Am Me Feminist? (Also: Coda)

"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...

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[[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.]

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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.

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

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

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".

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.