Bad Feminist

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

How many times have you hit a woman, just out of curiosity? Was it a regular event, more of an occasional thing, or just wishful thinking? Because I don't know anybody who takes pleasure in watching a woman be punched hard in the face who hasn't done it or wanted to do it himself.

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

OK, so like I said... Violence porn. Gross, has zero to do with feminist equality, but definitely explained by feminist theory.

[Phoebe]

Thanks to the Guardian UK, I have now learned the meaning of the word "incel". Uhh, what on earth.

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

I sort of feel bad for them. You're like, dude, the problem is not with the world, the common denominator in your problem is you! This is true for all of us at some level probably. But this is on another level. I have to assume they understand that people of any "attractiveness level" or "evolutionary fitness level" still manage to reproduce, so... How? The answer, my friend, is Blowin in the Wind.

Women seem wicked when you're unwanted; streets are uneven when you're down. When you're strange, faces come out of the rain.

[Phoebe]

1. I'm so tired of these sexual harassment stories because they require a certain amount of low-level psychic energy to either process or put away. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the stories to stop coming out or not be taken seriously. I'm just personally tired of it and I don't have the energy to read these things and have to think about them at all. I need a week of quiet.

2. It really sucks to find out a story like this about someone like Louis CK. I also dislike the fact that when I'm trying to do work which requires me to use the internet, I see all this news passing by and I cannot look away from that particular car wreck. So now I've wasted minutes just reading this and having to sully my mind with it.

There's something specially upsetting about Louis CK, because he dealt with issues of consent and boundaries and shame and discomfort, and he did it in a way I found bold and courageous and thought-provoking and sensitive. I defended his approach because I thought it was valuable and honest. It's so upsetting to feel like you should have known he was a creep all along or that you took some value in a thing that was presented to you because maybe the person was just trying to excuse or work through his own gross issue.

3. At the same time what upsets me most about Louis CK's situation is that he's being placed on a par with accused rapists like Weinstein - maybe that's accurate but as far as I know that's not what's going on - and I feel like there's a huge difference between being given a choice of yes or no and not being given a choice. If this is a quid pro quo kind of situation, and maybe it is, that's obviously different too. But I have been in a profession around men who far outranked me, who made themselves sexually available to me and gave me a choice in the matter, and I was able to say no and walk away. And there's something about hearing diatribes about this particular behavior that hurts me deeply, because I'm really freaking grateful for the people who had the class and decency and respect for my autonomy to give me that choice to say no and walk away from their expression of interest. Would it have been really wrong if someone tried to harm my career because I did that? Absolutely yes and if that's what Louis CK did then it's disgusting. But right now all I know is that he gave people a choice, and in the few stories I heard the women consented, and so much reaction is treating it like he didn't do that. People need to understand that in their efforts to wound the perpetrator, those kinds of words wound people that have been through a variety of experiences, and think that this type of experience is the best of the lot, and they sure as hell wish every experience included a "yes or no" option.

[Phoebe]

I don't mean to rattle on about this but I find it more helpful to think about it from the perspective of my friend who is also in my same job and who has had many such experiences, a few of which I witnessed firsthand. There was a vast gap between people who harassed her without warning, without permission, and in a way that overshadowed her future employment situation, and people who were simply really important in her field but did not affect her career and did not foist themselves upon her without permission. These lines in the sand may not seem like much from the perspective of someone outside who says, we want all this behavior to stop. But when you're in the sand, and it matters to you a lot to have carved out a particular place there, based on distinguishing between things like this, to have someone come along and kick up all your lines in the sand is very hurtful.

[Phoebe]

Jesus Christ! I cannot read the news any more. How dare these so-called Christians call themselves that? Did you all hear this one yet?

she was 14 and he was 32
she was 14 and he was 32
she was 14 and he was 32

Most GOP including national Senators:
Huge IF true... IF.

Alabama GOP, Falwell, others:
No biggie even if true. He liked em young. A healthy desire. Mary and Joseph! Nothing to see here. You cannot be a victim 40 years later.

These people are all going to burn in the hell they believe in, IF REAL.

[mimekiller]

Louie CK...Like, he's funny. But his entire shtick is that he's a disgusting immoral slob. You're doing it to yourself if you expected better.

And yea, the idea of him being comparable to Harvey Weinstien raping on the casting couch and hiring a LEGION of lawyers/private investigators to sully the reputation of his victims and LOUIE having a JO session(allegedly) while someone was talking to him on the phone is a not even in the same ballpark.

[Mike]

[bralbovsky]

I think two things are especially notable:
First is Phoebe's concern that these events not all end up in some sloppy harassment basket. The issues of force (which are criminal issues), career leverage (which are criminal harassment issues), and consent, shouldn't be muddied. Losing those specifics allows bad guys to foist resentment against their victims, which they absolutely will.
Second is the ostensible difference between the Hollywood (liberal) reaction, and the Alabama, Fox... (conservative) reaction. Shame, loss of contracts, jobs, status, money, position, vs, denial, some mild tsk, tsk, and some secret (for a while anyway) large checks. I don't understand this yet, but when is the friction between "Take responsibility for your, fill in the blank" (addiction, pregnancy, poverty), and the "If, et al" going to create enough heat to ignite something?

[Bonefish]

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[mimekiller]

Well I guess to be clear if a drunken female/male/child manages to climb into the octagon and between two fighters and KO, yes that would be extremely hilarious to me.

[Phoebe]

Have you ever wondered why?

Is it because of the incongruity of it all? It makes sense to me that it's funny when wrong things happen. So if this were just a case of a wrong thing happening in an unexpected way, then ok. The part I don't get is why it's still funny when someone vulnerable is being hurt badly. Or maybe it's that I look at someone getting punched hard in the face and think that would hurt really badly, and some guys look at it and shrug and think, well, that's something unpleasant but that you recover from pretty quickly?

In general I find it interesting that people accept their pleasures as such a given, as if what we are pleased by is entirely out of our control or further scrutiny. There are many, many people running around the world who are just 100% sure they need someone to hurt them in order to get off, or who claim that by birth they are simply not attracted to short guys, or black guys, or that they know what constitutes a "low-value" or "high-attractiveness" person, and I have the same questions for them.

There are huge cultural differences in what we find funny, and what we find attractive, pleasurable, or Good. Some people think this means there is no such thing as a universal truth, or an appropriate moral judgment, in those areas but I think they're wrong.