, even if it is.

Here's how, for example, Greg Burgas' review of Nightwing #146 should have gone, if the true purpose and intent of his column's POV is that "comics should be good":

VERSION 1: [Actually, you never know that he ever got a copy of the book, because he tosses it away upon seeing the splash page and types not a single character regarding it.]

VERSION 2: This is dreadful and I'm throwing it in the trash.

EASY.

The Words We Use Are Strong, They Make Reality

2008-10-08T02:25:00.000-07:00

(I may be showing some age by the titles of this and the last post, but heck.)

I'm not going to link to it, because I found it by accident, and it's old, and I don't want to dredge up something from someone's archives and fling it through the WFA mill (though that's been pretty moribund lately). What I saw does bear thinking about, however.

Looking on Google Images for something completely unrelated to anything I talk about in this blog, I happened on an old-timey advertising image, and followed it to its page, which turned out to be the blog of someone who's previously been linked to on WFA and/or Journalista for their comics commentary. The image was, as I recall, from the 1940s, or thereabouts, and featured a pair of young girls in their underwear in their bedroom (so I guessed from the minimal background), possibly in the process of changing clothes. One girl was entirely topless.

The blogger described the scene as being innocuous when it was published, but "creepy" today.

Now, think about that for a minute.

What's changed?

In 1940-something nobody would have thought twice about the image, but now in the Naughties people go, "ohhh, how creeeepy"? Why? Has the intent of the illustrator somehow changed in all this time? Do we now understand that the artist was some sort of pervo, lusting after prepubescent girls in their underthings?

Is it that we think there's more pedophilia lurking in the hearts of citizens now than there was sixty-odd years ago?

Or is it that we, as a people, are today just freaking obsessed with pedophilia and have some burning need to point out any instance of children being depicted as anything less than fully-~~armored~~ clothed?

The blogger obviously thought something was wrong, but how did they come to that conclusion? Were they themselves a pedophile, and reacted to hidden lusts within them to understand that yes, the ad was pimping children to people's taboo desires?

See, nowadays people know how pedophiles think, so they know what will "trip their triggers", so they know when something is "creepy" even when it was harmless for decades.

While I'm at it: Man, if I were Supreme Ruler of all the universe I would institute a ten-year ban on the word "creepy" for those who discuss/review mass media. It falls out of peoples mouths/keyboards far too readily, a pre-fab label for people who don't like something but can't be bothered to truly dissect and understand what it is that makes them feel bad. "I read that one issue of Power Pack, and you know, creeeeeepeeee."

I hereby decree that using the word "creepy" makes you fail and diminishes the validity of anything you write. In fact, I'll go further and say that if your main criticism of any work is that it makes you feel uncomfortable in some way, but you are unwilling or unable to analyze those feelings of yours in detail, then that's extra fail and just don't talk to me.

Or maybe I'm just not in tune with modern hyperbole. Yes, I'm going to dredge up something I've discussed twice before, so you know it must be annoying me still, on some level, but when someone calls a picture "gross" these days, do they really understand the word, are they using it in proper context, or are they just looking for maximum snark value? When in the same comments section someone mentions images that make their "stomach turn" (you'll have to go back a couple posts and follow links to see what I'm referencing; today I'm too lazy to hyperlink), are they really describing a true physical reaction (in which case, how sensitive is that?) or are they just trying to emphasize their distaste so you know how tsk-tsk appalled and disapproving they are?

I dunno. I just wish there was a better, more reasoned sense of proportion out there, you know?

Wake Up! It's 1984

2008-09-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well.

No sooner had I put my last post up, than I heard that a UK man has been convicted of possessing child porn, in the form of computer-generated "Tomb-Raider-like" images. (Found via ¡Journalista! and Icarus Pub NSFW.)

Let's be clear about what's going on here.

No actual children were involved. So you can't really say this case protects children, unless you want to tread close to some kind of prior restraint-style protecting; that is, protecting children against what you think someone might do.

One person in the linked article says faked child porn "feeds the demand". That, however, is remarkably stupid. Of course pedophiles will try to create material that appeals to them. With the advances of technology, they may be able to create more-and-more realistic images without involving real children, but what do you think is really going to happen if you deny people those tools or the images they create? I fear that if fake child porn is aggressively pursued, it will just mean a resurgence in real child porn. What's the difference, if the penalties are the same either way?

So you can't say this guy was actually molesting real children, and attacking it as somehow supplying the need of pedophiles is short-sighted and moronic. What you're left with, then, is convicting this guy on the basis of his alleged fantasies. His thoughts upon seeing these images.

And I know what some of you may be thinking: "Well, he's just some pedo, he doesn't deserve the same rights as the rest of us." Which, if you really did think that, only makes my point for me. The accused denies interest in child porn. (And who wouldn't?) We can't truly know another's mind, so you have to assume the suspicions are true and then decide that simply having taboo thoughts or fantasies is by itself worthy of criminal conviction. This is, as George Orwell once put it, thoughtcrime.

Parents should begin stitching up those burqas.

Moelita (Torches and Pitchforks Ahoy, part 856)

2008-09-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the McMartin Preschool abuse trials? I do. In fact, I bet a lot of folks recognize it when it's mentioned, though I bet fewer actually know how it turned out.

It was, at the time, quite the sensational scandal. Our Kids! Being Abused by Teachers! Satanic Rituals! How Could This Be Happening Under Our Very Noses???

Only, turns out it wasn't, at least not in any way anyone could prove. I will bet you dollars to dunkin' donuts that you, Dear Reader, if you recognized the name of the incident, had a brief inner monologue that went something like "oh, yeah, that thing where the people molested those kids", which is the kind of response I've heard about 90% of the time I've ever mentioned it to anyone else post-1990 (which, to be fair, isn't really all that much, it doesn't really come up in conversation easily).

People tend to remember the accusation, remember the media storm, the public outrage, the assumption of guilt, but few, if any, recall that ultimately all charges were either dropped or the defendants acquitted. Not to say that everyone believed no abuse at all took place, but that there simply wasn't enough evidence to support those accusations.

Was there really abuse or not? A bit of Occam's Razor applied here would seem to tilt probability in the favor of there being no abuse at all, if we cannot truly know the entire truth of what went on. For what is more likely: that the McMartins were fiendishly clever abusers that could conceal mass abuses enough to avoid conviction over several years of prosecution and testimonies, or that the accusations were either overhyped overreactions or even in some cases, blatant forgeries?

It was, I think, the beginning of the wave of Child Abuse Paranoia, the turning point where life began to be filtered through the assumption that Everyone Wants to Rape Your Child (or You, if you are a child). And while it seemed that (if you watched the news, at least) the country was simply awash in horrible tales of child abuse and murder, it's difficult to say with any certainty what really increased: the instances of abuse, or its being reported on the news.

Now, push that jerking knee back down, I'm certainly not saying there haven't ever been just dreadful instances of child abuse, or that the media attention hasn't helped produce great strides in protecting children. I would, however, suggest that some of it treads into some pretty hysterical territory.

Skorts, for instance. Not that I have anything against them in particular, but I remember the first time I saw one hanging on the rack at some store, and I mentioned it to the person I was with, in a "what the heck is that?" manner, and was introduced to The Skort, which apparently had been around for a couple of years without me noticing.

"If you're wearing a skirt, why do you need to also wear shorts?" I asked, thinking it was all simply some sort of fashion trend, and even as the other person fumbled for some answer, I realized it was to keep people from seeing young girls' panties if a skirt should flip up. Who would care about seeing that? Why, pedophiles, of course! I mean, really, they ought to just call it PedoShield™, though "skort" probably charts better in marketing studies.

In a similar vein, I happened to be looking through an old department store catalog from the early '80s, and saw, in the clothing pages, a section featuring girls' underwear being worn by teen and pre-teen girls. My first thought, upon, seeing the images, was "well, I bet they aren't doing that anymore!" And sure enough, the next time I was in a department store I quickly ruffled through one of their more-recent catalogs: if girl's underwear was featured at all, it was pictured as laid flat on a table, certainly you wouldn't want to show how it looks on an actual girl, for fear that some pedophile somewhere might also see it and, you know, like it.

Look, this isn't the fall of Western Civilization or anything, but there's a thousand little things like this that have crept in over the last couple of decades that show just how utterly worried sick the general public is about the relentless tide of Pedobear's over 9000 penises. And the unutterably vast majority of it all is predicated on the one notion that, should a pedophile see something that appeals to his/her pedophiliac tendencies, they will be compelled to immediately assault a child.

It's as simple as that. "Look there! That girl tripped and fell, and her panties are showing under her skirt! Let the raping begin!" That's EXACTLY what people fear when they get worked up about this stuff. And, frankly, I think that reasoning falls on the wrong side of the stupid line.

Which is why, when I see well-reasoned statements like the following, it warms the black, moldy cockles of my heart:

And for moe that can be interpreted by its readership as sexual? That’s like calling something slashable, and as we all know, everything is slashable.

[...]Making broad statements about a culture that produces a particular type of popular niche media is a very, very dangerous game to play. And saying all media aimed at men has to be somehow sexual? Why, because men only care about sex? That’s pretty much the most unfair thing I’ve ever heard.

[...]Why do some critics think a girl niche genre is okay but a boy niche genre isn’t? A lot of this reeks of misandry, and that ain’t feminism, I tell you what.

--Lianne Sentar

There’s an ugly, holier-than-thou trend going around these days, especially among teen girls, that compel them to post PEDO in all caps every time they see a character in a short skirt (even when they don’t seem to mind shota-esque yaoi). I think too many people are trained to be easily offended, and the Web especially encourages their habit of knee-jerk judgmentalism.

--Jape

The argument may be made that the mere existence of lolicon art is a violation of basic human rights in principle, but if that argument is made, the same argument must also apply to fictional depictions of violence against human beings that occur in television programs, movies, video games, theatrical drama, and prose fiction. Common sense has to apply in order for the conventions of society to function.

[...]At its most simplistic level, this argument is valid when conjoined with an absence of social conditioning and rational intelligence. In effect, the argument against lolicon only works if common sense is set aside. And if the argument against fictional depictions of child sexuality are applied, the same principles must also be applied to all art, sports, politics, and religion - concepts which all have a potential to desensitize and influence behavior.

[...]If a large number of people observed lolicon material then transformed into vicious sexual abusers, I would have to concede that lolicon is dangerous material with a harmful influence. However, that has never happened, and, I believe, never will happen. So I consider lolicon material no more “wrong” to enjoy than, say, a tall glass of beer - which also has a potential to influence behavior and is also restricted to consumption by only rational, responsible adults.

--John from AnimeNation

Let me just say, amen to all that. It does me good to hear that there's people out there who actually have two sticks of common sense to rub together in order to make a fire of enlightenment, because (before my metaphors get any more ridiculous) there's days when it all seems to be along these lines:

I want you to know: sexualizing underaged kids is wrong. I have personally suffered because of it. An older family member, one who I trusted and loved dearly, decided that his boner was more important than my well-being and sexually abused me. His temporary sexual pleasure was more important than my psychological health.

Open your mind for a minute. You dislike the eeebil feminists because they don't give you sexual favors, which you see as a god-given right. I am apprehensive about boys like you (because you are not worthy of being called a man) because I have been FUCKING RAPED.

If there were any justice in this world, you would be tied to a post by the docks and used as nothing but a squirming human jizzjar.

--Some Dumbass

Well lets see, you’ve now for the second time accused me of saying lolicon is harmful which I’ve repeatedly denied. You’ve also told me “what I must think”. So yeah, I’d say you’re straw-manning.

Your assertion is flawed. Lolicon is not simply “depictions of immoral acts”. I have no problem with pedophilia or even child molestation being depicted. However, lolicon goes way farther than that. It panders to that “immoral act”. (That’s your choice of words here by the way, not mine). When someone watches violent anime, it is not because they want to go around killing people but can’t in real life.

I do not have a problem with the depiction of immoral acts. (obvious)

I have a problem with people indulging in something that panders to their desire to perform a despicable act.
--ikillchicken

So what's wrong with these bits, you may ask?

Let's start with the former comment, left on one of my own, earlier posts. I've wondered for a while whether this was a serious post or a troll; for now, we'll assume it's a genuine statement and the person really is that stupid.

Because it is, really, it's a pretty stupid thing to say, on many levels. Right off the bat there's the equating of drawn fantasy images with someone actually physically raping a real person. It's capped off with a wish that I endure the poster's graphic yaoi fantasy for the crime of defending the right of people to draw what they want and for others to see it, if they want. Assuming this isn't a troll, it'd have to be a mind with little sense of proportion, a very off-balanced perspective on "justice".

But that, although moronic, is at least an open and more-or-less honest viewpoint - they hate my opinion and hope I meet a bad end for expressing it. It's the vacillation of "ikillchicken" that really rubs me wrong as he/she continually protests that lolita-themed manga isn't bad while at the same time stating it's bad for people to read it. (This is ludicrous just on the face of it; extended logically it would mean that people could create and publish stacks of lolita manga without any sense of wrongdoing but that they'd have to be crated up and sunk to the bottom of the ocean to keep them out of the hands of readers.)

The dichotomy of those people who don't want to seem like censors or prudes but at the same time want to tell everybody how much of a sin it is to do certain things, well, that's bound to be fertile growth medium for years of therapy down the line.

It's been a couple decades since the McMartin case began, and that's enough time for kids to be born and grow to young adulthood in a world where it is drilled into their heads repeatedly that THE RAPIST IS GONNA GET 'EM and under these conditions, it isn't too surprising that, as Jape suggests, we've produced a generation that not only resists taboo sexuality, but a lot of other sexuality as well, as well as reacting to the slightest hint of sexuality or things that could possibly maybe by someone else be considered a little sexy.

This would explain why you have people calling a picture of a little girl that features no nudity, no lascivious posing, no overt sexuality in the least... "gross". Because that person seems to think someone, somewhere will find it sexy, thinks that the artist made it that way to appeal to perverts.

That person is a dumbass. I'm sorry that there's no politer way to put that, but sometimes you just gotta stand up and say, "hey, you got a wrong thought in your head, there, and you're an adult, you should know better than that".

I have yet to hear any argument against lolita manga or other similar (let me stress, fictional) works that doesn't turn on some unprovable assumption. Many of same people who will agree with the premise that Grand Theft Auto isn't really going to make a whole lot of people go out and murder people for their cars for real somehow can't accept that a lolita comic, by and large, isn't going to make someone rape a child. Certainly those who argue against lolita imagery have a whole rash of reasons why that is an exception to the "media does not control peoples' actions" rule, and I defy anyone to prove how any of those reasons make a lick of sense.

Ikillchicken's series of statements seems to revolve around the idea that one shouldn't "pander" to one's base fantasies, on the assumption that lolita material in comics appeals to pedophiliac desires. Somehow it's implied that this is different than pandering to violent urges with videogames and movies, that pedophiles want to rape children while most people don't want to kill other people.

But this line of reasoning only works (as far as it goes) if you assume those things to be true; that pedophiles do want to rape children, and that those who play violent video games don't want to hurt people. And even assuming that, you have to play kind of loose with the definition of "want".

I believe that anyone who says they've never wished to hurt or kill anyone else in their life, not even a little, deep down, is probably deluding themselves. I can't imagine a human being that has never been enraged by another at some point in their life, that has never once had a fantasy bubbling around inside them where they take vengeance out on whoever did them wrong. But the fact that most of us successfully keep these urges in the realm of fantasy and never act them out in real life does not mean that we don't want these things on some level; we just want other things more, like preserving our empathy to our fellow humans, or not going to jail.

It seems obvious to me, although apparently not to others, that "child molester" and "pedophile" are not necessarily the same thing, that what differentiates the two is carrying out the act in real life. You could be the latter without ever being the former, just as you could be homosexual but never have sex with a man.

To imply that pedophilia is somehow a more potent desire, more inevitably bound to cross over into real life, well, there's no real way to know that, is there? It's an assumption based on personal revulsion, no basis in reality.

Plus there's the chicken-or-egg factor to it: does material that "panders" to a base desire trigger an urge to commit an act, or is it (I feel, more likely) that such material is sought as an alternative to indulging such base desires in real life, until such time as a person loses their self-control?

Whichever: ikillchicken offers no basis for these statements, and little in the way of consequences (that is: so what if someone reads something that appeals to their pedophiliac desires? What does ikillchicken think's gonna happen if they do?), or even an explanation of why it's bad. At best it's spouting off generalities and implications, at worst it's more of the same knee-jerk i-hate-it-and-therefore-it-must-be-bad rationale that drives most would-be censors.

We're at that point now, in this post-McMartin world, where people are not only attacking expicitly sexual "lolita" comics, but anything that can be slightly construed to be appealing to pedophiles. Are we heading for a world where all persons under 18 must be dressed in a burqa to keep them safe from the eyes of perverts?

Moebye...

Diana's Costume, On or Off

2008-09-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

And really ultimately gets to the bottom of my irritation of people who continue to insist that Wonder Woman needs a different costume to be taken seriously.

Okay, granted, she's in what amounts to being a slightly armored (depending on the artist) bathing suit. That's remarkably ridiculous! No one's going to take a woman fighting crime in a bathing suit seriously!

--Kalinara

It's not quite the same argument, it seems, but this reminds me much of my posts in the past regarding Wonder Woman's costume, and complaints of the character being sexualized (such as on the Playboy cover).

(The Internet is a marvelous tool for conflating different points of view; if anyone out there was reading Kalinara's post and thinking, "yeah, that's just the kind of attitude that Uh Noon Uh Moose guy had a while ago, the sexist hog", let me correct you with a sharp nun-style rap to the knuckles with a standard Catholic-issue wooden ruler.)

I'm assuming Kalinara's reaction is aimed mostly at movie speculators wondering what form Wonder Woman's costume would take in a movie, but it's another one of those little parallels that I find so interesting: When Kalinara argues for the use of the iconic costume (essentially, with a few minor modifications), she cites athletic clothing for its ease of movement and lack of armor. When Nenena argued that Wonder Woman shouldn't be viewed in a sexual manner, she also cited athletic apparel as a "uniform" with a non-sexual "message". (As I said then, intended messages can differ greatly from perceived messages: muslim clerics agree!)

Let me tell you, in case anyone had any doubt at all: If a Wonder Woman movie were to be made that closely resembled that fan-made movie poster, almost immediately there'd be eroticization galore. Because, really, that poster? Pretty hot, in the same vein as Xena Warrior Princess.

Which isn't to say I wouldn't take WW seriously in such an outfit; in the comics her costume isn't all that more outlandish than any other superhero in comics, and these things can be translated well to movies, as shown in said poster. But I'd also find it sexy in an unashamedly objectifying way.

Yes, I can do both. I contain multitudes.

Edumacashun

2008-09-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

So I was listening to the radio, and caught a bit of an interview with Stanley Fish, who's written a book called Save The World On Your Own Time, the premise of which appears to be that colleges and universities should focus on teaching how to critically analyze material and abstain from attempting to instill "moral character" in students.

The Fox News crowd has an argument that dovetails with this; that higher learning institutions are infested with radical liberals that are indoctrinating Your Kids to become flag-burning atheist gay-marrying abortionists or worse.

While I'm not as hysterical over it as the right, I think it's actually a valid claim. Fish himself seems to be fairly liberal, so it's interesting to hear him voice similar concerns (in what I think is a far more rational manner).

You may or may not agree. But if it's true that universities and the teachers that staff them are attempting to mold the moral and political shape of their students rather than simply giving them the tools to think critically (in a truly academic sense), it has some interesting implications for other things.

It got me thinking about some discourse by and about fangirl feminists. Much of the terminology (as well as the writing style of many bloggers) has an academic taste to it: "patriarchy", "privilege", "I'm not here to teach you Feminism 101"; there's a lot of terms used in these discussions that I, personally, have never heard used in common parlance, at least not in the way they're used in feminist discussions. And there's a good many of them that come off sounding young-ish, if not in writing style, then in the inflexible self-assuredness that comes from being young and knowing that your opinion about everything in the goddamn world is the one right and true opinion.

I don't really have an issue over it being right or wrong, but it makes me curious enough that I wish I could insta-poll the blogosphere and find out how the fangirls skew in age and education. A more esoteric poll would seek to find out where the roots of their feminist awareness lie; whether they came to certain conclusions on their own and did their own searching and analysis apart from academia, or whether it was spoon-fed to them by some professor with a mission. Certainly academia seems to have bled into the discussion regardless of the route taken.

If there is any fault in framing feminism in academic language, it's that the basic concepts ("Feminism 101", if you will) can be difficult to convey to those not familiar with the jargon, limiting the message's effectiveness if one insists on speaking in an academic manner.

In fact, the phrase "I'm not here to teach you Feminism 101" itself comes across (to me, at least) as somewhat condescending: you are not worthy of conversation unless you already understand (and stipulate to) certain core concepts. This bypasses any question as to whether the core concepts themselves are flawed; but aside from that, it's an odd sentiment coming from people that (you'd think) have a vested interest in communicating with (and convincing) other people.

Sure, if you only want to discuss things with other like-minded people, so as to reassure yourselves that your positions are flawless and beyond critique, you can take that route. Anyone who wants to spread their wisdom to others and have it not simply roll off like water on a duck's back should (I think) be very prepared to teach Feminism 101, or ANYism 101, for that matter. Everything is new to someone once, and maybe it's not your job to teach them, but who will teach them, if not you...?

Nothing You Know is Wrong!

2008-09-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

...maybe.

We hold these truths to be self-evident...
--The Declaration of Independence

There are certain points of assumption that one must make in order to understand the reasoning behind women-centric feminist blogs and groups.
--S.D.

Over on Mad Thinker Scott's page, the discussion over Mickle ("shut up, asshats") and her call for privileged males to maybe not talk so much rambles on far beyond my own expectations. Since "S.D." apparantly has judged my opinions not fit for continued discussion, I'll leave the meat of it to her(?) and Scott; however, I do want to point out something relevant to the quote above.

Starting out with an assumption, with (if you will) a "self-evident truth" is, quite often, starting out with an article of faith. Very few things are actually true, in a self-evident fashion.

Even the Declaration of Independence, though inspirational and stirring, features statements that aren't really factual truths so much as they are philosophical talking points.

"All men are created equal"? Well, leaving aside the issue of how you define "men" (as males? or all of humanity? do races factor in?), we are not all created equal if for no other reason than simple accidents of genetics makes that impossible. A man born blind is not the same as a sighted man; people differ in height and weight and relative intelligence. You may be too short to ride the coaster. People are inherently not equal to each other (and thank goodness, otherwise it'd be pretty dull). This may not be fair, but that's the way it is.

"Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"? Right there, you have to take as a given that there is a "creator", and whether that's a diety such as Yahweh or some anthropomorphicized view of Nature as all-encompassing system manager, that's still an issue of faith, believing in the truth of something without any real evidence.

As for "unalienable rights", there's no such thing, except as large bodies of humanity gather together and agree that there is such a thing. If you doubt me, think about it: what right do you think you have that could not, if an authoritarian state came to power (jokes about the current Administration notwithstanding), be easily taken away with guns and dogs? Right to Free Speech? Right to Equal Treatment? These are all legal constructs, a social contract we all (more or less) agree to abide by. There is nothing inherent in the human condition that automatically grants them.

We agree to these things because (most of us) want people to have the right to their own life and their own freedom, and even the pursuit of happiness. Many of us will fight in some way to preserve (or attain) rights that are important to us. Even then, we allow for exceptions, otherwise, how could we imprision criminals or even execute them?

Deconstructing something that people take for granted like the Declaration of Independence should demonstrate a couple things:

One, that people do take some assumptions for granted, and the most basic assumption of all is that Nothing You Know Is Wrong, that everything you think is right and true is just that, right and true;

and Two, assumptions are Not Truth. An assumption you make might turn out to be true, or perhaps not, but it is not in and of itself a fact.

So when someone begins a statement with "we start with this assumption", my skepticism turns up a notch. Many times such a statement intends to shunt aside debate over very fundamental differences of opinion.

If I were to debate sexual ethics, and open by saying "we must assume that homosexuality is inherently immoral", I would essentially be saying "it just is wrong, and I don't want to hear any argument over it". That's not really a truly open debate, is it? It's stacking the deck.

It's a somewhat more clever version of the question "Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?"

Feminism (fangirl or otherwise) certainly isn't the only sociopolitical viewpoint to carry its own articles of faith around as assumptions. I have my own. Everyone does, to some extent. But it behooves all of us who claim to be thoughtful, introspective people to try and recognize our assumptions when they're brought out, and acknowledge them for what they are.

Just Don't Care

2008-08-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

I don't find your questions difficult to answer because I believe there is a very, very clear line between objectification and sexuality. I can't see how this line can possibly be so blurry to some. Objectification shows a lack of respect while sexy does not (to men as well, because it treats you like you are all big throbbing penis's and nothing else). So, no one would really lose out unless they would prefer to view women as sexualised objects rather than sexy women.

--An anonymous commenter who has read Adam Warren's Empowered

What's kinda interesting about this exchange between us is that it practically encapsulates several of my wordiest blog posts in a comparatively small number of paragraphs. But the above quote treads near something that I've probably said before, something others probably have said before, and if nobody has said it, they should. So if you have heard this before, well, you'll be hearing it again.

Now, maybe this is because I'm me, and not the stereotypical image of the loser obsessive comics geek, but: I don't get upset about objectifying depictions of my gender. I just don't.

Part of this, I'm sure, is because of the reasonings I make regarding fantasy and objectifications and all that, but beyond rational thinking, there is no innate, gut-level twinge for me if I should think about some woman looking at, say, yaoi porn. There is no inner response that says "how degrading!" or "that woman must not respect men... or me!"

The 12-year-old in me may think how cool it would be to be Batman or Superman, but nothing done to those characters in some negative fashion, either in canon or the spooky wilds of fanworks, presents itself as an affront to me.

Am I alone in this?

Certainly fanboys can throw fits over issues, like whether Spider-Man is a clone or what color the Hulk should be. Maybe I don't look in the right places, but I don't see a lot of male outcry against women objectifying them, which, true, could be because women are somehow less likely to objectify men in that way... but it could also be because that for the most part men just really don't give a damn about it in the way some women seem to.

I mention this because more than once I've seen (or been a part of) some debate where someone tries to make a point by saying "well, you wouldn't like it if such-and-so was done to YOU, would you now?" And if the action in question was something like getting beaten by police or having my significant other slap me around a bit, well, no, I probably wouldn't like it at all. Such an argument only works, however, when there is shared ground, and so anyone trying to plead for greater reverence for, say, the character of Wonder Woman, will fail if they try to say "but you wouldn't like it if they put Superman in a thong!!"

Big whoop. Hey, if it'd get people to relax about Wonder Woman's sacred buttcheeks for a while, I'd happily endorse Clark Kent running around in nothing but a cape and string-pouch.

I've seen cartoons in response to certain blogstorms. There's an image of Spiderman in a thong, mimicking the Mary-Jane statue. I think it was Lea Hernandez who altered a Flash cover to make an assault on him by a tentacled monster look more amorous than stressful, in response to the Heroes for Hire cover. And when I saw those images, I also saw comments along the lines of "That'll show those fanboys! Now they'll know what it's like!"

Only... I haven't seen any indication that the fanboys did anything but say something like "eh, man-ass" and hit the BACK button on their browsers. (Certainly, dear reader, if you're aware of fanboys losing their minds over these things, do share links.) Any response there was, was far less visible by comparison, not nearly as energetic.

I don't think fanboys will ever "know what it's like", because I believe that for most they perceive this sort of thing in a fundamentally different way. Even the flap over Alex Ross painting "packages" on superheroes seemed less about "oh gosh that reduces my gender to nothing but a sexual organ" than a quasi-homophobic (well, in some cases blatantly homophobic) "ew, I don't wanna hafta look at some other guy's junk!"

Personally, I didn't even care about that. So the idea that somehow, somewhere, women might be looking at pictures of men and thinking of them as nothing more than hot throbbing chunks of man-meat distresses me not in the least. I certainly don't see it as a personal affront to me, or even to the male gender.

So remember that, please, if you feel you want to try to one-up me with "well, if it happened to you", because depending on what exactly you mean, there's a chance that I just do not care at all.

Mickle, Mouse.

2008-08-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

(Simply could not resist.)

Just a quickie for now: Mad Thinker Scott has already pointed out Mickle's reflexive bit of self-contradiction, so there's no need for me to belabor the point, but after wondering why some of it felt so familiar, it hit me:

Oh yeah, I tried saying pretty much the same thing several months ago, only without calling anyone an "asshat".

And what I got in response were a number of folks trying to tell me that:

Being nice doesn't work;
Telling someone to be nice is like telling them to sit down and shut up;
You need to yell at/be abusive to people to get them to pay attention to you;
and so forth.

So, Mickle... yeah. Let me know how that concept works out for you. Lord knows I didn't have much luck with it.

Tolerance is a Myth.

2008-08-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

For me, the sexy and provocative situations have always just been put down to fanservice, until they cross the line.

However, have manga and anime been quietly pushing that line further and further ahead, so what would have been obscene, say a year ago, is now just normal everyday fanservice.

[...]

If i’m honest, i’m immune to this these days. In my reply to her comment i pointed out that by most of todays manga Maximum Ride is actually quite tame. Though i have to admit i wasn’t aware that Max was 14, i thought she was 17/18 lol.
Sexual content in manga and anime has been around for years, but i think it started getting more common place with the two Kodomo no Jikan incidents.

--Tiamat's Disciple

[To a commenter] considering the audience is necessary in determining perception. And it does seem reasonable that women talking among themselves, so to speak, would find different things acceptable.

--Johanna Draper Carlson

No matter what your stance is on the burqa or the headscarf (hijaab), it is clear that this scene puts Dust on the defensive. In a place where mutants are supposed to feel accepted, Dust is misjudged because of her dress choices. In later issues, particularly New X-Men: Hellions # 2, we learn, from a conversation with her mother, that Dust is not forced to wear the burqa and she enjoys the protection it gives her from men. For Dust, the burqa is a choice, and that must be respected and defended. [...] The beautiful teachings of modesty for both genders in Islam tend to be mistaken for the stereotypical notion of “protecting women from men.”

--Broken Mystic

Last first: One of the most interesting things (to me) about the examination of Dust's character, and her Muslim faith and dress code, is that the "beautiful teachings of modesty" are never actually defined in the essay, leaving those not familiar with the Islam faith pretty much where they were before reading it. We're told the writers of the character have mischaracterized the purpose of the burqa; we're just not fully told how.

In a similar fashion, Broken Mystic criticizes those writers for not giving Dust a stronger response when Surge is shown arguing with her about the burqa and other points related to her faith, but gives the reader no sense what such a stronger response would be. (Nor would it likely illuminate any present or future writers of the character, unless Marvel happened to hire one versed in Islam, and even then Broken Mystic acknowledges the subject is one of constant debate even among Muslims themselves.)

The essay takes issue with the perceived failings of Dust's character, while at the same time criticizing other Muslims who do approve of how the character has been portrayed, belying a larger issue than whether one character is a favorable depiction of a Muslim woman.

Set that aside for a moment.

I've already gone over Johanna Draper Carlson's "Does Yaoi Normalize Rape" post, and the comments thereof, but I think this one line I've quoted above deserves special attention. The implication is that yaoi, being made largely by women, for women, with a mainly female fanbase to discuss it amongst itself, has a different standard of tolerance than (one assumes) the general population.

The quoted statement offers no judgement as to whether this is a good or bad thing, just that it's "reasonable".

The logical extension to that, however, is that mainstream comics, made mostly by men, aimed primarily towards men, and with a mostly male fanbase (the WFA crowd and other fangirls notwithstanding) can also be reasonably expected to have a different set of standards for what is and isn't "acceptable".

Again, hold that thought for a bit.

I often find myself amused by people who start out debating how good/bad comics used to be in "the olden days" compared to the present... and then as an example pull out stuff that's maybe 10-15 years old, max. It's as if history doesn't start until whoever's writing began buying comics or manga. A lot of people treat manga like it began with TokyoPop and other publishers getting widespread distribution in bookstores; few seem to retain in memory the fact that there was a small steady stream of translated manga long before that, or that manga as we know it started in Japan just after World War II, or that comic books as we know them began in America in the 1930's.

So reading the back-and-forth about whether there's more or less overt sexuality in today's manga gives me chuckles if for no other reason than to hear Lady Death and Witchblade referenced as being "back in the day". Yeah, positively antediluvian, that.

For all concerned: Sex has been a heavy component in both American and Japanese comics since nearly their respective births. It comes and goes, slips in and out of the mainstream, but it's always been there. American comics can look back to Wonder Woman's fetishism, EC Comics' lurid tales of crime and sleaze, Wertham fretting over Phantom Lady's "headlights", and while sex may have been suppressed and sublimated in mainstream comics during much of the post-Comics Code days, the underground "comix" of the 60s and 70s were often downright pornographic. It took the 80s, the rise of Direct Market "indie comics", and the Comics Code being steadily eroded, to work up to a time when Lady Death and the rest of the "bad girl" craze could happen, but that doesn't mean there wasn't any sex, or controversy, beforehand. (Teen Titans, anyone?)

Manga, on the other hand, has rarely had a point in its history when there wasn't sex in comics. Even revered "manga god" Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and Princess Knight, had comics with nudity and eroticism, sometimes disturbing sexuality (look up MW sometime). From bikini-wearing space princesses (Lum, Outlanders) to raping samurai (just about anything with Kazuo Koike's name on it, frankly), sexuality is hardly an uncommon ingredient in any era of manga.

What seems to be different today, frankly, is some audience members' sensitivity to anything that slightly smacks of sexuality, particularly in younger characters. Everything that might be considered sexy by anyone, it seems, is judged by some folks as automatically being sexy to everyone (either supposedly being appealing to those who like that sort of thing, or being disgusting to anyone with the "proper" moral standing).

Tiamat's Disciple quotes someone reviewing a manga story called Maximum Ride; let me quote you a fragment of that fragment:

14-year-old Max is introduced standing in a t-shirt and panties, there are several shots of 11-year-old Nudge’s cleavage, and the moe-esque first shot of 6-year-old Angel is straight-up gross.

Well, I've read that sequence as well (featured in the first issue of the Yen Plus magazine), and like Tiamat's Disciple, I wouldn't have thought those were the ages of the characters Max and Nudge. Max's "t-shirt and panties" aren't depicted in a particularly salacious manner, and it's one panel, seen from a medium distance. Nudge's cleavage isn't highlighted in any way. It's there, but never the point of the panel, never referenced in the story.

As for Angel... here's the thing. Angel is cute. She's an adorable young girl. Some feminists might rankle at her being such a stereotypical girly girl, with ruffled bedsheets and stuffed animals and dolls and girly girl accoutrements, leaving little indication the kid's going to grow up to be a racecar driver or construction worker. You might think from the reviewer's reaction that the kid is sprawling around half-naked or flashing panties or something; no, she's sitting in bed having just pulled on, but not buttoned, a ruffled dress. The most flesh you see is a bit of clavicle and some exposed leg.

"Moé" is one of those terms that, like many unique to the Japanese, seems to shift meaning when translated to English, depending on who's doing the interpreting. It's often used (for example, by our reviewer above) as an implication of lolicon fetishism. But it's worth noting that moé does not have to have a sexual connotation, and it should be pointed out that not every instance of a young child in a drawing must, by default, mean something sexual.

There's quite a bit of (media-driven, I think) child abuse hysteria awash in Western society these days, or perhaps it's mainly American society. Certainly some reactions to previous posts I've made indicate that for some people, even talking about the subject brings forth visceral, irrational frothing in response.

The reviewer appears to be a product of that environment: any hint of sexuality, intended or not, is a cause for disdain, disgust. It is assumed the depictions she describes are either intended to titillate, or will titillate someone, somehow. Bring out the Greek chorus to intone it in the background as I repeat: it's being concerned about how someone else may think about the depiction.

But I mention this not to harp on that one point again, but to show how one can be conditioned to adopt certain attitudes, how different environments can engender different points of view. To interpret the picture of Angel as "moe-esque", you must first be aware of the moé concept, know that there is a certain amount of lolicon fetishism out there, and be ready to interpret everything you see under that overhanging dread. Now contrast the reviwer's distaste with Tiamat Disciple's own noncommittal shrug over the scene; two people supposedly steeped in similar manga culture but interpreting the same panels differently. These are our differences.

The burqa: icon of modesty or symbol of male/religious oppression of women?
Yaoi rape fantasies: gay-degrading smut or women talking amongst themselves?
Cute kid in bed: Cute kid in bed or lolicon porn?

You can argue either side of each question; certainly there will be adherents of either side who think they are the "right" ones.

Broken Mystic says, near the end of her essay on Dust, "Perhaps we all can learn from Dust and learn how to accept one another for our differences."

That would be nice, except I don't see it happening any time soon. Unfortunately, the downside to an idealistic statement like that is that if you really mean it, really truly want everyone to accept each other, that means putting up with a lot of crap you might otherwise protest.

After all: Broken Mystic herself takes issue with those who praise the burqa for reasons she feels marginalize and diminish those who don't wear it, but that's one of those very differences she hopes we can learn to tolerate in one another, a difference in culture and perspective.

How many who let male rape in yaoi slide by will absolutely not tolerate depictions of female rape, particularly that, like in yaoi, imply the victim actually wants it or will fall in love with the rapist?

How many express outrage over lolicon manga, produced in Japan, where fictional depictions are legal and have been accepted for years? Who was it behind the push to raise that country's long-standing age of consent to make it more in line with American standards? How many stood up and condemned Dave Cheung for his sexy teenage characters when his own country of residence has a lower age of consent than the USA? Aren't these differences of culture?

And: how many accept the differences of idiot grab-asses at conventions who apparently haven't been taught any better than to reach out and grab other people without permission?

No, tolerance is a myth.

When people talk about tolerance and understanding, what they usually mean is they can be tolerant and understanding until someone pushes their own personal hot-button and then out come the long knives.

Respecting other people's differences, truly respecting them, all of them, is damn hard work.

And damn nigh impossible, since everyone not only has their own differences, but limits to what they can tolerate.

This is not a plea for more tolerance. I don't approve of the acts described at SDCC any more than most of the WFA-linked posts I've read. There's plenty of cultural differences that I won't ever see eye-to-eye on, practices that I'll always speak against. I consider myself more tolerant than most, but even that isn't total and complete acceptance of everything.

I do, however, think it's worth pointing out that there's more to "accepting our differences" than a feel-good platitude. Tolerance and understanding starts with the self. What do you tolerate? Who do you understand? How far beyond your current limits are you willing to reach, for increased tolerance and understanding? How many steps will you take into the enemy's camp in pursuit of that ideal?

Don't cry out "understand me!" and expect it to happen, particularly if you aren't yourself willing to extend that understanding to even the things you despise.

Fashion! Turn To The Left! (watch out for the dog...oops)

2008-08-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

On top of Final Crisis #3 being a life-draining vortex of suckitude AND seriously fucking over Mary Marvel in favor of some fetish stereotype from O Magazine circa 1990, spontaneously catalyzing over 290 comments of almost uniform abject hatred over on scans_daily for Morrison's writing in Final Crisis - seriously, Grant, if you think you're being edgy and provocative, you're more deluded than a schizophrenic with late stage syphilis - as well as being insulting to every single female currently reading superhero comics, that's it. I'm so done with DC.

Oh, and by the way, Final Crisis #3: gratuitous animal abuse, fucking over of Mary Marvel - did I mention the fucking over of Mary Marvel part? - AND "Title X," which, hey, why does that sound familiar?

By the way, in Grant Morrison's world, you can unplug the internet the world over with a single mystical e-mail. Or something. An e-mail that Oracle can't hack, of course.

[in comments, later] Because, of course, if a girl turns bad, she must automatically morph into a shiny black vinyl-wearing tart.

--kali921

I gotta say... I do sympathize with the whole Hawkman thing. I've got similar issues with Donna Troy (MY ORIGIN IS NOTHING BUT RETCON DO I EVEN EXIST HELP ME PLEASE), but it's hard to equate Final Crisis comments as anything more than "Michael Bay, I mean, Grant Morrison raped my childhood!"

Oh noes, magic email is too stupid! Really? In a world where the Spectre and Dr. Fate waltz around, wizards are somehow passe? Did everyone miss the part where the world is being humped by the spirits of the evil New Gods? Are these new improved New Gods, with no supernatural components whatsoever? "Sanitized and de-magified for your protection!"

Oracle can't hack the email! This is so not like her! Yeah. The email appears, there's a few moments of confusion, and it opens itself in those mere moments, and somehow Barbara Gordon should have been able to analyze said email and defend against it, outperforming a million 2Ghz processors across the world. Oracle's good, I'm sure, but not part of the Flash Family.

What a cad to make Mary Marvel evil! And give Wonder Woman a beast face and spread the Anti-Life clap across peoples' icons! It's a complete surprise that things should be this awful and horrible, smack in the middle of a series that's been hyped as "THE DAY EVIL WON" since for-freaking-ever.

Ah, but soft you now, mine is not merely to mock fannish complaints (though it's fun), but to ponder yon Mary Marvel's wardrobe.

Because I wonder how well the scene would have been received had she been wearing her original costume. Either classic red or post-revamp white; the white would have been particularly striking spattered with Atomic Knight and giant dog blood. Would that have been more or less chilling? More or less of an outrage?

Do clothes make the heroine? There were squawks enough as is when Mary Marvel adopted the glossy black variation of her original costume.

It's interesting to note that the original Mary Marvel outfit obviously derives from classic skating outfits, or perhaps athletic/acrobatic costumes. Just a little while ago I saw a bit of the Olympics, womens' gymnastics, and there's an interesting parallel there. Leotards were once colorful but at best satiny spandex, but recently the materials have gotten more exotic, in appearance at least.

I mean, I'm sure nobody's dressing up the gymnasts in actual latex or PVC, but when someone sticks a landing and pokes her butt out (omg she's presenting omg) and there's a shine off that butt rivaling a polished sports car, having Mary Marvel take up a similar look isn't that much of a stretch.

But okay. We've gone from bright and airy, to black and troubled, to black and whacked out on absinthe and meth. But if you don't agree that the wardrobe change properly reflects one superheroine's slide from virtue to decadence, the question is: How would you dress, if you were Evil Mary Marvel?

You know what I would do, if I were an artist, or had a blog more suitable to the task? I'd try to start one of those art-memes that were the rage not too long ago. Remember the "Batgirl Meme"? Or the shorter-lived Supergirl redesign thing? Where everyone drew their own version of said superheroines, sometimes faithfully, sometimes wildly re-imagining them from the ground up? That's what I'd do.

And if I were going to do it, here's how I'd present it:

Draw Evil Mary Marvel. Once a paragon of virtue and goodness, poor Mary has succumbed to the lure of the Dark Side, Darkseid, whatever, and become evil. Your task: choose her wardrobe. Remember, we've had a few variations on this already: the black variation of her costume as she became, not wholly evil, but "darker", the current fetish gear seen in Final Crisis, and another fetish-y look seen on an alternate-universe version of Mary Marvel (from the Justice Buddies JLA story).

Don't be sentimental about Good Mary Marvel. Whinging about lost innocence misses the point. Must a heroine turned evil dress provocatively? Or perhaps a subtler "Devil Wears Prada" power-fashion approach? You can't change her mind, but what she wears while she betrays all the ideals you once loved her for, that you can tinker with.

That's what I'd do. And if I couldn't do that, I'd openly offer the idea to anyone willing to run with it.

Spoiler Warnings (these warnings came way too late!)

2008-08-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, you know what I didn't know? I didn't know that Blogger saves copies of stuff you were writing and that if the power goes out and your computer dies, stuff you wrote may be retained in the guts of your account, so you can dig it out later! Okay now I know, and I'm finding a few things that got interrupted during the whole writing process which I gave up on and decided not to re-write. Hidden treasures of joy or something.

Following is a fragment: I'm not entirely sure if I was going somewhere more profound with this, but reading it fresh after a couple months, I think I had some interesting points...

And like that, DC probably hopes to be finished with the whole ordeal—and maybe they are. Maybe all the people under the feminist banner of Spoiler concerns weren't really feminists at all, and now that they've gotten their character back, they'll sink into the immersive swamp of comic fandom and get back to talking about whether or not Storm's powers over electricity could translate to some form of time travel, and who would win in a fight between igneous rock and the Mole Man.

But if they are the real thing—if that ragtag group of comics readers really do have a problem with the way super-hero comics regularly present female characters as little more than objects of fetishistic eroticism or utilitarian mechanics to minimize the importance of female heroes and exaggerate the emotional component of their male counterpart, then DC's done something even more offensive. They've ignored every feminist criticism of the Spoiler situation and treated a bunch of people with valid complaints as if they're the same kind of rabid loudmouth who threatened to incinerate their parent's basement back when Ben Reilly replaced Peter Parker for all of twenty seconds. They've negated what was so offensive about the whole thing initially—that a female was tortured to death and then ignored like so much cannon fodder. Of course, if DC's right to assume that those who were raising feminist-based criticism were just whiny fans, then resurrecting a third-rate character in a low-selling Batman spin-off was the right move. After all, they brought her back, right?

--Tucker Stone

No, really? DC offend by not seeming to give much of a damn about feminist outcry? What a shocker! Who could have seen that one coming?

There's an assumption in the above statement: that the manner in which Spoiler was killed was the primary problem for the protesters. No, on further consideration, the assumption is a bit more binary: that it's either feminism or fandom driving the protests.

I'm not sure what he's ultimately getting at. My initial impression is that it's a caution of sorts to the feminists, to not take Spoiler's resurrection as a great feminist victory, which is fair enough.

The criticism of DC's actions, though, doesn't make much sense to me. I mean, I understand what he's trying to say (I think), that DC resurrecting Spoiler is a sop to fangirls and not any real move towards alleviating feminist concerns... but since when has DC shown any inclination to reform in line with feminist concerns, anyway? I wouldn't think a DC who's looking to make feminist gains is the kind that would casually let colorists bleach Vixen on multiple occasions, or continue with any number of other causes of feminist complaints, from major to minor.

Of course, that thought is based on the assumption that DC is a monolithic entity and each of its employees is in line with one overarching policy; this is likely not the case. The editor that lets Grant Morrisson give Batman a Stephanie-case hallucination may not be working closely with the editor that signs off on cover colors (or they may be the same guy, who knows). Even if you think Dan DiDio is sitting around cackling as he tweaks feminists in some way or another, he's one guy in a larger machine.

It is, I think, a mistake to attribute one action to the body of a many-headed beast. What's more, it seems like a jump to conclusions that ANY action taken by DC in recent times is a move to appease feminists, or offend them, for that matter. You'd first have to assume that DC as a corporate entity was aware (and cared) about feminist concerns in order to say convincingly that they were out to placate or anger them, and I don't think that's really the case. I'm sure they have people who monitor blog-storms and the like; I'm skeptical that such monitoring plays much of a role at editorial meetings.

But back to the issue of feminists and fangirls and Spoiler: rather than thinking that each protester of Spoiler's demise and subsequent non-memorial status is either fan or feminist, one or the other, it seems logical to me that a great many protesters are/were a bit of both to some extent; if nothing else, in the way the protests have been presented.

I've already put forth the idea that a crusader for a cause may appropriate many parallel arguments for/against a certain position in order to strengthen their own argument (and then be willing to turn around and discard anything that suddenly is not helpful to the cause); I'm certain many who were simply ardent fans of Spoiler would use feminist arguments even if they weren't particularly committed to feminism, and I'm betting that many feminists didn't give much thought to Spoiler as a character when she was alive (the first time) but were willing to use her death to bring up their particular agendas. Put those on either end of a scale, salt most of the rest of the protesters in the middle, I think that'd be a decent picture of people's allegiances.

Are You... Consistent?

2008-07-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

Johanna Draper Carlson, here, touches on a subject I've already explored a bit, here. Yaoi, that is. And I must say I'm heartened to see that she's not up in arms against yaoi, and doesn't think it should be expunged from existence because of the prevalence of rape themes in the comics.

Because, after all, it IS fantasy, even if it can contain potentially disturbing themes for a fantasy. I mean, GAY RAPE HOLY CRAAAP EW EW EW.

Mad Thinker Scott, in various places, has put a caveat in many of his pro-fantasy statements, to the effect that "there is evidence that writings which promote the myth that all women secretly want to be raped can result in an increase in rape", and, well, okay, if he says so, but I'd have to see a detailed, impartial analysis before I completely buy into that. Still, if it is the case, one wonders whether that applies to yaoi comics where men rape men to "demonstrate their intense overwhelming love" or "convince them they really want to be gay" or whatever rationalizations the pro-yaoi crowd can trot out.

A quote from the reactions to Ms. Carlson's post:

The context reminds me of when there’s arguments over established ‘tropes’ of superhero comics (like the look and role of female characters) and you see responses and defences like “it’s normal, what’s the big deal?” and “wait, you see it like THAT?”.

And that, I think, is an important point to consider. Consistency, that devil, that foiler of dogma. I've already covered that (check the comments in that last link), but it becomes all the more important when you bring in things like rape fantasies into the mix. Tell me truly, do you think any of the rationalizations offered as to why rape in yaoi is "okay" would not generate an utter shitstorm of protest if they were applied to the abuse of some superheroine?

This is the conundrum of yaoi: how do you support the perverted, sick fantasies of one gender while condemning the perverted, sick fantasies of the other gender, and not look like a complete hypocrite? You gotta dance really really fast to pull off that gag...

AN ADDITION, because there seems to be some meat left in the comments filtering in:

Overall, I just feel that fantasy life and real life are two completely separate realms, and I would say most yaoi fans are aware of this. I can’t imagine any fangirl saying she’s read so much yaoi that if her or her friends experienced actual rape they would somehow think it was ‘normal’. That seems like an incredible leap to me, and something that would indicate a total break from reality. There are so many example of things people do when they fantasize and play that they would never consider in real life- kids playing ‘guns’ and ‘killing’ each other for instance.

Awesome. NOW, if we could just get that kind of sensible outlook implanted into the perspectives of those who fret about whether the way superheroines fare in comics stories is somehow going to birth a new generation of mysogynist serial killers.

Well, You Won't Have Michael Turner to Kick Around Anymore.

2008-07-02T09:11:00.001-07:00

Cuz' he daid.

Oh, what, too soon?

Hey: anyone reflexively reaching for the keyboard to tell me what an ass I am for being a bit flippant about Michael Turner's recent death from a particularly horrible bout of cancer can just shut the hell up if they were one of the many expressing their outrage and indignation over his various works. The hate and bile I heard expressed while he was alive, as far as I'm concerned, negates any right those same people have to give me a hard time for maybe not being properly respectful now that he's passed away.

'Course, I dunno, maybe there's a bunch of folks out there actually inwardly gleeful that he's dead, meaning there's one less antichrist of anti-feminist girlie art for them to warrior-blog against.

Yes, yes, standard disclaimers, not every fangirl feminist was out for Turner's blood. But even now at WFA I can go follow a link or two and read someone talking about how they'd like to do violence to some particular creator because that creator isn't being caring and respectful enough to some other category of human beings in their work, and do these people ever read what they write sometimes?

It's the double standard of hate. You hate something. I hate you for hating something. Your hate is unjustified. Mine is holy.

But at the risk of sounding Ditko-esque, hate is hate.

Actually, I Might WATCH "Soldier #3 Who Gets Blown Up Real Good".

2008-06-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

That doesn't give me hope for a tasteful handling of this issue, really. I don't follow Ctrl+Alt+Del, though, so my interest here is mainly about the broader issues of portraying miscarriage and other female-centric tragedies in fictional settings -- comics, web comics, roleplaying games, and so on.

How do you think such issues are best handled, and in what way? To what extent does the gender of the writer matter? Does the focus of the story (e.g. "I was raped" vs "my girlfriend was raped"; "I had a miscarriage" vs "she had a miscarriage") affect how you'd view such a story?
--Kynn

Every story, even the most hackneyed, retarded, cliché and trope-ridden drek, has a purpose to it, a point, even if it's a stupid point. Okay, maybe if you're like three, or are an avant-garde writer intentionally trying to dissect and deconstruct the written artform, you can exclude any kind of purpose (or can you? even denying the existence of a point has a point to it...!).

In the beginning of the Iron Man movie, (OMG SPOILER ALERT) Tony Stark rides through Afghanistan with some soldiers in a hum-vee. As they bump along, he banters with them, and we see flashes of personality from the soldiers: the eager young man with the camera, the female soldier who starts out professional and detached but begins to grin at Stark's patter...

And then they're attacked. In short order, the soldiers are wiped out, and Stark himself is injured and taken captive, beginning the chain of events that will make him become Iron Man.

That's the name of the movie, after all: IRON MAN. Not "SOLDIER #3 WHO GETS BLOWN UP REAL GOOD". It's Tony Stark's story, the focus is on Mr. Stark.

From a writer's perspective, those soldiers were created to die. The personalities they were given were composed specifically to make the audience feel for them. It'd be a different sort of set-up if Stark had just sat quietly and the soldiers were all looking attentively at the road ahead just before the attack. We wouldn't have been as uneasy knowing that these lively young folk we'd just seen joking around were now DEAD AND GONE, cut down ruthlessly. Without that spark of empathy, we might have just said, "well, sucks for them but that's war".

All people are not equal in fiction. Even an ensemble cast focuses on a relatively small portion of total humanity. A writer has to choose what elements complement the point he or she is trying to make and what is nonessential and needs to be pruned, who lives, who dies. This may sound a bit coldblooded, but it would drastically limit a writer if they could only merely write mildly distressing drama because they were too weak-willed to cause a fictional character to undergo severe trauma (or death).

Here's the thing: a miscarriage, or any other "female-centric" tragedy, affects more than just the "centric female" involved. If you are telling a story whose focus is on that woman, then sure, it should be her views, her feelings and what happens next to her that gets priority.

But she may not be the focus of the story at all. She might be "Soldier #3".*

A writer may wish to mainly explore the feelings of her significant other. Or perhaps how the miscarriage affects her parents. Maybe the doctor who tried so hard to save the baby. Maybe the pregnant woman three doors down, hearing anguished wails and fearing for her own unborn child.

Now, most competent writers are going to have the bulk of this already figured out well before they begin telling the story. They should know what the focus of the story is, what messages they want to impart, and who they need to follow to make the story they're trying to tell happen. (I can tell you that often the message that your final draft of a story tells may turn out to be different than the message you thought you had going into the first draft, but at least you should start out with some kind of plan.)

So to the character of the woman in question, the miscarriage may be one of the most devastating events that will occur in her fictional life. That does not, however, mean that her feelings are necessarily going to be important to the story itself. Her existence may be nothing more than a prop to provide impetus for some other character. Her tragedy may pain the reader, if they have for some reason come to care about the character, but even this empathy may be intentional on the part of the author, to provide convincing dramatic resonance.

Again, this is all dependent on what sort of story you're trying to tell, or whose story you're trying to tell.

If you think that a story that features a "female-centric" tragedy must automatically focus on the female in question from that point on, regardless of any previous focus the story may have had, then that is an agenda driving critique or creation of the story, over and above any structure or understanding of the art of writing.

Which isn't to say an author can't write a good story with an agenda in place, but it is a mistake for a reader to assume that the author's agenda is the same as, or should be the same as, their own, and it would be a mistake for an author to shift focus in a jarring manner merely to appease those who have different agendas.

*If, at this point, you're thinking that some elements in this post are evocative of discussions of the "Women In Refrigerators" phenomenon, congratulations! you're pretty sharp. There is a connection. That, though, is a topic for some other date.

The Empowering Secret

2008-05-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

I meant to write this a while ago, but, y'know... stuff.

Since I delayed, I no longer can find (well, not with just the energy I care to spare) the WFA-linked blog post where someone idly wondered why there weren't more feminist comments regarding Adam Warren's series, Empowered.

As someone who's read not only Empowered, but a lot of Warren's other work, I may be able to provide an answer, of sorts.

Part of the reason, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is that while Empowered does indeed trade in cheesecake and bondage, which you think might tweak a bunch of the fangirl feminists, the characters are complex, multi-layered, and engaging, even when they're clad in skintight spandex and trussed up in rope. Titillating, sure, but that's not the only thing going for the story. Therefore, you could surmise that whatever faults a feminist might find with the series would be mitigated by the feminist-positive elements.

[Depending, of course, on the feminist, no hive mind, your mileage may vary, etc. I remember reading an exchange between him and a visitor to his DeviantArt page who was absolutely convinced that a woman who had captured Emp in the first book had finger-raped her; despite Warren's claims that no such thing had taken place, the gal leaving comments rejected the direct word of the author and artist to insist that it had happened and that Emp's proper reaction would be to become a shattered wreck after the incident. Disclaimer: It's been a while, I may have some of the exact details wrong. Still, I think the gist is right.]

Now, I confess this is pure speculation on my part, but I submit to anyone bothering to read this far that the other main reason that Empowered hasn't been causing more fuss is that, either consciously or unconsciously, comics feminists realize that what they say and think probably isn't going to have any effect at all on the way Adam Warren makes his comics in the future. Which doesn't mean I think Warren is sitting around going "screw you, feminists!" as he draws Empowered, but that he's secure enough in his own mind that appeasing feminists or any other group would rank low on his list of priorities.

He's not Marvel or DC, after all. You can't say he's making comics that kids might read, because they're pretty clearly aimed at adults. His publisher Dark Horse is not likely to cave in under pressure, as they're the ones making an effort to reprint John Norman's Gor novels (how's that going, I wonder? Haven't heard much lately). A lot of the arguments you might use to try and sway the mainstream publishers lose their bite in his case. Mostly what you have left, then, is the idea that drawing bondage and objectifying cheesecake is morally wrong on the face of it, and I don't think Warren shares that view.

Warren, it should be noted, didn't start drawing cheesecake and bondage with Empowered. The series itself, he claims, arose when he was doing those themes in commissioned artwork, so that's a sign he has no moral compunction against that kind of material. That, and the fact that he's worked it in to a number of his other projects, like The Dirty Pair books and Gen13.

Years ago I saw Jon Stewart on one of the late night talk shows (Leno or Letterman , I can't remember), and the topic of George W. Bush's then-fresh search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq came up. To paraphrase Stewart's statement:

"Oh, I don't think Bush'll be embarrassed if no WMDs are found. Someone'll say, 'Sir, there's no WMDs in Iraq, never were', and he'll go, 'Huh. How about that," and go back to whatever he was doing..."

I could see it, if someone was raging at Adam Warren, complaining about his comics. "This is sexist!"

"Huh. How about that."

It's difficult to shame someone into changing when they don't feel the shame you think they should.

Standards and Practices

2008-05-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

IMPLICATIONS

It's all relative, isn't it?

After all, we can debate about which sub-section of humanity has it better or worse than others, but if you're reading this, you have access to technology out of the reach of quite a few folks, putting you a bit above them, privilege-wise. The odds are your education is a bit above the curve, too, compared to the rest of the world.

We're facing food and energy crunches in the world for a variety of reasons, one of the more significant being that China and India are reaching the point where a lot of their people are aware of better conditions elsewhere in the world and they'd kinda like to have some measure of the largess we in the Western world enjoy (thus demanding and consuming more food and fuel). But again, it's all relative, since both India and China have produced wealthy people, and there are people in the USA who are desperately impoverished.

When, though, will it be enough?

I'm not what the average US citizen would call "rich", probably not really even "middle class", but I do have a job that keeps me clothed, fed, housed, and bolted up to them Intartubes. Which puts me ahead of a lot of the world's folks, but, y'know, I'd still like more. Would it be enough if I was as rich as, say, Bill Gates? He's got acres of money, enough to run all sorts of philanthropic organizations (interesting paradox about Mr. Gates: often held up as the embodiment of evil capitalism and big business, but if you actually compare how much he's sunk into "doing good works" with the benefits created by those thought of as saints, Gates comes in surprisingly strong).

I'd like to think that if I had even a hundredth, a thousandth, of Bill Gate's money, I'd be satisfied. Maybe. On the other hand, once you have that kind of money, possibilities open up. As I sit here I can't even fathom what it must be like to run a corporate empire, but if I was running a corporate empire, I might well be looking beyond that to what else I could do. So just maybe, even if I were a multi-millionaire I'd be looking to get more wealth. And for the rest of the world's poor, at what point does anyone say (to themselves, or to others, either way), "that's all, you've got enough now", and expect them to say "oh, hey, you're right, I'll stop trying to get more for me and mine"?

REPARATIONS

How much is enough to forgive slavery? Not forget it, mind you, and not to ignore ongoing racism, but when you boil down the idea of reparations, is there anything more to it than "You, Group A, did Group B a wrong, and in order to make it right, you should compensate group B, thereby assuaging Group B's hurt feelings and Group A's guilt trip [if any])"? Or, simplified further, "Pay me this much and we'll call it even."

At first blush, it might seem like an okay idea, but then you look closer at it. Who do we include in reparations? Every African-American? Well, black people didn't stop coming into this country after slavery was ended, and though they may be subject to racism and other problems, it's kind of hard to say someone whose parents, say, came over from Lagos in 1975 deserves compensation for American slavery. So there's sorting that out. And then some might ask how many generations down the line deserve compensation and to what degree. It's a bit easier to justify paying a man bearing whip-scars, but what about his great-grandkids? How much time has to go by before the descendants of victims are expected to handle their own lives themselves and leave past events in the past? (Jerusalem, Northern Ireland, these are not encouraging examples.)

Understand, I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, just pointing out that it's complicated enough an issue already, and on top of that, the most important question is: how much is enough?

Is there any price sufficient enough for black people to say, "okay, fine, as of now the slavery thing is done and settled, and let's all get on with our lives"? Can you even put a real dollar amount on that?

There's the paradox, though. If you can't settle on a dollar amount, what's the point of reparations if everyone is going to be just as angry as they were before reparations are made? And if you can name a figure, does it truly compensate for the injustice felt?

Or, are reparations meant to be a stand-in for a larger racial issue? "For being a bunch of racists, Group A owes Group B this much money." Except not everyone can be made to accept the idea that you should be compensated in a monetary fashion just because some other guy was an asshole to you.

COMPLICATIONS

Believe it or not, I've been pondering this kind of stuff ever since I discovered The Woman Who Knows Joss Whedon Rapes His Wife. (Well, I always ponder this kind of stuff, so let's just say it's been a little more often than usual.) Yeah, by the date of the original post it's old news, sure. It was brought to my attention when I read a post by Greg Rucka featuring a bit of hate mail he got where the writer assumed Mr. Rucka was actually "Ms. Rucka", and this Whedon critique was mentioned in the comments. If I haven't seen it, it's new to me.

Anyway, I kept wondering about what kind of standards you'd have to have to come to the conclusions she outlines, and how I, at least, would find it to be a miserable existence if I had to hate everything I ever read that didn't fit such narrow, unforgiving standards.

I mean, look: she takes Whedon to task for having the ship's second-in-command, a woman, follow the orders of the ship's captain, a man, and addressing him as "sir". Which, yes, puts a woman in a somewhat subservient position to a man, but what the hell? In a hierarchal command structure, someone is always going to be the person in charge, because running a ship ain't communism. I don't know of many (any) sailing vessels, space or otherwise, that are run by a committee of equals, so the only way this ship's crewing could have met with approval by Madame I Know Joss Whedon Rapes His Wife is if the captain was a woman. You could speculate that any man in the crew with any authority over any woman would have been unacceptable, so how could you make that work? A ship with an amazon command structure lording it over a stock of obedient drone-slaves?

You may snort in derision, roll your eyes, but it's no more outlandish a suggestion than the reasoning behind Joss Whedon Raping His Wife. (I wonder if that phrase shows up much on Google searches.) To wit: Women are a disadvantaged gender, there is a constant pressure on all women to submit to the terms of male society, and that includes sexual relations. Thus, any time a woman has sex with a man, even if she seems to be doing it voluntarily, that pressure is a coercive factor that makes the sex rape. (This part is mentioned mostly in the comments, you'll have to do your own wading to find the particular threads.)

Do I have that right? Do I comprehend the argument correctly?

If so, then this is the fabled "all hetero sex is rape" viewpoint that I've been told by other sources doesn't really exist, that Andrea Dworkin didn't actually espouse, that's supposedly been blown out of proportion by feminist critics. And yet, here it is being used as a cornerstone of a critical media discussion, by someone who seems to fit the profile of the "man-hating lesbian feminist" stereotype that's supposedly a myth as well.

What good points might be found in the critique are overshadowed by a hypersensitivity to any thing at all which gives a man any advantage over any woman, and there's the rub. How could you write anything that meets those stiff requirements without it also becoming unrealistic or forced in some other way? Is it true equality being sought here, where people are treated without regard to gender, or is it just flipping things over into inequality the other way, where women become the flawless rulers of everything?

It begs the question: how much is enough? Not "how much do you want", because everyone always wants more and better, but what is sufficient? When does what you want tip over from "having it as good as the person you stand next to" into "making your lot better at the cost of others"? These are hard questions to answer, since it's all linked together. Pull here, and it pushes there. To raise one thing, you may have to lower another. Can there be balance? Is balance even what people want?

Eh, nevermind me, just thinkin' out loud.

Oh, you think YOU've got it bad? Pff.

2008-04-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Because I don't feel like delving into the actual argument where I saw this bit, and because I'm too lazy to do the link thing right now, you'll just have to guess where this came from:

I still laugh at the irony: that I try to encourage people to look at the whole of a story before judging it and I now find myself being judged as the next Mad Thinker or anon a mouse by people who won't read the whole of my body of work.

Ha!

Buddy, you should try to actually BE Anon, a Mouse, and get pre-judged and dismissed out of hand for having a difference of opinion.

My heart bleeds.

(In point of fact, though, it'd be a mistake to say that such dismissal upsets me THAT much. It is a little annoying to deal with some people who refuse to even comprehend some of the ideas you try to communicate, either through simple lack of reading comprehension or a dogged insistence on not giving up one virtual centimeter in a debate lest they be forced to, oh, I dunno, reconsider some long-held item of faith, BUT I can't muster up enough hurt feelings to go begging people to look at my entire output 'cause I'm not really that bad of a guy, oh woe.

Dismissal runs both ways; for every person who says "yeah, it's just Anon, a Mouse again saying the same old stuff", I can just as easily say, "well, that's so-and-so, another closed mind feeding off its own assumptions and prejudices".

Although, it is interesting to get dismissed out of hand by some folks who complain bitterly about how the rest of the world won't even try listen to their wisdom 'cuz the rest of the world's all evil and full of misogynists. "Listen to me! But I don't have to listen to you!" *applause*)

Suck it up! You said it, deal with it! Stop seeking approval from people who will never ever give it to you regardless of how hard you grovel...

Inappropriate Appropriating

2008-04-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

Quick thought #1:

Go check out Newsarama and a few other places about the recent legal decision that says that the estate of Jerry Siegel now (re-)owns half the copyright to the Superman character, and you're bound to come across upset fanboys aghast that someone besides DC can possibly control the destiny of the character. They fear it being misused, they fear Superman somehow being taken entirely out of the continuity of the DC Universe, and if you're very good and pure of heart and sit very still and watch, you may even see the fanboy who calls the estate evil and/or greedy for wanting to reclaim control over a creation that was taken from its creators for blankets and glass beads back in the day. Don't move, you'll spook him!

Aside from spraining my optic nerves from all the eyerolling at the extraordinary entitlement being displayed, I had to think of my recent discussions regarding Wonder Woman, and the appropriation of the character by one faction or another. Aaaaaaand, I'm not sure I see much difference. Both characters are seen as heroic icons, and the beef seems to be about that heroic uplifting nature being sullied in some way by "bad appropriation".

So I guess claiming ownership of something you don't really own isn't limited to feminists. Fans of both genders do it! I guess that's a step towards some sort of backwards equality.

Derived Quick Thought #2:

What the hell was Gloria Steinem thinking, anyway? I'll grant that maybe she was looking for an empowered heroic female to use as an icon, a symbol, and maybe among DC's stable of heroines, Wonder Woman was the more suitable choice among the most recognizable heroines. She wasn't derived from a male hero, it's true. And her earliest adventures were, if loaded with fetishes, also loaded with female empowerment messages.

But, while I imagine DC didn't mind the pro-feminist endorsement, I question the wisdom of selecting as an icon for your movement a character that is owned outright by some other corporate identity. It's like, what if the gay movements decided to use Mickey Mouse as their symbol? It could only really last as long as Disney didn't mind, unless you did it deliberately to spite them (in which case, get set for the brisk taste of lawyers). And then what if they revamp Mickey and his perceived nature differs from what he was appropriated for?

So what was Wonder Woman doing in the '70s When Ms. put her on the cover? After her original creator died, she was doing a lot of the same sappy things the other heroines were doing (see: the Robert Kanigher-written run), until she got depowered for a little while! This is what Wikipedia says made Ms. Steinem angry and prompted the cover, but it's kinda like, well, what if Slave Leia pissed you off so you made the Princess in her white robe and Cinnabon hairdo your symbol.

Just sayin', doesn't sound like the wisest decision to me, in retrospect.

Maybe This Doesn't Mean Anything.

2008-04-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

So I guess I'll finally get around to discussing that poll of mine and its final results and what they mean... which is probably Not All That Much, since it's hard to judge from a month's time and a handful of participants from who knows where whether any particular result is indicative of any trend in the general population... or anything else, for that matter.

After all, I haven't a clue who reads this blog or where they come from. Sure, I assume a large percentage come from When Fangirls Attack, considering the linking I get, and my guess is that a few of the anonymous comments I've had are stragglers from my John Solomon/Your Webcomic Is Bad-related posts. (Disappointingly, the smartass anonymii aren't nearly as entertaining or clever as they think they are.)

Hell, for all I know, just putting the poll up spat out some sort of automatic link at Blogger.com ("hey, look! Here's the latest 20 polls put out by opinionated tards using our site!") and the poll reached 57 random yahoos... or maybe 57 people really did peruse my blog and vote on the poll based on truly relevant linking.

Wherever they came from, I admit to being mildly pleased with the results. To recap, in the event the poll vanishes from its current location in future days, the question was:

Is it possible for someone to have sexist or misogynist fantasies and thoughts, and not actually be sexist or misogynist?

The winning result was: "Yes, your fantasies are separate from reality." Out of 57 responses, it was not only the largest response (33 votes), but that expressed by over half the responders. A clear majority no matter how you interpret the numbers.

I think this is a sensible opinion to have; it's nice to know that a large percentage of other folks (at least the ones who encountered my poll) seem to think so, too.

Now, I included a not-so-serious option: "Anyone who likes what I hate is scum." I think we can disregard the 4 votes this got as being people who just wanted to select the most smartassed answer possible. Certainly I'd lump anyone who selected that as a serious answer as a demagogue, comparable to loony talk-radio hosts and evangelical rabble-rousers (and the people they appeal to). I can't fathom the mindset it would require for someone to be so self-assured about their own inherent rightness that they allow for no possibility whatsoever that someone else's opinions may have some validity, so let's just assume those 4 votes were all jokes. Right? Of course.

At 3 votes, "No, to have a sexist fantasy means you are sexist" gets even less play than the joke answer, and honestly, I was expecting a bit more out of this answer.

The runner-up, though, is interesting to think about. I specifically wrote it to be a little ambiguous: "Well, you can have sexist fantasies and not ACT sexist." Break it down, and what does that really mean? Essentially, the same as "No, to have a sexist fantasy means you are sexist," only with the added idea that even if you are sexist, you can mask it by behaving yourself in public. But deep down, you are sexist for having those horrible fantasies.

I kind of expected that answer to be the front-runner. But at 17 votes, it proves to be a significant chunk of the opinion out there, if not the dominant opinion.

And it gets its play in other blogs. In the latest "Bendis writing Dr. Doom" flap (and for the record, I agree that the dialog was very unlike what I expect from the regal Doom) you can hear echoes of the Tigra beating uproar from the comments sections: Bendis writing someone insulting Ms. Marvel must mean that Bendis is himself a misogynist. No, it's not nearly as strong a sentiment this time around, but it exists.

Is it just an assumption that some make, regardless of evidence, that a creator must by default equal his or her creation? Can this notion be countered successfully? On the depressingly "no" side of our checklist, I give you:

The woman who strongly believes that Joss Whedon rapes his wife based on the evidence of his writing of Firefly.

I dunno, after that, few words are needed.

Didn't I Pretty Much Say That Already? Why, Yes, Yes I Did.

2008-04-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Oh, sure.

There's a couple articles about Wertham and then Valerie D'Orazio's talking about it and there's a healthy smattering of interest and response.

But when ol' Cranky McWomanhater talks about Wertham, well, only a few will brave those dark waters.*

Okay, sure, maybe I made it all uncomfortable-feeling by linking Wertham's attitudes to some displayed by elements of the feminist fandom. It's pretty damn interesting to me, though, how there can be this "was-he-or-wasn't-he" discussion of Wertham and what he did, whether he was right about those crime comics being inappropriate for kids, and then I can click on some other link at WFA and find Looking To The Stars' blog talking about The Latest Bendis Warcrime. Read:

So why did I feel the need to comment on this when so many other more distinguished luminaries, including that master parodist Christopher Bird, have already weighed in on this issue?

Because of something that the children's librarian in me remembered from reading through a catalog and something that I think is rather important. Namely, that this book - Mighty Avengers #11 - was rated All Ages by whoever it is that Marvel has rate their comics for age-appropriateness.

Yes. All-Ages. As in, you're supposed to be able to give this to anyone without fear of it containing inappropriate material.

Now, I'm not a prude. Far from it.

OH GOD TAKE COVER HERE IT COMES

Anybody who has read my work, knows my reading habits or is familiar with my weekend exploits as part of a Rocky Horror troupe can vouch that I am not easily offended nor am I a Helen Lovejoy "Won't Somebody PLEASE Think of the children" type.

THERE'S A "BUT" COMING I JUST KNOW IT

But I have to ask: Since when has "whore" been an acceptable word for use in children's books? Even children's pictorial bibles don't drop the W-bomb!

Before now, I was content to limit my ban on Marvel Comics to my own personal reading habits. Now, I'm enforcing it at my library. Because if I can't trust Marvel Comics to honestly and fairly rate their own materials, then I can't be bothered to take the risk on anything they publish.

And right there, the ghost of Wertham rises, to reach a quavering claw-like hand from beyond the grave!

I mean, no sooner has he said he's not all "think of the children", he goes right in and thinks primarily of the children! A complete ban on Marvel at the library? Is this is a library that only caters to kids? Are the comics normally only racked in the kid's section? Do adults never peruse the comics at his library?

Unless this is a kids-only library (hell, I dunno, it could be), what he's saying in effect is: because Marvel drops the ball with its labeling in his opinion, nobody at the library should get to read any Marvel comic from now on, be they minors or adults. It is more important that a kid not have to see the word "whore" in a comic than said comic is available to those old enough to not suffer brain damage from reading the kind of words they say on prime-time TV.

(And in addition: at what age is a kid able to withstand the horrors of the word "whore", and does this mean that the library, even if it caters exclusively to minors, would be removing Marvel not only for the teeniest wee sheltered readers but also the teens and just-about-teens? Yes, of course it does. Were I a teenager in such a situation, I'd feel pretty damn condescended to, and I'd avoid such an institution like the plague.)

And since labeling is the issue here, let's trot over back to Occasional Superheroine, where we see in the comments section, courtesy of Ami Angelwings:

I dun see a problem with a warning label or description of what's in it. I mean as a writer who posts a lot of fiction online I know a lot of stories have tags at the beginning to inform readers about what sort of themes are contained. We have NSFW stuff in posts. A tag or label isn't censorship in any way :\ It's just more information :) Like nutritional labels in food products :)

Here's the problem.

Warning labels are arbitrary. They hold standards which are based on opinion. A food label, at least, has the benefit of supposedly telling you objective facts ("this candy bar has peanuts in it"); a label that says "this comic has too much violence for an 11-year-old" depends on the person reading the label and the agency placing the label on the book having similar standards.

Ever gone to a movie and thought the violence was too much for the PG rating? Or seen an R-rated movie and wondered what the fuss was all about? That's someone at the MPAA board deciding for you that this is too much violence for some folks here, but this other violence here is more acceptable.

Someone at Marvel thought "whore" was an acceptable word to put in an all-ages book**, and our librarian disagreed, and now no more Marvel at the library. That is censorship, right there. Not in a country-wide fashion, no, you can still read Marvel comics elsewhere. But it is censorship nonetheless. And going back to movie ratings: when was the last time you saw a movie with an "A" rating in the theater? Once someone marks a film as being "too adult for even the R rating", that pretty much kills its distribution. Oh, sure, you can still find a few places that might play it, depending on the film. A seedy adult film theater (if they still exist in the days of private DVDs and internet porn), a tiny art-house showing, or heck, just wait for the DVD. Well, gosh, it can't really be censorship if it's still around, right?

Sure. And all those comics that didn't take up the Comics Code in the fifties could still be published, they weren't being censored, no, you just couldn't find them on the majority of newsstands.

Labels suck. They are, in a fashion, an abandoning of personal responsibility: "Well, the label says it's bad, so I don't have to use my own judgment and think about it myself, out it goes!".

They are also a hammer, a threat: "take that blood spray or cleavage out of that scene, there, or we'll give you an "A" rating and then you can't get your film into theaters. Conform to our standards for decency!"

You may not think a simple warning label could have much effect, but then you probably also don't pay much attention to what CDs get into Wal-Mart and which don't due to labels or potentially offensive material. You don't care or even know about about some gangsta rapper failing to sell some album because the forces that be behind the scenes are "looking out for the public interest". You probably don't know about artists as tame as Sheryl Crow running into content troubles with chain outlets. And Tipper Gore only wanted to help parents with the awful drudge-work of raising children when she formed the PMRC. Surely she didn't think she would institute censorship, oh, no.

Ami probably means well, the librarian may have nothing but the finest of intentions, but really, it doesn't take a whole lot of foresight to see how these things can start benignly but snowball out of control, far beyond what anyone thought they wanted, since it's happened before, and we even have an example specific to comics that we can look at and evaluate.

What's that everyone says about history and being doomed to repeat it...?

*I really wish I were confident enough about my readership that I didn't feel the need to mention that was all a joke.

**Actually, I think it's far more likely that nobody at Marvel is really paying attention to their rating labels, or that they don't want to have to judge each issue individually so that little Billy can read Avengers #347 but isn't allowed to see the continued story in Avengers #348...

Here, See For Yourself.

2008-03-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

So, don't believe what I said in my last post? Don't think it could happen?

Found via Journalista, we have an example of Frederic Wertham's writing itself! Not the fabled Seduction of the Innocent, alas, but an article he wrote for a magazine that covers much of the same ground.

Let me offer a few quotes.

Dorothy Thompson recently wrote about comic books: "The harm done is incalculable, even if it results in no overt acts, and even if at last it is overcome by other influences."

Okay, he's quoting someone else, but look at that: they claim enormous damage even if nothing happens and any bad message a kid may learn is countered in the end. "God only knows what these poor kids have festering in their heads! Why, they may stab their parents in their sleep! Proof? Ah, well, look at all the harm! In the head!"

Children do not think of reading a comic book as they might "read a book". They "look at" a comic. They become picture-gazers, because they can get the main points of the stories from the pictures alone, without bothering to read the words. The damage may show up years later in the disinclination - or inability - to read a whole book from beginning to end. What right do we have to deprive a whole generation of children of the wholesome influence that comes from reading good literature?

Right, not only do comics make you illiterate (which, anecdotally, sounds like bullcrap to me, since as a kid I grew up on comics, and was far more advanced in my reading than the majority of my classmates in school), but they actually somehow prevent kids from reading the good stuff (also bullcrap, I read a lot more than just comics), and it's a moral question, since "we" are depriving kids of good literature by letting them read comics, you know, that's right, allowing kids to read what they like is an active infringement of their rights.

This is why Wertham fails, and can be ultimately dismissed: a lot of what he says is mostly conjecture and opinion presented as fact without much in the way of evidence to back it up, and half of the evidence he does present is just some other doofus pontificating (without evidence) about comics having a negative effect.

They stimulate morbid - especially sadistic - sexuality in young children, without leaving any outlet except deviate day-dreaming, masturbation, and delinquency.

Okay, never mind any actual proof of cause and effect here: Sexual fantasies and masturbation are evil. When kids touch themselves we have failed them as a nation.

In the wording of the code, Mr. Murphy has tipped his hand, too. "Excessive" violence is forbidden. Should not all violence be toned down? "Brutal" torture is forbidden. Does that mean that refined torture is all right? "Excessive" knife and gunplay is forbidden; so is "unnecessary" knife and gunplay. Does that mean that it is all right to stab a guy if need be? Surely this is not a counter-measure, but a cover-up continuation of the cruelty-for-fun education of children.

Think about that. What kind of action story would you have if you removed every last vestige of violence from comics? If the bad guys cannot be bad, what do the good guys fight for? "You'll never get away with mocking authority with your pointed, sarcastic graffiti and journal posts, Joker!" And also consider the attitude of "whatever they're doing, it isn't enough" that permeates this piece.

This was 1953, about as close to the utopian Ozzie and Harriet ideal as was ever achieved (but which only really existed in rose-colored Republican remembrances), and people still think like this to this day.

If being worried about that happening again is being paranoid, fit me for a tinfoil hat.

Beware of Buyer's Remorse

2008-03-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Eh, you had yer chance.

During the early postwar years, comic books shifted in tone and content. Fed by the same streams as pulp fiction and film noir, many of the titles most prominent in the late forties and early fifties told lurid stories of crime, vice, lust, and horror, rather than noble tales of costumed heroes and heroines such as Superman, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman, whose exploits had initially established the comics genre in the late thirties and early forties. These unprecedented dark comics sprouted from cracks in the back corners of the cultural terrain and grew wild. Unlike the movies and the broadcast media, comic books had no effective monitoring or regulatory mechanism—no powerful self-censoring body like the film industry's Hays Office, no government authority like the FCC imposing content standards. Uninhibited, shameless, frequently garish and crude, often shocking, and sometimes excessive, these crime, horror, and romance comics provided young people of the early postwar years with a means of defying and escaping the mainstream culture of the time, while providing the guardians of that culture an enormous, taunting, close-range target. The world of comics became a battleground in a war between two generations, delineating two eras in American pop-culture history.

--David Hadju, The Ten-Cent Plague

If it seems, sometimes, like I constantly harp on the idea that some in the feminist community are out to squelch the expression of others, if it seems like I can't just accept it when someone says "but we aren't out to deprive you of anything", there's reasons for that.

High on that list is: because it's happened before.

Even Frederic Wertham, often painted by his detractors as a bitter uptight prude, would later, after the Comics Code was put into place, say that wide-ranging censorship wasn't his goal; he merely believed children shouldn't be reading the lurid types of comics he was protesting, as that would turn them into criminals.

We can give him that much benefit of the doubt. I am confident that in his heart of hearts, Wertham believed he was Doing The Right Thing and Thinking Of The Children and all that; that he had nothing but the finest of intentions.

But.

The alarm and ruckus he helped raise ran away, well out of any control he may have wished to exert, and the comics industry clenched its own anus tighter than Tupperware and consigned comics to decades of simplistic morals, dwindling genres, and declining audiences.

Every time you look at a scan of some comic from the Seventies and groan about how stereotypical everything is, how bland and tasteless, how backwards in the attitudes portrayed*, just remember: that is a result of the actions of people who thought they were Doing The Right Thing.

By contrast, over in Japan, where there was far less censorship over the same period, manga matured into a vital and diverse artform. Sure, there are juvenile, tasteless, pandering comics over there, but there's also been, on the whole, a much greater diversity of appeal to a wide variety of perspectives. Sensitive, thoughtful, and even action-filled girls' comics? Sure, lots.

This was achieved without blotting out that which offends, without worrying overmuch about damaging some kid's brain if OH GOD he or she should happen to stumble across something a little bit (or a lot bit) sexy or violent, or perhaps not entirely respectful to every possible sub-group of humans on the planet.

Well, the Comics Code is dead, for all intents and purposes. The distribution pathways that demanded its use are atrophied; they do not support the industry. Mainstream comics are more sophisticated (true, that's a debatable point) and deal with topics the Comics Code was specifically meant to suppress. For all the criticism of modern mainstream comics, they are in many ways better now than they were when the Comics Code was at its peak. And alternative comics are slowly filling in long-lost (or even newly-mined) gaps in genre and complexity.

Consider, however, how much better these comics could have been today if there had never been any Comics Code. What might have happened if the lurid comics from EC and other publishers had matured and evolved naturally over time, as they did in Japan? Is it unreasonable to speculate that there would be a far more healthy industry today, one that retained a diverse range of material for all ages, all genders, all whatever?

Not into speculation? Don't see the problem?

Recently Japan instituted new rules regarding child pornography, rules more approaching those set by the US. (In fact, it seems clear it's mainly pressure from the outside world on Japan that's bringing these rules into existence.) But still, manga and other drawn images are not being made illegal, despite concern over these images from the same groups that endorse the new, tighter restrictions. "Lolicon" manga have long been a source of agitation for many comics-watchers, who see any depiction involving minors and sex as reprehensible, regardless of the fictitious nature of the depiction. You remember the Nymphet controversy, right?

But how many people can get over their own distaste and explore just why such comics came into being in the first place? The kneejerk reaction would seem to be "because Japan is full of perverts!" That may be the case, but it doesn't seem to be the only factor. A cultural obsession with "cute" contributes. In looking for the origins of this genre, it seems that censorship itself has also played a part in bringing out underage subjects in sexual context.

While the degree to which it has been enforced has varied over the years, Japan has had one notable form of censorship in its comics: adult genitalia cannot be shown**. Now, in today's porn-comic industry, this restriction may only result in a thin white rectangle obscuring some bare minimum of an otherwise very explicit picture, but in decades past characters in erotic stories had no more primary sex organs on display than your average Barbie doll. Sex was depicted in "artful" ways, with odd camera angles, and visual euphemisms, and suggestive silhouettes.

Artists who simply had to draw genitals had one avenue of exception: Children's genitals were allowed to be depicted. And that's what some artists began to do, sexualize younger subjects just so they could draw the naughty bits in around the censorship.

This is what suppression does. If it works, it stifles creativity, often in ways not originally intended. If it doesn't work, it motivates sidesteps and workarounds, or brings the attraction of the "forbidden fruit", that which is taboo, into the equation.

If I seem fixated on the subject, consider it a cautionary tale. I have very little against personal dislike for some storyline or artwork. If you don't like something, you don't.

But bring more to it than that, bring in social significance, imperatives of some sort, and I begin to hear echoes of past history. "This is sexist!" becomes "Sexism is bad, kids shouldn't be reading this" becomes "really, something should be done about all this sexism so it doesn't harm our children". Then you turn around and wonder just when it was you signed up for the Non-Sexism Comics Mandate, and why do all the mainstream comics seem even more bland and stale than usual...? Yeah, how did that all happen? After all, you're sure you were Doing The Right Thing.

*And that's what makes the truly good stuff from those times all the more remarkable...

**It's worth noting that this rule was something brought in by the US, post-WWII, and not any particular Japanese cultural imperative of the time. Certainly erotic art from most of Japan's pre-war history was unabashedly explicit.

If You Don't Ask, You May Never Know.

2008-03-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't had any thoughts really worth sharing for a while, but I'm feeling restless and impatient waiting for my poll to fill up. I do have some thoughts about how that's turning out so far, but maybe setting the time limit to two months was a bit excessive. I may edit that down later (if possible).

In the meantime, here is my current whim: From the time beginning now until I get some inspiration for another post, I'm throwing the door open to questions from my readers, whomever that might be. If you have been puzzled or curious about some facet of my stance on things, if you ever wondered "why does he think like that? Argh!" now is the time to ask.

Writing this, I don't particularly expect much reaction, but in the off chance this sets off the Internet Dumbass Flood of 2008, here's some ground rules:

Try to be clear, but succinct. If you have to preface your question with six paragraphs of setup, you're probably doing it wrong. Likewise, if your question depends on me reading your 70 links to important documents I'll probably pass.

Smartassery will be treated in the same manner in which it was offered, at my discretion. That is, if your question is just an excuse to needle or insult me ("hey, jerkface, why are you such an idiot?"), then you forfeit any expectation of a serious answer.

No, I'm not going to reveal any personal details about myself, except in the most general fashion. Not that I consider my secret identity to be that much in demand, but just in case it comes up, I'm covering that base.

Aside from such exceptions, I pledge to answer any questions as honestly and straightforward as possible.

Any takers?

The Third Rule of Post Club: You Do Not Talk About (or after) the Third Rule

2008-02-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

EDIT #3: Our fashion-challenged Mouse has responded not once, but twice! And both times manages to miss the point by miles. Plus he goes on an entertaining mini-rant about the APA is using propoganda buzzwords to demonize his libido, or something. Repeat after me: This is NOT about what you do or don't find attractive. It's about how you treat women. Mouse was the one who said sexualized in his post. Sexualization is not about what you THINK of women; it is about what you DO to them. I think I made the distinction between "attraction" and "sexualization" pretty clear in my post, but Mouse continues to respond as if I'm criticizing him for what he finds attractive or sexy.
--Nenena

There are several components to sexualization, and these set it apart from healthy sexuality. Sexualization occurs when
a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics;
a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy;
a person is sexually objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or
sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.
--The APA

Here's an interesting question: At what point do we define something as not being thought about someone, but being done to them?

"Objectified" is a good example. Supposedly, if I look at some cheesecake picture of a woman, and as the APA indicates, I do not see her as a person with her own individual personality and motivations, but instead view her in an entirely sexual manner, then I am "objectifying" her, and that is a form of sexualization.

However: I haven't actually done anything to this hypothetical woman except perhaps applied some personal lustful thoughts. And aside from some Gorean-style master/slave kind of arrangement, in what way could I seriously, truly, in this civilized part of the world, actually cause some woman to become literally nothing more than a sexual object by virtue of my thoughts alone?

And yet, that's the APA, defining "sexualization". And though that's not precisely the way Nenena herself uses it in her post, she cites the APA a couple times as the source of the definition.

As I mentioned previously, the APA's definition is so vague and/or broad as to be able to be applied to almost any barely-related situation. I don't think this is an accident. If you can say that nearly anything is "sexualization", then you can speak out against nearly anything you disagree with and slap a Bad Nasty Label on it. Sexualization is Bad, This Thing is Sexualization, therefore This Thing is Bad.

If you are going to use the APA as the source of your definition, you ought to factor in all of what that entails, not just what's convenient for your argument at the time.

For the APA, as presented in the definition above, it IS about what people think, what they find attractive. Do I need to elaborate? Very well:

"a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy"

While "sexy" isn't (for me, at least) based entirely on physical attractiveness, it's sure as hell the primary factor. Or to be more exact, physical attractiveness has to be present for "sexy" to occur in my brain. A good-looking woman does not always give the signal of "sexy"; however, an unattractive woman simply does not spark that signal at all.

Now, you can parse the APA sentence above in a number of ways. If "physical attractiveness = sexy" is the standard, then what is the result and injustice the APA is implying here? That if someone is good-looking, that they are automatically assumed to be "sexy"? Or is it that someone who doesn't measure up to someone's standards for physical attractiveness can't be considered "sexy"?

In either case, whether someone is considered "sexy" is first and foremost what someone thinks, not what someone does, although whether someone is considered "sexy" may well affect how that person is approached. Whether or not you think a person's criteria for "sexy" is reasonable or fair, that's how they think. The APA would have you consider those thoughts to be "sexualization".

Nenena may have a clearer, narrower, more precisely-defined version of "sexualization" she prefers to use.

Maybe she should present it to the APA first, so they can make it an official part of their lexicon. That way, when she takes me to task for not using her version of the word, there'll actually be someone else using her version besides, you know, her.

----------oh, and also----------

"but Mouse continues to respond as if I'm criticizing him for what he finds attractive or sexy."

Let's recap: I compared Wonder Woman's outfit to sexy lingerie. Nenena's response was to mock me for being "confused" about what was sexy lingerie and what wasn't. If that isn't a criticism of me finding something about WW's costume to be sexy, what is?

"I have an idea! Let's get on Anon's case for saying WW's outfit is sexy like lingerie, and then pretend like that's not what we said at all! All alternate personalities and realities in favor, say 'aye'!"

Ay-yi-yi.

Dude, I Really Need to Read More Pornificated Comics

2008-02-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

I have to confess, I was mildly surprised that nobody ever put a comment on my blog entry about Wonder Woman's costume. Not entirely surprised, mind you, since a number of people calling themselves feminists more-or-less shrugged their shoulders over it. Not that there was overwhelming approval, or anything, but it wasn't seen as anything special by some. Others, however, began the wailing and gnashing of teeth over what they saw as a desecration of a feminist symbol, so I half-expected someone to lambaste me for being another eeevil anti-feminist for not seeing the Playboy cover as a deliberate attack on all womanhood. The lack of any comments made me think that maybe the consensus was that it wasn't such a big deal, after all.

Ah, but I would discover that it was up to Nenena to bring the rage.

It never ceases to amaze me how some feminists can salt their their thoughts with bits about how sexual attraction is natural and healthy and then completely fail to comprehend how male sexual drive operates.

It's almost as if they're operating on an assumption of how they think it should work, rather than how it actually works.

Here, check this out. Nenena says:

Clothing is a form of expression. It communicates. And the way that clothing works - its message and its purpose - relies on a LOT more than just how much skin it covers.

Perhaps. But how much skin something covers is a significant factor in how men respond to any clothing. If it wasn't, you'd never have any woman get ticked off because a guy was staring a bit over-long at their cleavage. This isn't to say that guys are always without fail going to see some flesh and get an uncontrollable boner or something, but it does mean that just because what some woman is wearing isn't lingerie, that men are somehow never interested in that exposed skin.

Nenena, on her blog, has helpfully provided a whole mess of images. Many are of lingerie. However, there isn't a single image in the "not lingerie" range that someone hasn't turned into a Google-able fetish or fantasy. Skintight leotards? Check. Swimsuits? Check. Tube-tops? Yep.

The problem with the "clothing as message" premise is that, like all communication, it's subject to misinterpretations and multiple meanings to different mindsets. A swimsuit may have a primary function of making it easy to swim without being either A) dragged under by waterlogged clothing or B) naked, but there are swimsuit contests to show off women's bodies.

You may think a piece of apparel has a particular meaning, but it would be folly to assume your preferred meaning is the only one, or that you are able to restrict such meanings to only ones you approve of. Like it or not, lots of men see lots of clothing types, even those not intended to be sexy, as being sexy. Nun's habit, anyone?

She goes on to post instances of men's apparel, and even there, I imagine, though biker shorts are not primarily intended as fetish wear, for some gay guys it probably is a fetish, or sexy, at the very least.

Moving on:

First, I have to question how he's using the phrase "sexualized by the male gaze" here.

Answer One: sarcastically.

Answer Two: in the way some feminists, like Nenena herself, use it.

Is it somehow not the premise held by those offended by the Playboy cover that it conveys a level or style of sexuality which is inappropriate to the Wonder Woman character, or the symbolism the character supposedly conveys? And is that not how Nenena's own link to an American Psychological Association page defines sexualization, "inappropriately imposed sexuality"? Perhaps it's not just me who's the "confused blogger".

(Interesting word, "sexualization", as defined by the APA. Just what is "inappropriate sexuality?" Inappropriate can be so open to interpretation. Why is Wonder Woman being sexy on the cover of Playboy inappropriate? I don't recall seeing a lot of Wonder Woman's actual sex life depicted in the comics I've read. Is it so hard to imagine that the character might be willing to pose for Playboy if the mood struck her? Would she be offended that anyone might find her sexually attractive in that outfit, "battle armor" or not? And who makes these determinations? Readers? Writers? Wonder Woman's corporate owners? "Sexualization" can be so damn vague as to be nothing more than a propaganda tool, a buzzword to demonize (to use another word tossed around lately) people who find certain things sexy that other people think should not be sexy (or only sexy in ways they allow). Repeated for the umpteenth time: It's an attempt to "take the sexy away" by saying "you should not find this to be sexy".)

There's more:

If you're writing or drawing Wonder Woman to look or act like Tarot, then YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. That is bad writing (and sexualization). And that is what most feminist fans of Wonder Woman object to.

I refer anyone interested to this blog entry of mine. If there is no hive-vagina, why assume I'm talking about "most feminists"?

Unfortunately, I am unable to re-locate the specific blog entry elsewhere in the blogosphere that inspired my original post, but my impression of it was that, indeed, the blogger was shocked and surprised that Wonder Woman would be used in a sexy pictorial for Playboy, and part of her thesis was that, since Gloria Steinem selected Wonder Woman to be on the cover of Ms. Magazine and the character was adopted as a feminist symbol, the character should somehow be sacrosanct, inviolable. (Which explained the surprise, she assumed nobody at Playboy would DARE use the character.)

I didn't link to that post at the time due to laziness and the fact that I didn't think her arguments were unique to her viewpoint (Greg Rucka pointed out the Ms. cover, for instance), so call it a strawfeminist if you like, but these were specific points of view I was responding to.

This, now, is the capper:

And really, it's pretty fucked-up to say that just because a woman is exposing a certain amount of skin, it's the same as if she's wearing fetish lingerie. That's a curiously prudish thing to say, coming from a blogger who normally casts himself as crusading against prudishness. Honestly now. Have we never been to a beach, or what?

Can we go in two or three different directions at once, here, or what?

First off: Yeah, I've been to a beach, and while there I've noticed that I'm not the only guy there checking out pretty girls in bikinis. The fact that they wear swimsuits and not lingerie does not diminish sexual attraction, and depending on the swimsuit involved, may even evoke a greater reaction.

Second, if it's prudish of me to equate exposing skin with lingerie, how much more prudish is it to equate clothed characters with porn? The Heroes for Hire cover, Greg Land's tracing, etc., etc... Nenena ought to have a talk with the anonymous poster who complained on my blog about "the pornification of comics" before pulling off some double-twist rationalization so she could call me a prude. (And if she herself was in the HfH=porn camp, then, Pot, Kettle, what-the-hell-ever.)

Third: See the above about clothing and skin exposure.

Well, okay. Maybe it was a bit much for me to compare Wonder Woman's costume with lingerie. How about this, then: If you dyed Wonder Woman's bodysuit a solid single color, what would you get?

Whattya know. With bracelets and a tiara, too!

(Brace for impact)

See, This is Exactly What You've Been Asking About, Zhinxy

2008-02-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

So what am I, a reasonable person with criticisms of some works, or a vile creature on the road to censorship, demonizing those who like things I don't?
--Zhinxy

De • mon • ize

3. To represent as evil or diabolic: wartime propaganda that demonizes the enemy.
--The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Y'know, NOBODY IS REALLY SURPRISED when a comic book superheroine gets shat on.
--Nenena

Zhinxy, you asked me this question, and my previous answer may not have been particularly on-target. Perhaps I wasn't sure what exactly it was you were asking. I'll attempt again.

About you, personally? I don't really know. Honestly, I don't track you enough to be able to say one way or the other whether I think you demonize the male libido or those who like things you consider sexist or wrong. The links I click on at WFA for the most part don't seem to feature you as an author, mostly as an audience member in the comments section. I can say I don't recall you saying anything directly to me in my blog that I thought was an outright attempt to demonize anyone, so as far as that goes, no.

If you want an example of what I do consider demonizing, I refer you to Nenena, there. One flip comment neatly illustrates the difference. A woman bodypainted in the style of Wonder Woman's costume isn't merely a men-oriented magazine pandering to men's tastes, it's taking a dump on a superheroine. A reaction of outrage and revulsion expressed in ugly language, to paint the perpetrators as some sort of hideous, morally-bankrupt ogres.

That's the kind of thing I consider "demonizing".

I Can Beat Greg Rucka at Conspiracy Theories any One More Day of the Goddam Week

2008-02-20T23:08:00.000-08:00

Remember the Mary-Jane "laundry" statue? OF COURSE you do, come on.

Okay. Remember how the people against it were picking at it for every little thing to try and get this mountain of reasons why it was bad and shameful and all that? Yeah? And then how Adam Hughes was trying to explain the concept, and then people started picking at that to try and prove it was all a smokescreen for the hand-rubbing, cackling chauvinist pigs in the smoke-filled back rooms?

Right, right. So Hughes says it's a scene of Mary-Jane discovering Peter Parker's Spider-Man costume, at a time before they were married. But no, no, no, said the critics: A thong? Nobody wore that stuff back then! She's wearing modern clothes, so of course it can't be before they were married, she'd have to be wearing clothes like they wore in 1987 or before! (Which would make the two of them how old today, if we measured their marriage in terms of publishing dates...?)

Yeah. So figure in how much lead time there has to be in getting comics made, how long ago the controversy was... I can see what happened. Joe Quesada says "All right, I'll show you," and he comes up with "One More Day".

Bwango!

Now Mary-Jane and Peter are not married, and it's modern times! And NOW SHE CAN BE DATING HIM AND FIND HIS COSTUME IN THE LAUNDRY WEARING MODERN CLOTHES AND IT WILL ALL MAKE SENSE!

"One More Day" and all the rest of it is just statue justification! I said it first! You wait, you'll see! It'll all make sense when they release the comic with the laundromat scene!

ADDITIONAL HOURS-LATER REALIZATION:

Oh, man, I've figured it out! Mary-Jane finding the costume will be the trigger that makes her remember the marriage! She'll be fiddling with her pearl necklace, pulling the costume out, and then she'll remember everything. The hated pose, the hated situation, everything people hate about that statue, THAT will be what saves the marriage, defeats Mephisto, delivers chocolate to all the heroic decent people, alleluia, amen.

I bet even the thong will play an important role. Like Spider-Man gets his wall-crawling powers taken away briefly by some bad guy. Oh no, he gonna fall! But wait: "Spidey! GRAB MY THONG! I LOVE YOU!"

This stuff writes itself.

Tolerating the Intolerable, Defending the Indefensible

2008-02-16T11:46:00.000-08:00

The moral sense, we are learning, is as vulnerable to illusions as the other senses. It is apt to confuse morality per se with purity, status and conformity. It tends to reframe practical problems as moral crusades and thus see their solution in punitive aggression. It imposes taboos that make certain ideas indiscussible. And it has the nasty habit of always putting the self on the side of the angels.

[...]

People have shuddered at all kinds of morally irrelevant violations of purity in their culture: touching an untouchable, drinking from the same water fountain as a Negro, allowing Jewish blood to mix with Aryan blood, tolerating sodomy between consenting men. And if our ancestors' repugnance had carried the day, we never would have had autopsies, vaccinations, blood transfusions, artificial insemination, organ transplants and in vitro fertilization, all of which were denounced as immoral when they were new.

The above quotes are from Stephen Pinker's article, The Moral Instinct, published in the New York Times. Those who can't overcome their ADD long enough to read it may consider listening to an NPR radio discussion of the same thing.

Hey, didja see the fuss a couple posts ago? It never fails. Defending someone's right to produce and distribute something some folks might find offensive is, in some eyes, equivalent to defending or even endorsing the offensive thing itself.

Nevermind that the point of the original post wasn't to defend Chugworth Academy or its creator Dave Cheung but to point out an instance of "I'm-not-against-sexy-unless-I-don't-like-it" doublespeak; no, the fact that I took a stand in opposition to Lilith Ester, through some non-Euclidean geometry, became me defending a pervert, which brainfarted its way into "They might think you're a pervert too, better watch out!"

Whoooo I'm skeerdy!

Well, if nothing else, it puts me in the same company as the ACLU, or at least the ACLU as I remember it many years ago. They'd defend the rights of NAMBLA, or neo-nazis to speak their hateful stuff, and then get castigated by both the Left ("why defend Nazis when other more righteous people need help??") and the Right ("Don't criticize us for trying to censor stuff! YOU DEFEND NAZIS!").

Speaking of many years ago, I wonder if anyone else remembers Pat Robertson and his 700 Club cronies getting all worked up about a "Censored Art" show. The show featured a big range of controversial stuff from the time, such as the photos of Mapplethorpe and Serrano. This was during one of the Republican pushes to disembowel funding for the arts, particularly anything mainstream middle-class folks might get a shock over.

At the entrance to the exhibit was a quote from Adolph Hitler, pontificating about how all traces of eroticism and other badness should be removed from the arts. (I've repeated that quote and others elsewhere in my blog.) But, it never fails: On his TV show, Pat Robertson focused right on the tagline "ADOLPH HITLER" (not bothering to read or repeat the quote, either) to say, "LOOK! A QUOTE FROM HITLER! THESE FILTHY ART GUYS LIKE HITLER!"

So congratulations! Discourse has not moved all that far away from Pat Robertson's myopic crusades of a decade or more ago. The sad part is that the irony of supposed liberal-leaning folks (like feminists, for example) adopting the same kind of moral-outrage tactics commonly associated with conservatives and Christian fundamentalists seems to be lost on all but a few. You may even be reading this right this very second, thinking "how ridiculous! I'm not a right-winger!"

And you may not be, but fundamentalism isn't just for Christians anymore.

"Abortion is just wrong!"

"Homosexuality is just wrong!"

"You wimmen should get back to makin' babies and cookin' dinner like God intended!"

"I wouldn't mind Cheung's right to publish his shit (he can draw it all he wants, publishing is another thing) being taken away."

Ideology may differ, but the underlying principle is the same: "Something makes me feel upset, so I think abridging someone else's rights is justified just because my moral sense gets tweaked." You would have to be blind or intentionally self-deluding to completely miss how these things are alike, despite where they may rest on the political spectrum. Anyone who's ever spoken out for any cause they believe in, and had someone from the opposite side of the debate whip out a Bible or bring up "family values" as a reason why you should be punished for believing in your little heresies, loses just about every bit of my respect when they engage in the same sort of "I just think it's WRONG" kind of reasoning. If you don't accept someone else's moral imperative, what makes your moral imperative any more compelling? Just because it's more right? Everyone thinks that, big deal.

To quote the Times article again:

The other external support for morality is a feature of rationality itself: that it cannot depend on the egocentric vantage point of the reasoner. If I appeal to you to do anything that affects me -- to get off my foot, or tell me the time or not run me over with your car -- then I can't do it in a way that privileges my interests over yours (say, retaining my right to run you over with my car) if I want you to take me seriously. Unless I am Galactic Overlord, I have to state my case in a way that would force me to treat you in kind. I can't act as if my interests are special just because I'm me and you're not, any more than I can persuade you that the spot I am standing on is a special place in the universe just because I happen to be standing on it.

Working from this premise, a call to remove sexist imagery from comics, or to get Dave Cheung to stop drawing jailbait*, falls flat on its face. What sort of reciprocal deal is that? "I want you to not publish anything I find offensive! In return, I pledge to also not publish stuff I find offensive."

Yeah, that'll work.

The very first comment in my previous post about Ms. Ester says this:

Do you need porn** to have sexy? Why do you need porn poses in MAINSTREAM comics? Why not get an erotic comic, if you want that? If you never saw Jean Grey's nipple again, would she suddenly cease to be sexy? Was she not sexy in the days when such representations were less common?

But that misses the entire point of both my original post and the larger idea I've been espousing. (Plus: Jean Grey's nipple? What? Where'd that come from?) Does anyone need this or that in comics, or even "mainstream" comics? Immaterial. First off, nobody "needs" comics, period. You may want them badly, you won't die without them. Comics are entertainment, be it sloppy dumb entertainment or cleverly crafted, literate, thoughtful entertainment.

To demand that depictions you find objectionable be removed is basically calling for someone else to give up something in return for nothing but your head-nod of approval. A cheesecake-filled exploitation comic may have no value to you, but if it had no value to anybody, it wouldn't be produced, sold, bought, read.

"But, but, but," you may be saying, "the things I hate are wrong!" Just as someone else may be convinced homosexuality is wrong?

Because I am not gay, I don't really enjoy the idea of gay sex. Two guys making out does not arouse me, in fact, I get a bit of a "ew" reflex when I happen across some example of gay eroticism.

But I tolerate it. I tolerate it because I hold the belief that I don't want anyone else telling me what I can and can not find sexy, therefore I don't have a right to tell anyone else what they can or can't find sexy.

I don't like the Nazi philosophy, but I defend their right to say what they want, because I know full well that many stances I hold are objectionable to some other people, and I don't think they should have the right to suppress what I say, so what could justify me taking a stance to suppress someone else's speech, no matter how vile?

But as evidenced by the comments I got, some people still hold the idea that their likes and dislikes trump those of everyone else.

I don't want what I find sexy (whatever that is) to be taken away from me, so I don't advocate taking what others find sexy (whatever that is) away from them, and I even don't want what Dave Cheung finds sexy (whatever that is) taken away from him, not because I support what he likes, but because it's fair, it's a reciprocal arrangement.

To think otherwise, to demand that others give up what they like while you keep what you like, that's unfair.

You could even call it immoral.

* By the way: I looked it up, and the UK age of consent is 16. So assuming the Chugworth characters are that age or older, by the standards of his country of residence, any sexual activity depicted is legal, or at least as legal as anything happening with fictional imaginary drawn characters can be. "But that's not how it is elsewhere in the world!" you might whine. But isn't that pretty damn politically incorrect, the pretense that the USA or any other country should force its standards upon others?

** Really, if you seriously call what's going on in mainstream comics today "porn", you are a precious sheltered child who isn't grown-up enough to discuss comics with the adults. Oh, was that a bit condescending? Perhaps, but no more so than this "you couldn't possibly need this much sexy in comics! Why won't you let me take it away from you for your own good?" routine.

Why I Do Not Feel Feminist Outrage Over Sexed-Up Wonder Woman, in 60 Words.

2008-02-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

Wonder Woman runs around fighting crime in what is essentially a bustier and panties with go-go boots.

I simply cannot conceive of the level of naiveté it would require for someone to think Gloria Steinem picking that character as a symbol of empowered womanhood would somehow make Wonder Woman, so attired, immune from being sexualized by the male gaze.

See, This is Exactly What I've Been Talking About.

2008-02-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

Incidentally, Cheung and Cheung's rabid fans: I do not hate sex. I do not hate men or women, except in specific cases. I am neither Christian nor prudish and I don't believe that keeping the lights on is the most exciting thing one can do in the bedroom. I'm just very clear on where an empowered female character who just happens to enjoy sex becomes a juvenile vehicle for fanservice and wanking.

--Lilith Ester

The above comes from the recently revived Your Webcomic is Bad blog. Sadly, I did not voice my suspicion that the Jade Raymond/Dave Cheung controversy would cause Cheung's webcomic Chugworth Academy to be at the top of the list if/when the blog revived; alas, instead of looking prescient, I just seem cranky.

But read that paragraph: After going on at length about how she isn't against sex, oh no no, she wraps it up with one sentence that immediately whips around 180° and condemns what she considers "juvenile". If you like what's in the strip, juvenile, creepy or not, it's your sex she's against. Not "sex", per se, just what she finds distasteful, nevermind if you like it or not.

She is upset that Dave Cheung draws what she finds creepy and unsettling; I get the sense she's also upset that anyone might possibly find any of it arousing, and I can't imagine she does not believe that some people are indeed "wanking" over it, despite her disgust and derision.

This is what I've been grumbling about back here all along. It's all very well to say you don't want to "take the sexy away", or that you aren't "against sex", if you define what you like and approve of as "the sexy", and anything that falls outside of your personal preferences and approval as some filthy perversion that must be expunged.

Strap that jerking knee down: Ms. Ester is free to not like Chugworth or Dave Cheung or any of that stuff, I don't care. Criticize it all you want until the Heat Death of the Universe, knock yourself out. But don't tell me you aren't against "the sexy" when what you really mean is "I'm not against anything I like but anything I dislike is fair game". Admit that you are against someone else's "sexy".

In other words: Just don't bullshit me.

Listening to the Antichrist

2008-02-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

Or:

DEPPY-ENDS ON YOUR POINT OF VIEW

Or:

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE STRAWFEMINIST

In short, it seems the "hive-vagina" is only valid when they want it to be. When they are complaining to get the change they want, ANYONE who's voice can be used to that end is made part of the community. But when outsiders take a harder look at the tactics and actual comments being made, and start in with their thought on how and why they are doing things, suddenly they are just individuals who speak only for themselves.

--James Meeley

Whatever hate-fest it is that has marked James Meeley to be treated as the pariah of the feminist fangirl community (and no, I still don't care), it has the unfortunate side-effect of generating the knee-jerk reaction to overlook his words when he does say something worth considering.

Granted, James does have a tendency to write five paragraphs where one would suffice; he also tends to frame his points in a way to paint feminist fangirls as some sort of intentionally self-deceptive cabal/conspiracy, in a tone that skims along the edge of patronizing.*

Still, I think he has a valid point in the above quote. I have seen something of the sort myself when reading about things that garner a large-scale controversy, such as the Mary-Jane statue. The pattern goes something like this: someone is offended by Incident A for Reason X, and makes a statement to that effect. In the ensuing discussion, Reason X is challenged, examined, its faults (if any) brought to light. At the same time, other people may voice their opposition to
Incident A for Reason Y or Reason Z. Some people, seeking to bolster Reason X, will add together all voices for Reasons X, Y, and Z and point to that as "popular" support for opposition to Incident A, regardless of whether the various Reasons are even linked in some way.

If, however, Reason Z is found to be without merit or irrelevant, Supporters of Reason X often try to have it both ways: they can claim "oh, those people aren't part of us" when Reason Z is challenged, but they often won't amend earlier statements that include supporters of Reason Z as evidence of the rightness of Reason X.

If you managed to follow all that, it might then become a bit more understandable why Dirk Deppey would conflate Girl-Wonder.org's stances and goals with that of the larger feminist movement. It's a valid criticism of his piece, but at the same time, he's got some good points about how that issue actually relates to comics feminism that, I think, get glossed over in the rush to say, "oh, that Dirk Deppey's just a bitter anti-feminist who doesn't know what he's talking about".

It's a little difficult to discuss feminist issues and comics without running into the counter of "We're not all like that! There's no hive-vagina!" And that's fine as far as it goes, but if I make a statement, and someone responds by saying "but I'm not like that!", that says nothing about whether or not someone else is like that.

And that brings us to:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.
-- Wikipedia

Every so often, you'll see that trotted out as evidence that criticism is unfounded. "That's a strawfeminist, there! I'm not like that!" And if the argument is directed against a single person, or even a group of people who share a common stance, it's a valid defense if the criticism has no basis in reality.

"My opponent believes in sacrificing puppies to Satan! I'm against that!" Okay, that's a bad strawman at work there, if the opponent has no such anti-puppy agenda.

"I would be against anyone who sacrifices puppies to Satan!" This, however, is less of a strawman argument, since no particular person is identified.

If you speak out against a policy or stance in general, it's only a straw man if you can establish that nobody endorses that viewpoint.

If those who criticize feminism are urged to keep the "no-hive-vagina" mantra in mind, then to be fair, to be reciprocal, counter-criticism ought to bear it equally in mind. When someone says, "I think this feminist stance is wrong", should it not be understood that it is those who endorse that stance who are being criticized, and not anyone not linked to that particular hive-vagina?

In other words, if you don't do the thing that is being criticized, the criticism isn't being aimed at you.

When I, for example, express my doubts about feminists who say they "don't want to take the sexy away", any person who seriously, honestly, does not want to remove "the sexy" from comics is exempt from my criticism. (Defining precisely what such phrases mean, that's another process entirely.) When someone who is thus exempt chimes in to contradict my criticism, I'm left with the impression of "closing ranks", a support of other feminists for politics' sake, not for the sake of the ideal being criticized.

To defend a stance you do not necessarily believe in, for the reason that the criticism is coming from "the enemy", that someone is criticizing one aspect of feminism and therefore all of feminism itself, well, that would indicate a solidarity befitting a hive-vagina... wouldn't it...?

* "Patronizing", to be fair, is an attitude shared by many pro-feminist commentators as well. The "Bingo Card", for example, is one of the most condescending constructs I've seen since I began taking notice of the WFA and such.

Indestructable! Indefensible! REPREHENSIBLE!

2008-02-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry, nowadays whenever I hear the word I think of the They Might Be Giants song of the same name.

So tell me: what do you think of police brutality? The Rodney King incident, for example. Or any number of other examples where the police get a little too wrapped up in the subduing of a suspect, where they cross the line from reasonable force to just wailing on some guy 'cuz they're mad at him for resisting or something.

Reprehensible, right? We expect our law enforcement officials to act in a calm, efficient manner at all times, even the most stressful. It's a lot to ask for, but that's the job, it's an awesome responsibility, and we don't want people beat to death or shot just because they gave some stressed-out officer a little lip at the wrong moment.

Dress a guy up in some spandex, though, maybe a cape, and we're willing to forgive him his little violent tantrums. Give him hair flares and knives coming out of his arm, and heck, we'll applaud when he kills a few people.

Granted, in superhero comics the bad guys are normally pretty clearly labeled as Bad Guys who deserve to get the living crap kicked out of them. Nobody feels too sorry for the Joker, despite whatever sob story he may or may not have for an origin.

Still, step back and think about what would really happen if costumed heroes were taking the law into their own hands in the real world. Oh, the civil rights abuses alone...

And it might give kids ideas. Some kid might think strapping on a mask, tracking down that bully who picked on him, and beating him to pulp with a baseball bat is a virtuous path to take after reading the amazing adventures of Revenge-Man.

Tell me now: in the real world, which is worse? Beating the crap out of someone, or sexism? Leaving aside the issue of whether sexism can lead one to beat the crap out of someone else, can we agree that between sexism and violence, violence is the greater of two evils?

If everything I have said is true, then why would anyone fixate on eradicating sexism from comics before they had been cleansed of violence? Surely, the latter is a greater threat to society, if we believe that the content of a comic book leads the youngins down the slippery slope to a life of crime.

Or phrased another way: If everything I have said is true, why do some people excuse violence but not sexism?

BONUS THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

For some reason, the Oscars recently crossed my sight. More specifically, the hordes of celebrities that attended the event. I was thinking to myself (and now I'm repeating the thought to you) that like superhero comics, one could say there's a sexist mode of dress at work there. Most men are dressed in suits and tuxes, most of their body covered, while many women parade around in very revealing gowns, some of which are structurally unsound to the point of needing double-sided tape to keep the naughty bits from being inadvertently exposed. Even more demure gowns expose much skin and cleavage, compared to how much skin men have exposed. Why? Well, to look attractive and glamorous, by the standards of today's western society.

You can certainly say that it is sexist, if you like, but in that light, isn't it reasonable to speculate that if superheroes did exist in real life, they might very well dress as they do in the comics, with women dressing in a more sexually pronounced fashion?

After all, as far as function goes, a cape and cowl are just as ridiculous as a boob window. A real-life Batman would be an idiot if he wore anything other than Kevlar body armor and a riot helmet. Unless you're invulnerable like Superman, most superhero costuming of either gender is pretty damn impractical.

Which leaves "because it looks awesome cool!"* as the only reason any of them dress like that. You dress to be noticed more than anything else. And thus, superheroines dressing in immodest fashion would be sexist, but not more so than real life itself.

*standards for "awesome cool" being completely subjective, of course.

Conundrum to Adventure

2008-02-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

As I write this, When Fangirls Attack's last link-list is dated Jan. 30. And a scanning of the titles reveals little to no commentary on Countdown to Adventure issue #6. Which interests me, since I thought there'd be more of a reaction. In fact, the only commentary I saw, I saw just by clicking a link sort of at random.

Shelly mentions the comic, almost in passing, in a post that is mainly about action figures, and here is her review, in toto:

Nice interactions here. Also, it's the issue where the women take center stage. Alanna saves her hubby and kicks ass. Kory and Ellen sorta reach an understanding and go rescue Buddy, with an assist from Alanna and Adam who make a timely arrival. There's just something that warms my heart about seeing two male heroes rescued from certain death by their wives. Good stuff here. I didn't read the Forerunner story.

It's the Forerunner story, however, that has what I think is a fairly problematic storyline. So SPOILER ALERT, for those who care, because that's what we're talking about today.

And let me preface by saying that I've read neither 52 nor Countdown to Final Crisis, so be understanding if any gaps in my knowledge reveal themselves.

According to CtA, Forerunner is of a race of super-powerful humanoids who came to inhabit Earth after a solar-system-wide war destroyed Earth's human population (in another alternate Earth, natch). Earth became some sort of neutral combat arena where aliens would go to fight over their differences while leaving their homes intact, and a lot of aliens were abandoned on the planet. This mixed-bag of castoffs began to interbreed, resulting in the Forerunner race, which practices both a survival-of-the-strongest warrior philosophy and an intense eugenics-oriented breeding theory.

So. At first employed by the Monitors, she's recruited by Monarch after he reveals that her race has been wiped out by the Monitors, who fear their power, or whatever. She spends some time gathering heroes from alternate worlds to join Monarch's army, but after expressing some doubts about his intentions, he dismisses her, by dropping her off into outer space. Conveniently rescued by a passing ship, she winds up on board a pirate vessel, having killed the captain, as well as most of the crew (by challenging the crew to a battle for the captain's position, to take place in a cargo bay, which she opens into space when all her challengers are inside).

That brings you mostly up to speed for issue #6, wherein the pirate vessel encounters a clutch of Thanagarian ships, looking to bring the former pirate to justice. In an attempt to get them to leave the ship in her possession, Forerunner challenges the Thanagarian leader and his men to hand-to-hand combat.

She kicks their butts, and claims the Thanagarian as her own, taking him back to the pirate ship. Using their code of honor against them, she persuades the others to let the ship go. She has her captive drugged to make him more compliant, then she drags him to her quarters, where she announces her intent to have sex with him (among other things, his performance in battle marks him as decent breeding stock). Initially resistant, he eventually consents, sort of ("I'd be a fool to refuse", he says).

Afterwards, she maintains her emotional distance, and throws out the idea that maybe a couple of the surviving female crew might be called to have their own way with him. She even characterizes his protests as well as his statements that they "connected" as "sensitive".

Assuming that you have not read this comic before, the reaction you are having right now to that synopsis will, I think, say something about your perspective on things. Such as, if you are a feminist, what sort of feminist are you?

Do you feel that the content in comics today is tolerable in general, but just wish there were more equal time portraying genders in various situations? Then this should be great for you. Forerunner acts like many a womanizing, conquesting barbarian. This scene could have come out of a Conan story, only with genders reversed, and, ah, in space.

Do you think it's okay to depict a woman dominating a man like this, but not okay when it's a man dominating a woman? Perhaps you are sexist.

Do you consider treating a person of the other gender as a "prize" or as a possession that can be traded with your pals, regardless of gender, to be wrong? Well, then, you may not find this to be so great. But you may be reacting to the lurid nature of the story more than any gender issues: in other words, it's the sex, not the sexism.

I should point out that, at least in this one comic, Forerunner's amoral stance has been fairly consistent, so this isn't a case of "oh, she would never do something like that!"

I dunno, I'm curious. Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Well, At Least He Didn't Delete Everything Before I Could Copy It.

2008-01-27T20:51:00.000-08:00

"I'm all for dreams. For my own part, I quest for a day when someone's dreams aren't considered an overt oppression of someone else in the real world."

--Me

It may even still be up.

Bless 'im, LurkerWithout tries to engage; he's made replies on my own blog twice so far this year, and both times in a manner you could describe as antagonistic, or at the very least, sarcastic. I'll assume he doesn't sympathize with my viewpoint, if he even understands what my viewpoint is.

You might think, by reading the last comment he made on my blog as well as the above link to his own blog, that he truly doesn't understand my position, you know, by the way he says he can't figure out what my point is. Depending on your outlook, you could chalk that up to me failing to properly explain things, but you could also just as easily say he's using a fork to eat his soup.

Upon discovering the post he made on his own LiveJournal, I started talking to Nenena in the comments section (as well as Zhinxy), but I recently went back to find the thread frozen. I'm not sure what the reason for that is; I could speculate a bit but who cares. Pity, because I thought I was making my points well. I'm also kind of fond of the moment where LurkerWithout tries to get cute with me and tell me what someone on my own blog said to me, but more to the point I think it's worthwhile to preserve one of my replies to Nenena, just in case you, too, gentle reader, had trouble following what I was getting at with my other post.

For context's sake, in case you can't be bothered to click: in posts previous, Nenena has informed me that I don't have much claim to tell gay men to not be offended by something, because I'm not myself gay, and that in cases of offense, it's the opinions of the depicted group that matters most. She's also said that recently there have been protests of yaoi comics by gay men (in contrast to my own impression that they were mostly indifferent to it, and also in contrast to Dryope's comment saying she knew gay men who enjoyed yaoi).

This is how I replied (following bolded text is verbatim quotes from Nenena's post):

It's not straight men that are depicted as unrealistically effeminate in yaoi.

My impression of yaoi (which, granted, isn't at all extensive) is that there are actually very few straight men depicted at all, if ever. So far, any straight male characters I've seen are ciphers and scenery, like a guy who runs a grocery store, or a relative of a main character. They aren't the object of the fantasy, they're just there to prop the fantasy up a bit. If one could point to any random yaoi comic and find a truly prominent character that wasn't gay and also not prettified, then I might give the gay/not-gay differentiation more weight.

But by the reasoning you're giving, if, say, there were a slew of more gratuitous cheesecake covers and comics of the new Batwoman, then straight women would have less ground to protest upon, unless they got the go-ahead from actual lesbians. If lesbians actually did approve of Gratuitous Batwoman, straight women couldn't complain much, since the character is a lesbian, and thus the depiction isn't actually any kind of affront to them or their sexuality.

It depends on your willingness to LISTEN TO the members of the group that you're attempting to ally yourself with.

UGH.

Too many people use the phrase "listen to" when they actually mean things like "defer to" or "obey". It is quite possible to listen to someone and still not agree with their reasoning...

Anyway, if gay men are indeed protesting yaoi, then that only bolsters the whole point of bringing it up.

For one thing, it reinforces my contention that yaoi is primarily "for" women (although one commenter on my own blog said some gay men do read the stuff), and as such, even though it depicts gay activity, the main purpose of it is to titillate *heterosexual* women, just as some guys might find lesbians making out to be arousing.

It has been my impression that there's quite a few fangirls out there that get upset by, say, bodypainted Wonder Woman on Playboy, but at the same time they'll openly lust over some yaoi porn (or even gay subtext in mainstream comics) without seeing any inconsistency in that position. Regardless of the sexual preference of the characters depicted, if one example objectifies women, the other objectifies men, and to be consistent, one should either condemn both equally or let both pass.

If you (meaning anyone out there) do indeed treat both instances equally, then whether or not I agree with your stance, I'll respect your opinion more than if you condemn one but give the other a pass. That inconsistency, to me, reduces the weight of your words, and gives me the impression of an unthinking following of dogma and obedience to the outrage of others over any personal, deeply-felt belief in the inherent wrongness of one thing or another.

If Nenena intended to reply, that was preempted by the freezing of that comments thread.

I think I should point out that none of what I say is intended to actually condemn yaoi comics or any other kind of comics, nor do I think it's wrong for women to have fantasies about yaoi. If they do have such fantasies, though, I think it's only fair to keep that in mind when speaking out against male fantasies. And as I said to Zhinxy on that thread:

But lines can still be crossed. Being Pro Pr0n doesn't mean never having to say that it's sexist.

Sure, that's fair enough. I just think some people are willing to bend where they draw that line when it's something they like on the basis of just that they like it, not because of any inherent merit or lack thereof to whatever it is they're bending their standards for.

And then there's the question of what different people think is the proper method for dealing with things that do cross those lines...

UPDATE/ADDITIONAL, 1-29:

Something's been nagging at me ever since Nenena corrected me about what she said, and I think I've finally figured it out. She says:

Correction: I said that you didn't have much claim to tell gay men to not be offended by something, because you're not gay.

If you believe that, fine... though I think that suggestion loses validity in certain situations. If an offended group is offended by something ridiculous, I don't think it's inappropriate to say "I think that you and your group are getting worked up over nothing". There just have to be reasonable limiters to where someone's outrage must be heeded.

But that aside, what's had me scratching my head is that I don't believe anything I've written so far about yaoi and its problematic nature as regards feminist protests has suggested that gay men should not be outraged by it.

Sure, it's been my impression that gay men in general are not concerned about it, and I went on at length about how I myself, as a man, did not consider to unrealistic male depictions in yaoi to be "co-opting" my male sexuality, but I don't see where I up and said, "and any of you gay guys having a fit over this, well, you shouldn't".

I am a little interested about the inputs I've received about whether gay men do get offended by yaoi: While Nenena points out instances of protest by gay men, Dryope says she knows gay men who read and enjoy it, and in light of Nenena's claims that the depicted group's opinion trumps that of those not depicted, I have to wonder which is the majority view, pro-yaoi-gays or anti-yaoi-gays?

Wouldn't it be amusing if gays were more or less split down the middle on the issue? With no clear majority opinion, which side holds precedence? Who would "gay allies" listen to...?

Ah well.

Everybody Loves Retarded Man-Child

2008-01-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

Just a random thought I had while writing the previous two posts, something I want to express but keep separate from the previous for tidyness' sake...

If I were to be offended as a man and on behalf of my gender by any depiction in modern mass media, it'd probably be the trend where, whenever a common "nuclear family" domestic situation is displayed, say in sitcoms or TV commercials, the "man of the family", the husband, the father, that man, he is portrayed as a complete dumbass.

God knows that formula has been popular enough to drive shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Home Improvement to the highest ratings, and they quit doing those shows just because they got sick of doing them, not because the viewing public was calling for them to just stop it already.

This is a far cry from Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best where the man of the family was considered the font of all wisdom and the economic powerhouse, and granted, that paternalistic vision deserved to be broken down a bit, but if I was a conspiracy nut, I could make a case that modern sitcoms of this type are feminism's way to sneak in the message that men are incompetents who need smart kickass women to prop them up. Men who are smart, clever? They usually fill the role of dateless loser-geek. Any man with self-confidence and an assurance in his own worth is often the creepy self-absorbed womanizer who gets shot down by any woman with an IQ higher than her belt size.

Is there any show made any more where the man is the primary breadwinner of the house, and he's a clever, intelligent, successful sort of guy? Even on commercials it all rings about the same.

"Honey, what was that noise? What happened?"

"Aw, nothin, I just was fixing the chandelier and it dropped on my head."

(Smiles knowingly, nods head like the wisest hermit sage) "Yeah, that's my retarded man-child."

Cue either the laugh track or a blurb for Home Depot.

Oh noes teh womens R coroperting mai sexality~!!

2008-01-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE UNTIL IT TURNS INTO FLUFFY CREME PIES DEPT.:

If you know about manga, maybe you know about "yaoi" and/or "boy's love" comics. I'll admit right up front that my own dealings with them are pretty sparse, since the subject matter (gay love) isn't something I'm really all that interested in when selecting my reading material. But for the sake of research, I've done a bit of looking around, read some stuff posted online. This is what it looks like to me:

"Boy's Love" and "Yaoi" are more or less the same thing, only the latter is more explicitly erotic and less story-oriented than the other.
The main characters in such stories are very stylized, often to the point of being very very pretty. Some artists depict them with very girlish faces.
Most reaction I've read coming from actual gay guys to these stories is a kind of bemused, "Well, that isn't very realistic at all, at least not from my experience."
The actual number of gay readers of this stuff (at least in the States, as near as I can tell) is pretty small; the primary audience for these works is heterosexual women, and of the artists who create it, a large portion are themselves women.

(If Mad Thinker Scott is out there and has any thoughts on yaoi, feel free to chime in.) So what we have here are creators of one gender creating characters of the opposite gender, with highly idealized (and sometimes impossible) body types, performing in ways which are very unlike how sensible real people act, and a large portion of this artistic creation is for not much more purpose than the titillation of its primary target audience, which is not the gender of the aforementioned characters.

Sound familiar?

Now, why shouldn't I get worked up into an indignant froth over how men are depicted in yaoi comics? I suppose I could rationalize a whole heap of outrage on behalf of my own gender over yaoi and how it depicts men and the unrealistic expectations such stories might implant in the minds of young girl-perverts. I could consider the waif-like pretty-boys normally found in these stories to be an insult to real men, and if I were gay I could probably be livid over the liberties yaoi takes with the dynamics (and mechanics) of gay relationships.

But I don't, I'm not.

[I was just about to write "and I suspect most other men wouldn't care all that much, either," except, hell, I dunno, maybe there is some sort of male-based anti-yaoi movement out there I'm unaware of. Certainly real homosexual existence is plagued enough with doofuses, prejudice and crusades that some of that may spill over into a specialized branch of comics; I'd like to think it'd be more based on prejudice and homophobia than anything else, and I'd hope it'd be in the minority. But then again, people are often stupid.]

If you took the title of this entry seriously [and if you really did take it seriously, I advise counseling], you might think I would be about to launch into a tirade about how all this yaoi is "co-opting" my sexuality, by jerking around a bunch of characters on paper to the tune of what some women find sexy instead of what men are really like.

But that would assume that my sexuality is linked to other men's sexuality, and by extension to the fictional sexuality depicted using fictional men. I don't feel either to be the case. Other men's sexuality is their business, not mine. And I understand that the characters in yaoi comics are primarily created for women's fantasies, often (mostly?) by women.

Not only is a yaoi character unrelated to my sexuality in particular, it is entirely unrelated to male sexuality, being a product of female sexuality and the fantasies that beings forth.

In other words, it is impossible to "co-opt" something that never really belonged to me in the first place.

Your assignment: Now go off somewhere and think about Catwoman for a little while.

I Claim this Breast in the Name of all Mankind

2008-01-21T01:50:00.000-08:00

It isn't my intent to directly engage this particular blog-writer, for a number of reasons, including the fact that she seems to be fed up with the man-trolls who just don't get it... so I won't mention her by name or link to the post that sparked this thought. I'm sure if anyone really gives a damn it'll get back to her, and if not, best to leave that hornet's nest alone.

But one phrase I saw got me thinking, and that phrase was:

"the co-opting of female sexuality by the patriarchy."

It's a phrase I've heard before, in a number of variations, and if I understand it right, it's saying that men are in control of how women handle sexual matters.

This is not a premise I disagree with.

But (and I say this knowing full well I will likely be called angry names for saying it), isn't that kind of, well, natural?

In the few seconds I have before the torches find me, let me explain.

Although humans, as intelligent, self-aware beings, have more or less grown beyond our basic animal instincts (your mileage may vary), and sex is often more a form of recreation than a biological requirement for species survival, the original purpose of sex is, after all, to get a male and female together to have sex and make a baby. To that end, the male and female must appeal to each other. Appeal is how you get two people close enough to have sex.

If a woman wants to have sex with a man, she needs to appeal to that man's aesthetics, spark his desires. If the woman is not his "type", he's not going to be nearly as interested in sex. In that way, a man may indeed control how a woman approaches sex. She may wear a low-cut dress and expose cleavage, diet, wear high heels, or do any number of uncomfortable things she might not otherwise do in order to attract a man.

She can control whether she does these things to increase her chance of attracting her desired mate; what she can't control is whether the man responds to whatever she offers. Some men are "easier" than others. If, for some inexplicable reason, a man simply doesn't find brunettes attractive, a brunette may change her hair color, or abandon her attempt to attract that particular male. If she isn't targeting a specific male, she may alter her appearance in ways she believes will make her appeal to a large number of males.

This goes both ways; a man may seek to improve his appearance in order to appeal to females, but if it's true that women in general are less interested in the physical and more attentive to the emotional, then the dynamics in that direction are going to be somewhat different.

There's plenty of variation, as well as all the gay/lesbian/bi factors in play, but when you think about it in this way, it seems extremely unlikely that either gender could ever be 100% in control of their own sexuality, since the whole object of sexuality is dependent on getting the opposite sex's attention. To have complete control, women would not only be determining for themselves what they're willing to do to "be sexy", but also be dictating to men what they are allowed to find sexy.

This is why I give a little sideways glance when I hear someone tack on "but we aren't trying to take the sexy away" when discussing sexuality in comics, since the conversations that get punctuated in this way also often indicate that the speaker thinks men ought not to be finding certain things sexy, thus if those things are removed through force or coercion, it's not really taking "the sexy" away, since nobody should find those things sexy in the first place, cuz' we says so, so there.

The Mary Jane statue? Well, first, guys, you shouldn't find a woman in proximity to dirty laundry sexy at all for any reason, so that's out right there, and she's got her butt shoved out, she's presenting just like an animal, and that's degrading, so you shouldn't find that sexy at all. Nope, no MJ statue. Can't have it. Not allowed. But that's not taking the sexy away, no.

Catwoman with her costume unzipped to show her breasts? Have you seen those breasts? They're huge and unrealistic! No, it doesn't matter if you think they look nice. It's an insult, not sexy. Can't have that.

Supergirl? Ew ew ew! That's perverted, not sexy! Gone!

Body-painted Wonder Woman ohmahgawd. Trashing a feminist symbol. This should never ever be sexy, and therefore it is not sexy, and therefore we will take it away and lock it up away from the eyes of man forever.

See? We're not taking the sexy away at all! You're just confused, you don't really know what sexy is.

Heh.

I will concede that things have been better for men than women in this regard for much of history; I don't dispute that men have been dominant and controlling throughout the world.

The idea, however, that "co-opting" female sexuality is something you could just root out and eliminate through persuasion or legislation, instead of being a byproduct of the whole biological sexual response system, seems to me to be a bit unrealistic. And fighting it would be a Sisyphean task, suitable only for those willing to become dictators...

La Petite Mort; or, "You Got Your Thanatos in My Eros!"

2008-01-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

"Are they all into necro, or what?"

Dear reader, whoever you may be, I ask you: did you find the torture and death of Stephanie Brown to be presented in an erotic fashion? Was it erotic to you, or is it what you think someone else might find erotic? How do you arrive at these conclusions?

And: is this really anything new or unusual? Does it even matter all that much?

(You might think these are rhetorical questions, but how you answer, I feel, says a lot more about your perspective and character than you may realize, and even more, I think it would be particularly telling if you could come up with no clear answer to these questions.)

These days, it's not too hard to spot the points where sex and death converge in mass media, from a naked chick in a slasher film being murdered for having premarital sex to James Bond finding a gold-painted dead woman in a bed. It would be a mistake, though, to think of this as a new trend, or even as recent as the last century. You don't have to treasure-hunt for some lost text of DeSade to find where they overlap in classic literature.

Even Juliet, talking about her upcoming nuptuals, dropped in lines like "and death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!" (Though 'death' was in this case, a euphemism for ecstasy, the real thing would happen along all too soon...)

And that trope of tropes, the person who dies in their lover's arms. "One last kiss, my beloved.... urk."

Armies of embarrassingly mediocre goth poets will confirm it: the macabre can often be very sensual. What of Dracula? Once an allegory for sexual mores, recent re-interpretations of vampire lore bring the symbolic into the literal.

If mixing the two themes is so alarming to you that you consider Stephanie Brown's death to have been fetishized (or, for another example, you believe a reclining sunbather to represent a dead woman), then I submit that you must also be aware of the overlapping of said themes everywhere else it happens in the entire recorded history of art (or at least as much of it as you personally have experienced). To know one but not be aware of the other strikes me as so unlikely that whenever someone reacts with great vehemence upon seeing the themes together in some modern work, my initial knee-jerk reaction is to wonder whether the person having these issues is very young, depressingly ignorant, or deliberately blinkering themselves for controversy's sake.

Now, I'll state again that this is my initial knee-jerk reaction, and shortly thereafter I usually have a more complex thought such as "well, maybe they haven't quite sorted out all their viewpoints yet, it happens..."

Thus, I won't try to classify furikku/the Sooz (whichever is the preferred alias, I dunno) into some pigeonhole, when she wonders whether the creator of Dominic Deegan is a necrophile. I will say that blurting out something like this is the kind of thing that made me create a wholly anonymous blog. Imagine, if you will, had some character in the strip been a minor and she'd said something along the lines of "why do creators make kid characters? Are they all pedos or what?" This sort of snap analysis/judgment/labeling really rubs me the wrong way, and under the right circumstances I imagine it'd annoy any of you, too. It equates the author with the work, or worse, with someone's biased perception of the work, much the same way "she must be a fat lesbian, saying all that feminist bull" does.

AND NOW, A BIT OF A DIVERSION ON THE INEXPLICABLE PHENOMENON THAT IS DOMINIC DEEGAN, FEEL FREE TO SKIP AHEAD

This isn't the first time this strip has passed before my eyes. Self-proclaimed horse's ass John Solomon reviewed it (I'd say "savagely", except that's kind of standard procedure) on his currently-on-hiatus site, one of many entries that prompted me to make a post or two about the Bad Webcomic site itself. And Dominic Deegan is damn near top of the list of the bad webcomics that the site despises, warranting several entries just by itself.

And I am still completely baffled over why some people seem to be unable to handle the concept that someone would produce a work of art that does not meet their personal criteria and not require their approval and validation to do so. But apparently this webcomic's very existence drives some people up the flaming wall. And if you click the Dominic Deegan tag on this LiveJournal, you'll see a prime example of some sort of love/hate thing that must drive a lot of the people who follow the strip, whether to enjoy it or rail against it.

Every once in a while I come across something like this that makes me glad I never tried to "get into" the comics biz, because having this kind of fan(?) would drive me insane. "I love this character, he's so amazing, you necrophiliac pervert!" Like having Two-Face rooting for you.

ANYWAY...

Now, it is true that the art in Dominic Deegan has its technical flaws (as does, say, Dilbert), and the pose in question, of a woman on her hands and knees, bleeding from a throat wound, probably would be difficult to achieve in real life. Is this a case of an inability to draw accurate anatomy, or is it a deliberate attempt to show off sexual characteristics of a wounded, dying character?

What if it is the latter? What then? Do fetish elements in a work completely invalidate that work?

What if it is the former? If there is no real intent to sexualize death, what does that say about the people who see it as such?

And that brings me to the other element in furikku/the Sooz' post: a series of pictures purportedly showing how real bodies would drape over things and come to rest.

In movies and TV, when someone portrays a corpse, you can always tell who is there to really act "dead", and who's just there to fill a spot and be in the picture. Being dead isn't as easy as it seems. When you're dead, comfort isn't an issue, and there should be absolutely no muscle tension, so actually lying like a dead body would involve letting gravity pull you into potentially painful positions, and even lying flat on the ground can be uncomfortable if you aren't allowed to shift position and re-distribute your weight every so often. Try it yourself if you don't believe me. Go somewhere and "be dead" for maybe fifteen minutes. Relax, really relax entirely, let your body settle as it will. For extra points, start by falling down as if shot. A limp, dead fall itself is hella uncomfortable, and the way you land doesn't lend itself to an easy recline.

So the people depicted in these pictures get an "A" for effort, but a few of them still aren't as "dead" as really dead people can be. That's not really what I wanted to point out, however.

Consider the second picture from the bottom on that page, featuring a guy tied up in a chair. Not a bad pose for someone to look like they'd been abducted and then killed. Are we trying to fetishize death here?

Sometimes I wish I were an artist, since it'd be far easier to show you than describe it to you, but just imagine, now, if instead of some guy in a wifebeater, tied up in that chair was a woman in lingerie. The exact same pose: rope tied just under the breasts, hips slid forward, legs parted somewhat... can you seriously tell me that wouldn't be considered a picture of eroticized death? But why? If the original is inoffensive in this regard, what makes the second offensive?

The lingerie?

The gender of the victim?

Now re-imagine the scene, only instead of lingerie, use nearly any superheroine costume in use today. Still erotic or no?

Hell, just say it was a attractive woman in the same clothes as the guy.

If even this last example would make you consider the situation to be eroticized, then we've arrived at a point where "eroticization" would seem to depend not on the position of the dead body, but that the body is female. Had the Black Mask tortured and killed Tim Drake, and had his body been thrown into the exact same poses as Stephanie's, would there have been the same outcry?

Nearly any of the examples on that page of pictures could be considered "erotic" with a few alterations. The schoolgirls at the top: suppose they'd been wearing something more along the lines of the stylized and fetishistic uniforms commonly shown in many manga? What if the camera angle had been changed 180 degrees to have a potential view up some skirts? What if the person of indeterminate gender draped over a couch with their butt in the air had been wearing shorter, tighter shorts?

Just how thin and wavery is the line between death and sex? Are we really beset by creators with morbid perverted obsessions, or are the viewers the ones bringing in their own sets of alarms, fears, and hidden taboos...?

And how much of that really, really matters?

FOOTNOTE:

Nice pic at the top, eh? I'd like to thank Dirk Deppey for doing the work of editing that image so that I could nab it and put it up here. Why that image? Well, just look at it: if you erased the swarm of bees, would that face on Wonder Woman be one of physical distress or rapture? People talk about "the O face" in comics a lot lately without acknowledging that sometimes very similar expressions can denote two entirely different things.

Plus, in light of the recent WW controversy, seeing a comic wherein she's briefly made "slave" to some alien insect queen just tickles me. There's your empowering symbol for girls right there.

Wondering 'bout Wonder Woman? Not me.

2008-01-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

Sorry, not 'sex and death', not yet. This whole Wonder Woman thing kinda burst in, yelling and waving its arms to get everyone's attention, and now I must needs have my say like everyone else.

Understand:

Wonder Woman is a sex symbol.

Wonder Woman is a symbol of female empowerment.

Wonder Woman is an object of fetishism.

Wonder Woman is an uplifting character, a role model for youth.

Wonder Woman is a cultural icon.

Wonder Woman is a commercial property owned in toto by DC Comics and its corporate parent Time Warner.

All of these and more are true, none are false.

The conflict occurs when some folks think that the character should, nay must, be only one of those things, or only those things they approve of.

That's a situation you may certainly petition for, if you are of a mind. Myself, I see no reason to forcibly limit some thing's potential because portions of it make other people feel creepy or unhappy. Insisting that one state or the other is all the character ever was, or was intended to be, or especially insisting that the character can only ever be used in one way; that is being deliberately and selectively blind to portions of history, the world we live in, and human nature. As far as I'm concerned, griping about the Playboy Wonder Woman cover is like griping about standing out in the rain.

In addition, in case I hadn't made it clear before: you having kids does not entitle you to a safe world where your kid can't ever possibly see the Playboy cover by virtue of it not existing. Keep your kids off the Internet if you're that worried. Horrors, you might have to actually take the time to EXPLAIN things to them. Wouldn't that suck.

I'm Anon, A Mouse, and I Approved This Message.

2008-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

It's interesting how peaceful the world seems when you take time off during the holidays and just not look too hard at your various news and information feeds for a while. Cut off from all that, you look out your window and stare at a blanket of quiet white snow, and relax. It'll all work out, dudes, why stress?

And when you get back on the horse, the whole noisy rodeo sideshow is right there waiting. Oh well.

Having decided to catch up on what I'd been missing, I noted my own pseudonym pop up on Mad Thinker Scott's blog (the now abandoned one). Apparently, Tim Liebe, whoever the hell that is, said the following on someone else's blog:
Whether they agree or disagree with you, in the end it's your house, your rules - and if they really take issue with your viewpoint, anyone online can create their own blog. It's not about "Freedom of Speech" or any other such excuse trolls use - as RMM, MTS, Anon, A Mouse, James Meeley and others of their ilk would discover if I came on THEIR blogs and mocked them mercilessly on an endless basis. (I would, too - only unlike any of them, I have a life.... )
Now, in that and other posts, Scott seems to have handily dealt with that issue, except for one small bit of eloquence I would like to add:

Oh, fuck you, you unctuous twit.

Nice way to lump all of us and our motivations together, as if we were all the same person. There is no penile hivemind! There is no penile hivemind! And have I actually gone out of my way to mock people on their own message boards? Hell no, I do that here.

Now, there's more to this than just chastising someone who typed a bit too much before his brain cells kicked into gear. But first this message.

**************

We should never have gone to war with Iraq, post 9-11.

The primary reason I think this is because doing so diverted manpower and attention away from chasing down Osama Bin Laden, something we should have had done and over with years ago. But there are other reasons, which you may or may not find valid depending on your political viewpoints.

I believe the Bush Administration, if it did not outright lie to Congress and the people, exaggerated what little truth there was to lead us into a war that was not in any way necessary. I did not believe Saddam Hussein was an imminent, dangerous threat to us before the war, despite the claims of the Administration that he had WMDs. What he did have when we went in turned out to be bupkis. I'll make no secret of the fact that I think George W. Bush has been a miserable president whose lasting impression on US history will be getting us into a stupid war and eroding the freedom of the American people far more than any terrorist ever could. You may believe otherwise.

But if you paid attention, you should have seen the party line shift as it became more and more obvious that the WMDs weren't being found and were probably never going to be found. First, it was claimed that WMDs were there, that Hussein was intimately involved somehow with 9-11, and that if we didn't act, it would probably be nukes exploding in every major Western city. All the talking heads shut up about that when those things started being proved false, and then you started hearing things like "well, Hussein is a brutal dictator, and we have to liberate the Iraqi people. Imagine all the people he killed! We have to save the people who are still alive, thirsting for freedom!"

And that's wrong, by which I do not mean that it is incorrect, I mean it is a bad way to conduct your affairs. Yes, Hussein was a bad guy. He's dead now, and gone. GOOD! I'm not sorry for him in the slightest. But that's not the ostensible reason we went into Iraq in the first place. Those reasons were thin enough, and if they had tried to sell the war mainly on the basis of freeing the Iraqi people from the get-go, well, I'm sorry, but Hussein would still be running things and making nasty comments about us on Al-Jazeera. "Freeing Iraq" is, for one, a bait-and-switch motivation, and for another, it's justifying one horrible act by pointing out someone else's horrible act. Iraq is the first war I'm aware of that we (the USA) started, where we fired the first shot, we were the aggressors. And now, when someone complains about that, they get told, "Well, Hussein killed all those people!"

But that doesn't make what we (or rather, the Bush Administration) did any more right. What evils Hussein may have committed does not excuse evils committed by others. Like your parents should have told you long ago: two wrongs do not make a right.

**************

Believe it or not, this does kinda link up to comics feminism. And before some nitwit chirps up with "OMG UR SAYING FENIMISTS R SADDAM!! GODWINS LAW!", take a closer look. I have used a well-known worldwide incident to illustrate a principle: "two wrongs do not make a right". I am about to apply that principle to much smaller, less important events. This is not equating the two sets of incidents, and anyone who says it is, is a dumbass.

**************

So back to Tim Liebe, crowing about how my "ilk" would change its tune if HE came on MY message board to harass MY KIND. Leave aside the casual self-aggrandizement, as if he's such a clever, clever genius that I couldn't possibly match him in a direct debate on my own turf; no, what I'm curious about is: if he thinks what "we" do is so distasteful and reprehensible, why does he even casually talk about doing the same thing himself?

Or consider the Heroes for Hire "tentacle bondage" cover, and the Mary Jane "laundry" statue. Anyone remember parody images by other artists hitting the Internet soon after? Spider-Man in a thong, bent over... Luke Cage and Iron Fist bound up as tentacles approach? A cover featuring the Flash held by a tentacled beast subtly altered to give it a more erotic feel?

Maybe I don't surf the mouthbreather section of the Internet enough, but I don't recall an outcry against those images. Sure, they were parodies, but they still objectified their subjects, AND I distinctly remember a few passing comments along the lines of "yum" and "hawt", given in what I assumed to be all seriousness, by fangirls who I assume to be into the whole "slash" thing. Otherwise, did anyone get convinced by the parodies that the original objectifications were the blight on society that they were made out to be?

The tit-for-tat thing doesn't work all that well when the people you intend to shock into understanding have enough rational sense to understand that if it's right, it's right in both directions, and if it's wrong, it's wrong both ways.

Too often though, I see bad behavior justified with other people's bad behavior. "RMM (or whoever) was a jerk to me on my blog! I therefore have every right to be as big of a jerk to him or someone "of his ilk"!"

No, it doesn't work like that. You wind up with two wrongs, no rights. And that may be fair and balanced, but that isn't always what I'd call "good".

Coming soon: SEX AND DEATH.

Reflecting on the Worst Joke Anyone Ever Told Me.

2007-12-13T00:22:00.001-08:00

And I am going to warn everyone reading this that it is, in many ways, a particularly bad joke, and I would not be at all surprised if you were offended, in fact I expect it, so spending time complaining to me how horrible a joke this is would be incredibly redundant.

So I was having a casual bull session with some friends, late at night, beers were being passed around, and we start trading offensive jokes. Stuff you wouldn't say in front of anyone but your friends, because you know that if anyone but your friends heard you tell a joke like this, they would take it badly. Jokes about rape, racism, and dead babies. If anything offends you, we probably told a joke about it.

Now, I say "stuff you wouldn't say in front of anyone but your friends", but that can't be entirely true, because this stuff comes in from outside somehow, someone thinks it up and laughs and decides to pass it on. And it filters into your group of buddies somehow, and someone gets a couple beers in them and passes it on to the rest of you.

And so one guy, when we prompted him to tell a joke, screwed his face into an indecisive grimace, saying "I dunno. This guy told me this one joke, but it's just kinda sick, not really funny..." But, after some cajoling, this is what we got:

Q: What's the worst thing about sex with a seven-year-old?

A: Having to strangle her afterwards.

Now, if you're like me and my friends, you didn't laugh. The lot of us just kinda went "eeyuhh" and there was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

"Huh, you're right, that... wasn't actually very funny."

"Yeah, I know."

The secret of a "good bad joke" is that the wit or cleverness of the joke overwhelms the inherent badness of the sentiment, and that did not happen in this case, at least not for our group.

Failed joke or not, nobody jumped on the guy who told it and accused him of being a killer pedo, or implied that the joke he told was in any way a reflection of his real-life wishes and intents. And, I'm assuming that the majority of the people reading this are reasonable enough that no such charge would be leveled at me, for relaying that awful joke to you. (However, the small percentage of you who are not at all reasonable are why I remain anonymous when writing potentially contentious things like this.)

What assurance, then, what inner certainty of knowing someone else's mind, prompts some people to declare that comics creator X is definitely sexist or misogynist (racist, Republican, add your own) for writing or drawing a scene that offends them? And what jump of logic makes creating such a scene equivalent to having the same desires and intents in real life?

Relating this back to my column a couple months back, "Ban the Soul, Eh", it's much the same as assuming ads for tanning lotion are promoting necrophilia and/or pedophilia.

Which leads me to another line of thought, since the SAFE Act is making the rounds in the blogosphere. Steven Grant has a pretty good analysis of the situation, and I'll cut to the chase and quote from his closing paragraph:

But I do know another standard misconception in our society is that having fantasies – and everyone has fantasies of some sort, whether they admit it or not, though hopefully most of those fantasies don't involve sex with children – means people want to play out those fantasies in real life. I suspect most people don't, and wouldn't if they could, the same way most people who dream of flying don't jump off cliffs. Fantasy is pretty much the ultimate in safe sex. But colonizing fantasy has always been one of the great fantasies of western civilization, especially among those in power, because we have always basically mistrusted fantasy, and imagery/iconography. Legislating behavior is one thing, legislating fantasy is another, and if nothing else Freud demonstrated pretty clearly that sexual repression has consequences. Often unpleasant and violent consequences. Maybe visualizing aberrant fantasies helps stave off aberrant behavior, and maybe it doesn't, but study, not half-assed legislation (which will almost certainly get thrown out by the courts, like almost all porn legislation that tries to extend its grasp via vagueness) and citing "common wisdom," seems appropriate. Of course, this is one of those hot button issues where even suggesting alternatives will have the frothers (of both ilks) thinking you're some kind of sympathizer, so open discussion of the problem seems to be at a minimum. I'm all for rooting out pedophiles but casting an inordinately broad net creates the most harm for the least results (and in this specific instance forces an entire class of people to be unpaid cops, or suffer the consequences) when what we need is a practical solution.

Some may note that he echoes what Mad Thinker Scott's been saying for a while: That there's no real strong correlation between porn and sexual assault, and in fact, there's some evidence that more porn somehow encourages less rape.

"Common Wisdom" would seem to be far less wise than the credit it receives in Congress, in activist groups and so forth. And I wonder how many causes and viewpoints are espoused that, if analyzed fully, would break down to no more than "I just think it's right (or wrong), and that's enough proof for me"...?

Do I really trust someone else to judge me by a bad joke I tell, without consideration of the situation, or context?

Do I trust the values of the guy who has to filter my ISP? Is someone going to fix on some keywords in this post and set up a red flag: "potential child-murdering molester on Blogger.com"?

Do I trust some ad-watching activist group to have clear and rational standards when determining which ads send bad messages?

Do I simply accept that some comics creator is a misogynist, because someone else has convinced themselves they are?

I could... but that's a leap of logic I'm still not willing to make.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. See you in '08.

Gosh. I Feel Almost Necessary.

2007-12-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

"And those particular fans who pop up on WFA periodically to denounce and decry feminist fans, female fans and the hive vagina? Well...think about it this way, would they be so vocal or so adamant if there wasn't the element of threat involved. If, on some level, they didn't think we might win."

That's the gist of a post by Kalinara explaining that, no, she and others aren't about to give up on superhero comics or the mainstream, and they're not going to stop protesting, either, because it has an effect.

And this because Tamora Pierce wrote about creating a new, establishment-free market, inspired (according to her) by the Elizabeth Bear column I praised last post as well as my own post on the subject. There's a flurry of posts besides Kalinara's that say much the same: nobody's going to give up their favorite characters, in fact everybody loves mainstream comics, despite how much complaining goes on.

Well, okay, and honestly, that's about what I expected.

The thing that strikes me about Kalinara's post, however, is the conviction that creators and fans responding to charges of misogyny and sexism is a sign of progress, and that the naysayers fear the Woman Power. This may all be true.

But that sort of thing goes both ways.

When I discovered the existence of WFA and the various controversies going on at the time, it seemed to me that there was quite a lot of sentiment on the order of Changing Society For The Better By Weeding Out Comics Sexism So That Nobody Could Have It. Since then, there's been a bit of discussion, prompted by critics of fangirl feminism, along the lines of Wait, That's Kind Of Repressive Talk, There And How Are You Defining Sexism Anyway, and sure, while some posts along those lines have been combative, if not downright hostile, it seems to me there's been a subtle reorganization: Okay, Have Your Sexist Crap But Give Me More Stuff That Doesn't Piss Me Off. The "changing society" bit hasn't gone away, but it seems to me to be less prominent than it was.

Someone gripes about a statue or something, someone calls for its elimination, someone else says "you're trying to remove anything sexy", someone else says "no, we don't actually want to remove the sexy", and so on. Stances shift as these details get hammered out.

Even those of us who are labeled as being "against" feminism have our place. Without resistance, any stance or philosophy becomes unthinking dogma. Without dissent, flaws in a philosophy go unrevealed, unchecked. And if, for example, Brian Bendis having to speak up and defend himself against charges of misogyny is a sign of the power of the feminist movement, then it certainly must be a sign of the power of the dissenters when someone like Mad Thinker Scott is routinely labeled as a troll and his arguments dismissed without even discussing the merits of his statements. Doesn't that indicate every bit as much a sense of fear that he might be right after all?...

Ur Doin It Rite

2007-12-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

I can really get behind an attitude and statements like this. There is so much that is so right about this.

I don't believe I've read any of Elizabeth Bear's work before, but I may just look some up next time I'm in the store.

ADDITIONAL: Seems Rational Mad Man has also endorsed the same post, and has received, well, what he usually gets lately, scorn and name-calling. Since my reasons for endorsing Ms. Bear's post are somewhat different than his, I'll elaborate on what I like about it, lest anyone automatically equate my statement with his and dismiss it outright, because I know some folks out there would, given the chance.

RMM sees her post as an extension of the "go make your own" argument/bingo-card-spasm-trigger, but I see it differently, because she really doesn't seem to be encouraging other creators to forge ahead with her statement (although I don't see any reason why she wouldn't be in favor of more female creators).

What she is saying, and what I like, is that she's forging her own path regardless (and in spite) of anything 'The Patriarchy' does or says in opposition. She doesn't need them to make her career work.

This is feminism I can get behind - the kind that says, "okay, here's what I think is wrong, but if you don't want to fix it, fine, screw you, I'm gonna have my own party and it's gonna rock."

By contrast, one of the failings I see in feminism as it intersects with mainstream comics fandom is that it is (quite probably inherently) dependent on 'The Patriarchy'. Long-standing feminist icon or not, who owns Wonder Woman? Not Gail Simone, especially not The Fandom, but corporate structures and shareholders, i.e., The Establishment, i.e., The Patriarchy. If this Patriarchy dominates DC and Marvel, then any appeal for change from feminists must be cajoled, begged or wheedled out of the Bad Mans. (Coerced, perhaps, but that assumes there's actually sufficient leverage with which to coerce.)

If you can't divorce yourself from the idea that you must have Wonder Woman, no imitations, no substitutes, no fanfic/fanart, it must be canon and she must perform to your expectations, then you leave yourself at the mercy of The Patriarchy, and their decision to put whatever creative team they choose in charge of her story, whether that's Good (Gail Simone and competent artists) or Bad (I dunno, say, Judd Winick and whoever people hate these days that draws WW with a wedgie and broken spine). And am I the only one that sees that situation as kinda messed up?

Which is why I find a statement like Ms. Bear's so refreshing: it demands nothing from the Patriarchy except that it step the hell aside if it isn't going to cooperate.

I think that's just gotta be healthier in the long run.

Everybody Whack Cheung Tonight

2007-11-26T23:36:00.000-08:00

The words we use are strong
They make reality

--Wang Chung

What is it about outrage that makes some people just lose their shit and projectile-rant like their head's full of nothing but angry bees? I'm not talking about chronic anger junkies launching into long semi-comprehensible tirades, though that's always something to watch for, I'm talking about sensible-seeming people saying stuff that, if it were turned around and said by someone else about them, or if the rage level were lower, would be picked at and dismissed by the same people who said it... I'd like to hope, at least.

I can only conclude that, in direct opposition to people who claim that their anger and outrage is empowering and vital, outrage actually mostly makes you stupider.

Not that there aren't valid reasons for outrage: even I cringed a bit when I saw Dave Cheung's pseudo-pornographic cartoon featuring video game producer Jade Raymond. (I say "pseudo" since no genitalia were depicted, but sex acts were heavily implied, and that white stuff at the end was not likely supposed to be squeeze mayonnaise.) Understand, I read Cheung's "Chugworth Academy" strip on a semi-regular basis, so I had seen the strip pretty much at its initial release, well before it sparked a brouhaha on some forums here and there.

I took him at his word then, which was that the strip was a satire on the gaming fanboys' wishful thinking regarding Ms. Raymond and whether she'd "put out" for them in some way, posing for photo layouts or whatever. That was his stance before the criticism and after, and I have no reason to believe otherwise.

That said, I think as satire the strip stumbles and fails. Reading the strip by itself does not make it clear that this is a fanboy fantasy, and on its own merits it insults and degrades Jade Raymond. I have to say I don't follow the gaming world, so I don't have any clue about what kind of person Ms. Raymond is, but portraying her as somewhat dim seemed to me to be out of line. And then a satire of fanboys loses its sting when the object of fanboy desire is portrayed willingly fulfilling that same less-than-reasonable desire. How much of a loser can a fanboy be if he's actually receiving some fellatio?

It's hardly a fair satire, and I think the strip is a victim of Dave Cheung wanting to draw a pretty woman in a bikini doing naughty things. I've seen his work in other venues besides his webcomic, and the man does not shy away from porn. In fact, by comparison to other examples of his work I've seen, this strip was pretty damn tame. I also think he has some measure of contempt for Ms. Raymond, though whether that's justified or not I don't think I'm qualified to say.

So, yeah, I see where the outrage comes from. I'm not nearly as put out by it as some folks, but I'm not going to spend a lot of effort defending the strip.

What I am going to do is roll my eyes at some of the responses to the strip. Even justified outrage doesn't excuse losing touch with rational thought. Case in Point:

"Hey, Let's Bring Dave Cheung's Parents Into It!"

Oh, bravo. I'm not sure what this falls under: an appeal to Dave's shame (the supply of which must be limitless, I'm sure [definitely sarcasm]), or some kind of criticism of the job Dave's parents did raising him. On a similar note, here's a blog-reply comment from another person along the same lines.

Unless you are taking them to task for raising him badly, as if it was really any of your business, what percentage is there in dragging Mr. and Mrs. Cheung into it? Do you seriously expect them to do anything to their adult 25-year old son? Do you really think it's necessary to tattle on Dave to them? For what? So they'll scold him personally on behalf of your outrage?

Well, whatever. But I don't want to hear word one from you about any personal anguish Jade Raymond might feel, if you see nothing wrong with riling up someone else's parents and possibly making them very upset so that they can spank their kid for you. You want someone to up and tell your parents about that party you had in your dorm room, with all the drinking and bong hits and inappropriate touching? Think your folks'd be happy to have your dirty laundry aired out at them? Yeah, now go ahead and be that person.

"It's Okay If I Think They Deserve It, Otherwise It's Evil"

Normally I think Dirk Deppey is pretty much on the ball, but every once in a while he muffs one. Twice he's linked to the Cheung controversy, calling him "a dipshit", and "vile little douchebag". Okay fine. But it's hard for me to take Deppey's distaste for Cheung seriously when Journalista's featured the same damn cartoon featuring the Prince of Spain and his wife doin' it doggy style several times over.

Both cartoons are nasty, insulting and sexually-themed, and the only difference I can see is in competency: you know in the Spanish cartoon exactly who the target is and why. Aside from that is the question of whether one target actually deserves it more than the other. While I'm not particularly in favor of European monarchies, certainly you don't choose to be born the Prince of Spain, and I'm not sure that possessing royal blood is in and of itself sufficient call for that kind of abuse.

Maybe Deppey's attitude will soften if Dave Cheung does get sued over the cartoon. Then we can see it repeatedly.

"Stop Being So Free With That Free Speech!"

I quote:

"The predictable defenses have shown up. People can say whatever they want because of free speech! (Wow, congratulations on being lucky enough to have rights. Now stop using them to be an asshole, why don’t you.)"

Sounds an awful lot like another call for "artistic responsibility". I suppose I could go on about how the concept of free speech isn't needed to protect speech you like, etc. etc., but the way this kind of thinking sprouts up repeatedly just makes me tired and sad right now. I bet this person even believes they are in favor of free speech.

I mean, really, people.

Come on.

Statement of (Self-Absorbed) Purpose

2007-11-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

I eat meat.

It'd be nice if we lived in a world where no lifeform has to consume some other living organism in order to survive, and we could all exist off of sunlight and photosynthesis or something, but we can't, so there you are. If it's not immoral for a lion to eat a gazelle, it's not immoral for me to eat a cow.

I also don't object to animal testing, in many cases. If testing drugs and treatments on animals makes it easier to find drugs for humans without risking human lives (as much), then as far as I'm concerned the animals can take that hit.

Now, I'm not in favor of doing these things wantonly or indiscriminately. I don't think animal testing should involve excessive pain or torture, particularly if the testing is for comparatively frivolous things, like cosmetics. And though I support the right to domesticate and/or hunt animals for food and materials, I don't support blasting an animal just for the thrill of killing something.

You might, therefore, think I could be persuaded to become active in support of animal rights, but in general I avoid affiliations with organizations like PETA or... well, any of them. Though I agree with some things they say, there's a lot of what they say that I think goes far beyond good sense into a quasi-religious dogma. More than once I've seen some soundbite of an activist saying something like how they'd prefer that their disease-stricken relations do without lifesaving drugs if it meant having even one rat confined and experimented upon.

Priorities: If you can't place your own family (assuming you do love them) over the life of a lab animal, how can I take your call for compassion for animals seriously?

This is a variation on what I wrote many columns back, about why I do not consider myself a feminist. While there are some feminist viewpoints I do agree with and even sympathize with to some extent, there's a lot that I feel abandons sensible priorities in favor of dogma and, in many cases, extremism. This applies to feminism in general, as well as the subset of feminism known colloquially as the "feminist fangirls".

Why would I bring it up again?

Over here, there was some musing over the purpose of WFA, leading to a restatement of WEA's intended purpose (and what its purpose isn't). And though I specifically wasn't mentioned (oh, I feel so neglected), I suppose some may see me in the same light, as someone out to "bait" the comics feminists. (Now that I think about it, in past comments on my posts, I was accused of "wagging my finger"... Ami Angelwings did say seeing my pseudonym near a potentially inflammatory title would automatically indicate it being a ploy for attention, and I guess that could be a kind of backwards compliment: at least nobody thought I was actually being that much of a jerk, did they...? But I digress.)

If anything I write can be considered an attempt to insult or bait comics feminists, it's not done out of some need to simply make feminists upset. There's far easier and less polite ways to go about doing that. You can consider what I write an honest attempt to communicate, for whatever that's worth to you. Whatever I say may very well upset you for some reason, well, that's life.

My motives for writing have nothing to do with any of you, really. My motives are purely selfish, and at the moment, I believe they can pretty much be sorted into two general categories:

1) I don't want feminism to take anything away from me, comics-wise.

2) I want comics (meaning the industry in general) to improve, and I believe comics-oriented feminism as it seems to exist now is at best ineffective and at worst antithetical to that aim.

(cue collective "huh? but whaaaaa??")

Number One is straightforward enough. Despite claims that "we aren't out to take the sexy away", I believe some feminists intend to do just that. Now, if you're about to tell me "but no, I like the sexy!", consider that what you think is sexy is different than what someone else thinks is sexy, and remember that "there is no vagina hivemind", so that even if you specifically have no intent to remove anything yourself, your fellow comics feminist may have a somewhat more restrictive goal in mind. Strawfeminist? Perhaps. It'd be nice if nobody wanted to take anything away from anybody, but when someone complains that something isn't morally right to print in a comic book, often the implication is that "somebody should DO something about that".

And it's more than just "the sexy", it's anything objected to in that way. I have yet to be convinced that something (perceived as) bad or objectionable in comics (or any media) has any serious impact on society at large; to me the theoretical risks do not justify imposing one's own standards on comics. Every arbiter of "good taste", however you define that, walks a thin line between personal opinion and agenda for the rest of us.

Note that I'm not against personal opinion or critique, either. If you hate something you hate it. This isn't a call to be quiet and shut up, this is a suggestion that if someone else enjoys reading about (for recent example) Tigra getting the crap kicked out of her, maybe that person has as much right to read it as you do to not read it, regardless of how upset or icky it makes you feel.

Number Two is a bit more involved to explain.

I believe that if what the feminist fangirls really want is superhero comics they can reliably enjoy without being made to feel upset or icky, that goal is possible and reachable.

I also believe that if what feminist fangirls really want is for "the boys" to clean up their act so that "the girls" won't ever be offended by some misogynist thing in some comic that passes in front of their eyes, well, tough luck. That's long term stuff, maybe not in your lifetime.

To reach the former goal, what I think needs to happen is that there needs to be more comics, made by more people, and a more diverse group of people at that. Mainstream comics are indeed a "boy's club", of sorts, despite notable exceptions. So long as that persists, and without a "comics code" with any teeth to enforce particular moral limitations, you're going to get comics generally slanted a particular way. There's only so many Gail Simones working right now.

More female creators, more creators of color, more comics overall, and I think the goal will work itself out. If there were enough creators and enough comics, the enlightened feminists could have their comics, the sicko fanboys could have their comics, and we could at the very least leave each other alone most of the time. (True, there's other factors like effective promotion and wider distribution in a currently small and sometimes shaky market...) And I want to see that happen, because a more diverse range of comics (even a more diverse range of superhero comics) suggests more buyers, suggests a healthier industry, suggests even more and better comics. I know, easier said than done. But I submit to you: that is the problem that needs the most attention, not whether a statue of Mary-Jane demeans the entire female gender worldwide because of her contact with laundry in a basket.

I am aware that to many feminists, these media depictions are seen as causes of stereotyping and a source of much real-life unhappiness. I do not believe they are nearly as toxic as much of the rhetoric would have us believe. And I think the more time and energy spent on trying to "fix" the boy's club, and make it perform to the liking of feminists, the less time and energy gets spent on what I feel could really make a difference in comics, not just for feminists, but everyone, and more importantly, ME.

I mean, don't mistake this for "sympathy trolling". If I imply that my advice can somehow make your existence more pleasant, it's only serving my own self-interest in the end.

When Being Nice Doesn't Work.

2007-11-13T10:58:00.000-08:00

"Oh, say, Mr. Comics Publisher, I hear you're gonna put out an issue of Wonder Woman where she gets captured by the Spankinator and has her bottom paddled for 18 pages. I think that's offensive and degrading to one of my favorite heroines. Could you stop it, please?"

"Hmmmm. No."

"You misogynistic bastard! How dare you drag a feminist icon through your lurid fetishes! I demand that you turn the character over to respectful creators THIS INSTANT, you pig! Boycott! I'LL BOYCOTT!"

"Hmmmm. No."

Both attempts fail.

"But Anon," you may be about to say, "I thought you were all about the being nice and here you are saying nice doesn't work oh I have you now, hahahaha!"

Well, it occurs to me that some people may not actually know how to be nice effectively.

The goal is persuasion, the changing of minds. In the first example, the language is polite, but all that is said is "this offends me, please stop".

And realistically, that's no reason to do anything. People get "offended" at the drop of a hat. You can't do anything in the public eye without someone being offended. What makes your sense of offense any more important than someone else's?

What you need to do is wrap a valid reason to change up in your nice presentation. What is that reason? Beats me. What you think may be valid is not necessarily what the person you're trying to change thinks of as valid. You may have to do some fishing around, to find out at what root point your opinions diverge, and then begin working on that spot. Then you may have to move on and work on another spot. This is not a game for those without patience.

As for the second example: if you think that is a viable shortcut, I believe you are deluding yourself.

Screw You, Feminist Comics Bitch.

2007-11-10T00:18:00.000-08:00

I apologize for that title.

However: I'm betting it made a number of you look, assuming you're following a link from WFA.

Right?

And I bet a number of you arrived pretty angry, already forming before you'd even read this far some sort of reply or retort that would tell me off in some way. Some of you may have interpreted the title as an attack on a specific person, and may have been curious to see what the confrontation was about and who it involved; some may have even had a knee-jerk reaction, an instinct to defend the supposed "victim" of my outburst.

Before actually reading past the title, did anyone, anyone at all, even for the slightest instant, think that this post would be in any way benign or even helpful?

If so, I admire your keen insight and ability to keep an open mind, but you are probably in the vast minority.

In the comments section of my last post, an anonymous commenter expressed a dislike for the term "being nice", describing it in essence as a call to sit down and shut up. They (assuming it was the same anonymous) then defended the use of angry stances and rhetoric as a tactic to shock (or "shove", as they put it) those who might be ignorant or apathetic into realizing the scope of the conflict.

I'm skeptical about the chances of success for such a tactic, frankly. Most people don't like it when you yell at them, and I'm pretty sure the commonest response is to get defensive and grumble something like "what the hell are you yelling at me for?" or "I didn't do anything to deserve being yelled at!" Maybe some folks would step back eventually and think, "hm, maybe I should think about this a bit". Perhaps a few.

But anyone who arrived at this post ready to tear me a new one should keep in mind that if it doesn't work that way on you, you can't expect it to work that way on others. Even if you say "but see, we're thinking seriously about your words now that you got us here with your nasty title", it's ameliorated by the fact that in this post itself, I change my tone. Once past the title, I'm done with the seemingly angry name-calling. One hopes nobody finds my subsequent words as insulting or infuriating. At least, not yet.

And there's the matter of reward vs. penalty: would the few who would indeed tolerate a figurative "shove" and open their minds be worth the ill-will generated in others who maybe don't take kindly to "shoves", regardless of the underlying causes?

While you're considering that (or not), consider this:

The thing that disturbs me about this kind of justification for uncivil behavior is that it kind of echoes other, more despised patterns of behavior.

Like wife beaters.

I mean, isn't that the stereotypical excuse you hear? "Baby, I'm sorry I clocked you in the head with this pipe, but you know, it was your own fault for making me so angry. If you'd just done what I said like I asked, it wouldn't have gotten so bad." Every bit as stereotypical is the woman who's been battered into believing this kind of crap. "No, Mom, this black eye was my own fault for not having dinner on time, I should know how mad it makes him."

"I have to call this fanboy an asshole, it's the only way he'll ever learn. He needs to know exactly how angry I feel."

Yes, there's a difference in scale and effect, but the rationale is remarkably similar: less-than-polite behavior is justified because it's for their own good, it's the only way they can learn...

ADDITIONAL, LATER: Because some people apparently, when they see words they dislike, lose all ability to parse English, some clarification seems to be in order.

Wife-beating is not equal to making angry internet posts, and that's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is that justifying your angry/abusive intarwub rants with the reasoning that some people somehow need to be yelled at by you for your message to be understood is the same kind of faulty logic that leads, for example, spouse-beaters to rationalize smacking people around because otherwise they just won't get it through their heads what they should be doing. It's all okay, because someone else has to be made to understand what you want them to understand.

Yes, of course there's a difference between physical abuse and verbal abuse. No shit, Sherlock. But as I've said before, this "ends justifying the means" business is exactly that, the ends justifying the means. If you don't tolerate the angry language from the other side of the debate, what makes you think they're any more receptive to you when you act the same?

But let's take this from theory to experience. I challenge anyone to give me a personal example of when, as an adult, being yelled at or insulted by another adult (genuinely, not banter between friends) convinced YOU that the other person was right, and perhaps you were in the wrong. Who yelled at you? A friend? Someone you knew or respected? Or some random person online?

When have you ever yelled at or insulted someone else and had it work out to where the other person genuinely said, "oh, well, my bad, sorry, I see your point" out of a sincere desire to correct a mistake and not just chagrin/embarrassment at being yelled at? Are you sure they really saw your point of view, or did they just want you to stop yelling at them?

And compare both examples with how often the opposite result happens: when you feel only anger when someone else gives you a hard time, or when you gripe at someone and they gripe right back at you, perhaps louder and more aggressively.

I mean, if this actually works for you in practice, fine, guess I was mistaken... but unless I get a flood of people saying how minds were actually persuaded by yelling in their direct experience, I'll remain skeptical that the less polite path has any benefit besides stirring up the converted and giving someone a bit of catharsis.