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For what it’s worth, I don’t like Bitch Lab, I don’t read her, I don’t think she’s very bright, and I think the main thing she piggybacked on recently was a comment thread to a post she didn’t author. Nice appropriation, that.
So: Don’t like Bitch Lab? Join the club, and don’t read her. Read the women she rips off instead. They’re better.
So: Don’t like Bitch Lab? Join the club, and don’t read her. Read the women she rips off instead. They’re better.
07-18-2006
Just go ahead and bitch
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[...] Yesterday, Bitch|Lab and friends opened up a discussion about mean ol’ R Mildred and how rock-’em-sock-’em she is. The post itself is largely irrelevent; B|L’s initial “confusion” quickly devolves into commenters piling on my favorite rantress, including B|L herself. [...]
[...] Oh and on a side note, Bitch|Lab wondered if I hated thongs, because I guess anti-fems usually object to thongs as well as highheels (not that she would ever try to imply that another women isn’t a feminist if she calls herself one, au contraire mon cheri) as well as all sexual acts that women enjoy (just like I err… didn’t, oh.) I am wearing one right now, but only because I am an anti-feminists and we have to wear those evil bits of underwear to show our allegiance to the patriarchy. Thongs, you’ll recall, are patriarchal because they have sprained more ankles and caused more people to have to have a special sort of foot surgery than all the lesbian blowjobs and hawt dog-on-dog anal sex in the world combined. [...]
[...] A lot of people in the BJ War of 2006 took it upon themselves to exactly intuit the motivations of those women who enjoy giving oral sex. Lines were drawn, blowjobs were declared unfeminist, everyone is now an anti-sex overlord, R. Mildred gave us the fellatio finger (the importance of which doesn’t lie in prostate stimulation, but in that it is the middle “fuck you” finger, as in “fuck you blowjob haters”), and 50% of Twisty’s readership decided they hated her guts for five minutes until they realized she is far too cutel for gut hatred. [...]
[...] Not everyone subscribes to the idea that this kind of language is ever okay, and I respect that opinion. But I know Bitch|lab does, because she said so: whiteness is the enemy. every time nubian or Shannon says I hate white people, I don’t cringe. I say, “YAY!†[...]
[...] As is the usual, K at Bitch Lab is having a blast deconstructiong RM’s slipshod analysis; you may feel free to check out her rebuttals here. [...]
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Hell, if you’re having a hard time understanding her, I don’t stand a chance!
Well, I might regret taking on the big gun but the last paragraph alone of that post pissed me off. My comment is awaiting moderation. Basically, I don’t have any desire to trade off having men tell me what I have to do in bed for having women tell me what I’m not allowed to do in bed. Period.
B | L, are you sure that’s your brain your thong is squeezing?
Um, maybe _I’m_ missing something, but this is a quote from the first piece:
In a world were even cunninglingus can be patriarchal, blowjobs, bukkake and high heels are all up for examination and critiscism, and when a woman is doing something patriarchal and calling it “liberatingâ€Â, well that’s bullshit too and they should be called on it, and if a criticism is invalid or wrong headed, well then that should called out too.
Seems to me she is quite comfortable in both pieces arguing for examination and critique.
Or maybe I’m confused about what you’re confused about.
I’ve been having a hell of my time wrapping my brain around R. Mildred’s bullshit. I might be able to give her latest post a little respect if her tone weren’t so goddamn condescending. You know, we’re used to hearing about strident feminists, but she really walks away with the grand prize…
I’m glad to be hanging out at B|L where there actually still seems to be room for meaningful dialogue and introspection! Really, how nice it is to be seeing you actually working through these sorts of things and managing to have a good sense of humor about it all. Frankly I’m surprised about the party lines being drawn here - I kinda expected Jill at Feministe to hop on board with the girls and boys as PAB, but piny?? I wouldn’t have thought. Plus Amanda Marcotte’s attack of Bussel seemed a bit out of character. Maybe the whole world just has their thongs on too tight. Or not tight enough. I can’t even remember anymore. At least you and Cheryl and Amber are holding down the fort on our side.
@ Cheryl
Have no regrets! Better to join the fray than sit by the wayside and let others drag feminism through the dust. Oy, maybe I jumped the gun when I said that Doonesbury strip way way off base. Maybe it’s time to jump ship with the feminist camp and start our own damn social movement. Of course, that’s just letting the sex police win, and that’s no fun for anybody.
@ marc
Arguing for it and practicing it are two different things. The statement that a “woman is doing something patriarchal” already rules out examination and critique because it seems she has already made up her mind. Maybe I’m misreading you misreading B|L misreading R. Mildred, but I really don’t think - judging by Mildred’s tone - that there’s too much there to defend. Whatever points she might have to make were drowned in rhetoric.
Well, yeah.
Nothing is self-evidently patriarchal.
if I say working for a living in a capitalist society is nothing but exploiting yourself to live and don’t you just suck for doing that, a lot of people even on the left side of the aisel will say, “Woah woah. What’s wrong with capitalism? What is this bit about exploitation? My employer is pretty cool.”
Or, if they employe people they will say, “I’m a pretty damn cool person, I don’t exploit anyone.”
Among even people who identify as lefists, it’s not a given that everyone shares the same analysis of capitalism, IOW. They might have certain problems with capitalism — like claiming that the problem is not enough real competition or that corporations are too big — but to the idea that every single one of us, whether a busboy or a Director of IT at IBM, is an employee all equally exploited by capital to line their pockets and this is bad and must be ended today. NOW!
a lot of people are going say, “Huh?”
So, now we have Mildred declaring a host of activities and objects as “objectively patriarchal.”
It doesn’t work that way. All she does is make an assertion. There is no argument as to *why* these things are patriarchal. Jesus.
As Bryan says, there is no opennes to a conversation about the topic. It simply is, just as Twisty asserted X and so about the objective disgustiness of cocks.
What on earth can objective possibly mean here?
Is there some Archimedian rock out there upon which we stand to be able to name everything patriarchal?
Such a view is call naive realism, which isn’t meant pejoratively. but it is a widely criticized view and few people actually hold it these days.
Even scientists in the phsyical sciences understand that “objective” really means “intersubjective”. Which is why scientists have to put their work out there for public inspection. It’s why other scientists take their methods and etc. and try to replicate what they’ve done. Bcause not even a chemist can say, “My study says X and so is objectively so. End of story.”
No, instead a chemist publishes her work and other people need to examine it to see if it’s up to par. can the reearch results be replicated by yet another researcher. And so on.
So, the notion that there is some objective archimedian point where someone simply has to stand to identify something as patriarchal is really quite absurd.
It thus turns out to be that objective status is something that comes about through intersubjective agreement.
If that’s the case, it comes in real fucking handy to have a theory that determines that those who don’t agree with you are ideologically blinded, wrong because you’re a vapid dumbfuck, an antifemnist, or whatever other insults Mildred tossed around.”
LOL
and the purism thing where what was up for grabs was the advertisements on The Village Voice. REally, as a tactic to criticize someone. Midlred: fuck you and the keyboard you wrote in on.
It must be nice to sit on high in judgment of the rest of us who have to sell our work to whomever, even to people doing things that reproduce the patriarchy. Because, believe me sweetie, as someone who might be lucky to clear $15g rand this year, if a company that sells herbal breast enlargment will hire me to make that Web site, you can bet your sweet bippy I’m going to take the job.
The day you and everyone else who makes this bullshit objections starts making sure I have a living wage without having to do those things is the day you might have something to say about it that makes any sense whatsoever.
I’m not even going to mention the bullshit put down of women who are sex workers, but I sure would like to know what was progressive and feminist about that horse shit.
Actually, Marc, you ARE missing something….in both of the critiques of RM she is coming down hard and directly on women who disagree with her basic fundamental beliefs: that some sex acts are innately “patriarchial” and antifeminst, and as such should be frowned upon by feminists; and that only her interpretation of “examination and critique” (that is, that any form of sex outside of her charmed radfem position is innately evil and “patriarchial”) is the ONLY acceptable feminist position. Any dissention from that amounts to “submission” to the patriarchy and immediate and total banishment from “the movement”.
Doesn’t sound too confusing to me.
In her mind, there is bad, evil “patriarchial” sex and there is “feminist” sex. If you want her blessing, you’d damn well better abandon the former (which basically would encompass the majority of consensual sex acts) and adopt the former. Otherwise, don’t even bother calling yourself a feminist, because you simply aren’t as long as you are tainted with Teh Mark of Patriarchy.
It’s not so much about being influenced by other judgements, Miz B…it’s about imposing HER judgements on the rest of us under the cover of “solidarity” and “feminist sisterhood”.
That is more appropos to the Promise Keepers and the ex-gay hucksters than to anything progressive; covering it up in feminist rhetoric and whining about being called “antisex prudes” doesn’t make it any less so. If the shoe fits…
Anthony
It’s about imposing her judgments. Well then, watch out becuse if those judgments come near me: I bite.
I’m not paying R. Mildred any more attention, since she trotted out that lame and downright offensive tack of “I disagree with your argument, so now I’m going to tell you how ugly and slutty you look.” It takes me right back to 7th grade and I just don’t need any more stress in my life.
At least I’m not the only one who feels like the whole blogosphere has taken a crazy pill today.
What I really don’t get about this whole thing–the blow jobs/sub=patriarchy deal–is that, and maybe I’m just naive, but a good percentage of sex, maybe not necessarily the majority, but a hefty chunk takes place in relationships. How is it patriarchal if you give a blow job one day and receive cunnilingus the next? Or give a blow job at the same time? Or give a blow job, then get fingered? And why blow jobs? Are handjobs patriarchal too?
…In other words, I agree with your confusion.
Wow…you folks were busy while I was reading. (Yes, I have relationships with women, I’ve been known to fuck men, I masturbate on an as needed basis and I can still read! I consider it a miracle.)
Bryan wrote: Maybe it’s time to jump ship with the feminist camp and start our own damn social movement. Of course, that’s just letting the sex police win, and that’s no fun for anybody.
The unfortunate thing is, by the time the neocons get through fucking up the Supreme Court and finalize their own little Gideon right here in North America, the only people we’d be allowed to have sex with would be Republicans. To that I’d have to say, “Thanks, but no thanks. Can you tighten up this noose a little more, please?”
If you make a blanket claim (and I’m not going back to read the whole thing over again, it hurt my eyes) that particular sex acts can in no way be deemed as anything but tools of the patriarchy, that is not necessarily inviting others to disagree and open a collegial discourse.
The tenor of RMildred’s posts (yes, I did read them both) was very denegrating of Rachel in particular and of women who might happen to enjoy [ insert banned sex act here ] in general of bolstering the patriarchy by way of their sexual desires.
I don’t happen to enjoy BJ’s but I could certainly see how, in the right circumstance, with a woman who is in command of her body and her sexuality (and I’m not necessarily talking BDSM here) the act could be a very empowering one and as far from an abusive act or from the patriarchy as possible.
Because I don’t like BJ’s, I don’t do them. Doesn’t mean I don’t have another bag of tricks I can open which is fully as capable of producing the same, desired effect, which is the satisfaction of causing the immense satisfaction of my partner, which brings me pleasure. I’m not going to lay out what those tricks are, lest they also make their way to the List of Banned Sexual Practices for Feminists.
To Amber: Thanks for reassuring me that this is not usual behavior among feminist bloggers. I was beginning to get worried.
oh jesus. thank for that — about relationships.
i really only have had most sex in terms of a relationship of some sort. and i don’t get it either. even in the context of one sex session, there is a back and forth exchange — for me: a little sucking, a little missionary, a little this a little that. Sometimes, I’m not feeling that interested in any one thing and he takes the lead. sometimes, i’m the one who wants things to unfold a certain way. sometimes is this totally mutual clicking where you’re just lost in the moment of it all, where it’s just bodies and skin and fluids.
the idea that someone coming on my chest or whatever is an act of dominating me. jesus fuck. i just see it as: here’s this cool thing your body does. it is beautiful and I want to see it happen sometimes. and then i want it to be there between us, mixing up with our skin, and maybe laughing at it all.
and i know that my lovers have felt that way about me when i come. if i didn’t genuninely feel it with them, then i wouldn’t be with them. i happen to be one of *those* women. the men who love me, love that my body does this thing that I’m enjoying myself and it feels good for me, which means that they are turned on by my pleasure.
what happened to the mutuality of i’m turned on by you and you me and i’m turned on more by the fact that i see you’re turned on by me and you see me turned on by you. and there’s this progressive building of pleasure moving back and forth between two people — or at other time for me with three or four of us?
I mean, it’s truly *likeing* each other — our bodies, the noises we make, our little quirks, our pleasures, all of it in this synergistic enjoyment of one another, pleasure playing of the plesure back and forth.
what in fuck is wrong with that?
no. let’s just take discrete acts, rip them out of all contexts within which they take place and say “that’s patriarchal” and nowhere is it possible that it isn’t.
talk about the iron cage of radfem analysis.
Cheryl — reach through the monitor and hug you as Jean said on her blog, You Are Here, today.
this, “Doesn’t mean I don’t have another bag of tricks I can open which is fully as capable of producing the same, desired effect, which is the satisfaction of causing the immense satisfaction of my partner, which brings me pleasure. ”
Yes, exactly. And it works the other way, our lovers love pleasuring us.
While I’m on the subject, allow me to concentrate on another example of RM’s lunacy.
Here’s her succinct analysis of the accompanying photo that graces Rachel’s Lusty Lady column:
Ahhhh….but here’s the rest of the story about that particular headshot: It was part of an erotic photo gallery set that Rachel did last year for a professional, high-brow agency (the results can be found here (Warning: definitely NSFW)). Rachel wrote about her experience performing the shoot which led to that gallery in a previous Lusty Lady column which can be linked here; and from her perspective, it was slightly different from what RMildred implied:
You’ll just have to see the gallery to find out just how down and dirty she got..but that’s for another venue and time. Fast forward to later:
So, as you can see, R Mildred even manages to get the little things wrong with her sheer antisex prejudice.
Rachel has more class on her nipple then a thousand RMs have collectively….and the ovaries to match. Take that, RM and kindly shove it up your…..radfem theory.
Anthony
@ Anthony
Funny, I’d stumbled across those pics a while ago and one of the things I thought was fascinating about them was that it was one of the few sets of shots I’ve ever seen where the woman really looked flushed with the sex flush.
most of them time, it’s just sexy poses. this was the real thing — and i hadn’t read her write up about it. it was just obvious from the photos.
I read aloud RM’s description of RKM’s photo and then he wanted to see what this horrid human being would look like, he was pretty disgusted to think that RM’s post was so horrid to begin with, but even more amazed that the description had no resemblence to the photo.
sometimes, i just think RM had a cuppa joe one more than normal and just decided to stir up shit b/c she was bored.
I think that gets at what the real source of confusion is: most of the participants in the “blow-job fracas” don’t think theory matters and are not thinking systematically.
Someone with a wrong-headed theory can still offer useful insights from time to time, including radical feminists. That doesn’t mean that radical feminist theory is just as good as any other theory. It consistently leads to reactionary conclusions.
Twisty herself is one of the more clear and systematic thinkers in the whole affair. It’s ironic that some of her fans tend to apologize for Twisty’s most direct statements of her beliefs by saying that Twisty’s just joking. No, when Twisty says that she’s asexual, she doesn’t mean she enjoys sex with women. When Twisty says she believes that sex with men is degrading, she means it. When she says that liberty should not be the highest goal, she isn’t challenging authoritarianism.
I’ve tied myself in knots with my apparently futile efforts to explain to people that they should stop using “patriarchy” as if it were simply a synonym for “sexism,” that it has important theoretical baggage attached to it. Nor can you reconcile the idea that “sexism is rooted in class conflict, and should be combatted by working class women and men together” with the idea that “sexism is rooted in patriarchy, and should be combatted by all women united across classes.”
More simply, a lot of participants in the debate have taken the classic stance that we’re all on the same side here, so we should all try to get along. But we’re not really all on the same side, and we cannot get along, and it’s foolish to pretend otherwise.
R. Mildred’s general strategy seems to be to follow the lead of her own anger. That often works well — some of her rants are fantastic. But she’s not thinking through issues systematically, and doesn’t seem to perceive the problems she’s running into by picking up bits and pieces of radical feminist thought.
OK, I’m tired of this shit.
http://abyss2hope.blogspot.com.....eing. html
deos the term ’sex positive feminist” or “sex radical” turn people’s brains to mush or something? Yeah, RKB is saying and I’m saying that women have to give head if they dn’t want to. Yeah. That’s it. In fact, in my book, you better guzzle it all down and swallow!
I swear, people are fucking INSANE on this topic and, really, I’m tired of them. They can spin on their little vibrating hoosits for eternity for all I care.
With Katha POllit running around calling women who aren’t on board the feminist Klew Train featherheads and a slew of seemingly intelligent women incapable of actual reading comprehension these days, feminism appears to be dead and I’m happy to bury it. It needs to die quick like.
The owl of Minerva flies at night, so let’s fly.
@ Foolish Owl
damn straight dewd!
I think there can be coalitions, but there are ways in which some women advance ideologies that literally make my daily life a living hell. they are my enemy.
and then same works for racism. whiteness is the enemy. every time nubian or Shannon says I hate white people, I don’t cringe. I say, “YAY!”
@ Foolish Owl
we are so totally on the same page here, it just ain’t even funny.
also wrt Twisty, but we had the convo before and I was saying pretty much what you say here. No, it’s not a joke. She was serious. Please. Don’t dismiss this because, if you want to run around dropping the P-bomb (Patriarchy - bomb) then why don’t you recognize what the fuck you are talking about.
I mean seriously. What is “the patriarchy”? Is it something that operates like capitalism? Hmmm? How does it work? What made patriarchy emerge in the first place? What are its operative dynamics? How does it change? Is there change? If there are differences across time and space in the way patriarchy manifests itself, why? Any reason why we have such disparate manifestations of patriarchal rule? Does patriarchy have ‘laws of motion’? How does it sustain itself? How do ideas change? Is this an ideational analysis? Material? some combo? What?
These are not silly questions. When you answer them, you begin to anwwer the questions of how we get out of this place. And once this is revealed to us, we have to ask: is this what we had in mind?
anyway, couldn’t agree more.
I should also say that Amanda’s a slightly different case than R. Mildred. Amanda’s very much opposed to the basic principles of radical feminist thought. In fact, discussions with Amanda over the last year have done much to help me clarify my thinking about issues of gender and sexuality. However, Amanda’s a bit nervous about the consequences of committing to a firm political position, and so she’ll occasionally retreat to a convivial eclecticism.
I thought Bussel’s column was poorly written, and that it was odd to complain of Twisty’s blog as if it were the dominant trend in feminism, and I understood that to be the main point Amanda was making.
Wow, you guys really turned the heat on R Mildred, huh?
Each of us at PAB are free to say whatever we want, regardless of who agrees, so I’m under no obligation to pick a fight here, but this thread was supposed to be about a _confusion_ and/or inconsistency between her posts, right?
But all of you appear to see her as pretty consistent — even B|L in her very long comment response, seems to no longer be “confused” (though I think you got stuck on one word, “objective,” and let that kinda spiral into more than she probably meant by it).
Was this really just a “let’s rip on R Mildred” post all along?
Did her post sound like a “let’s rip on R Mildred” post? B|L isn’t responsible for the shape the comments start to take. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think anyone here is dishing it out any worse than R Mildred did. Can you honestly defend her tone in that article? Try to put yourself into a different ideological position and imagine you’re on our side of the fence - there are plenty of us who argued reasonably, intelligently, and fairly, and were treated to that gloating, smug response. It hardly seems like a feminist dialogue and it feels extremely exclusionary to anyone that doesn’t subscribe to her particular brand of feminsm.
Have your comments really just been “let’s blindly defend our pal R Mildred” comments all along? Take a little critical distance here and look at not just the things she said, but how she said them. Pretend for a moment that you don’t agree with her, and come back here and honestly tell me you think the tone of her post was productive or not. Once we can start talking to each other in some moderately respectful fashion, then maybe we can try and hash out some of our differences.
Bryan,
Dude, did you read B|L’s comment? She threw at least as much personal-attack flame as R Mildred does. That comment seemed to show that the real point of the thread she started was “eff you R Mildred.”
But you seem to think that as long as the bile is spewed at R Mildred, it’s productive and respectful. I mean, that’s why you like coming here, yeah? Right. Gotcha.
I can’t imagine why you’re asking so surprised, after all those bullshit ad hominems and ridiculous generalizations she spouted.
Marc,
I like coming here because I typically agree with B|L and I think she’s a smart and funny writer. I like coming to your site for the same reasons, despite the problems I’ve had with the couple of posts in question.
But none of this changes my reaction. Have you read my blog? I think I’ve treated both sides of the issue pretty fairly.
Is the reason you like coming here to troll and flame B|L and her readers? Or are you going to participate in the conversation? I told you pretty straightforward what my major problem was with R Mildred’s piece and asked if you could defend it. You offered nothing in return. I’m not defending or supporting B|L, I have my own personality, my own ideas, and my own opinions. Just because I comment here doesn’t identify me as some blind supporter of all things Bitch.
As far as I’m concerned, there is a real difference of opinion here, but that doesn’t translate (for me) into personal difference. piny supported R Mildred, but I still love piny (and he had the guts to call Mildred out for her bile, despite agreeing with her). I don’t have a problem with you or anyone on your damn site, but I do have a problem when you treat me (and anyone who falls even remotely into the same ideological camp as I do) like we’re a bunch of smug idiots who don’t know what we’re talking about.
Let’s start over, shall we?
t the same things, right?Hi, I’m Bryan. I disagree with some of the things your fellow blogger said. I think there’s room for all sorts of opinions - that’s why we have feminisms and not just one monolithic Feminism. I took real offense at her tone for being very dismissive of other feminists who tend to think more like me (or B|L or Amber or Cheryl or Anthony and so on). Do you think the tone of her post was productive? Let’s figure out how to have this conversation without spewing vitriol, because in the end we’re all working toward a common goal, right?
Just added something to the original post Bitch|Lab, I’m not apologising, because I’m not sure I have anything to apologise for except being a shitty writer, but I will have to write a clarifying post because I wasn’t exactly sober when i wrote the original peice, and some people have gotten stuck on certain points that I didn’t explain properly.
Anyway, here’s what I added:
And I really cannot see how anyone could read a peice that not only made out a woman who basically did her little peice to normalise the rape culture with her pretentious college art piece, to be some sort of hero for using a much better feminist’s words to handwave away her highly valid feminist critics while not actually engaging them or their criticisms in debate or discussion, but also tried to conflate twisty (who she used to represent all feminists no less) with far right wing sex-phobes, as a feminist piece, not unless they also routinely consider equity feminism a valid form of feminist thinking and not just the rightwing obstructionist bullshit that it is.
I do hope that last keypoint was expressed coherently in my post, because otherwise I shall have to mark it off as a complete failier.
I guess we just disagree about vitriol, Bryan. Check PAB for a response soon.
I eagerly await it, Marc. Vitriol comes from both sides, btw - that wasn’t just meant to be a criticism levelled at you or your site, just the dialogue in general. We all do it. Some just get away with it because they’re more clever or funny than the others.
@ marc
I was confused. Seriously. I happen to have adored R. Mildred — utterly, to wit
Still do admire her. People are human. She seriously erred by attacking a fellow feminist when she used ad hominem arguments about RKB’s appearance, supposed lifestyle, and how she makes a living.
Those are criticisms. I’d reply to punk ass, but she hasn’t ever actually engaged me in any conversation in the past, so I assume she’s either just too busy or she’s thinking I’m among the folks in the blogosphere that think I’m an antifeminist or some such. Given the her thoughts on RKB, I’m kind of going with the latter at the moment.
*shrug*
It doesn’t hurt my feelings too much and I still think she’s laff-a-minute funny most of the time and I enjoy her flames. I think she should put down the ad hom flame gun when she goes after fellow feminists, but IME to get that point across it usually takes a lot of back and forth discussions. It really not worth wasting her time. I don’t have time and don’t think it’s that important.
So, no, this wasn’t a “rip on” R Mildred. If I was ripping on her, I’d engage in ad hominem attacks on her.
she’s been criticized. ther’es a big difference. If you put your stuff out here in Bloglandia, that’s what happens. If you do rip on someone using ad hominem arguments, then you’ll probably have to endure the heat of criticism. but people have made arguments here, mainly, and you ro she or others can engage them or ignore them. Saying that it’s “ripping on” her is just really strange and doesn’t actually substantively address what has been said.
R Mildred seems like she’s pretty capable of withstanding the heat. I’d send her a pair of Mormon underwear, but I think I’d have to marry her for them to work.
@ marc
wasn’t it you who said that self-criticism among the left was what set us apart from the rightwingers?
It works both ways. If R Mildred or anyone wants to attack people within feminism, then she’ll probably get an earful. I did recently when I criticized Katha Pollit for the positions she’s taken on email discussion lists. Having read her for yearrs in those contexts, and having seen her criticized for the same things Wonkette criticized her for recently, my argument was that in spite of the outrage in bloglandia, it may be too soon to judge whether Wonkette was engage in antifemnist attacks on Pollit. She might just have a point.
As you can imagine, people didn’t like that.
So be it. I learned a lot in the exchange. E.g., I thought about the way that people can call themselves feminists but still do a lot of damage to feminism. Hadn’t thought about it much before. I had to think really hard about a default position that I’ve heald for a decade: that, as far as I’m concerned, if you call yourself a feminist, then you are. Which is to say, I’m not going to call you an anti-feminist, though I will rip your arguments to shreds. In other words, I’ll avoid empty name-calling and engage in substantive argument. People criticizing me her — even ripping on me! — made me think, made me hone my arguments, made me realize things I’d never thought of.
Ain’t it grand?
[...] Yesterday, Bitch|Lab and friends opened up a discussion about mean ol’ R Mildred and how rock-’em-sock-’em she is. The post itself is largely irrelevent; B|L’s initial “confusion” quickly devolves into commenters piling on my favorite rantress, including B|L herself. [...]
B|L:
Oh yeah, you can rip on her, which I equate with criticism, and that’s all fine. I am not shutting it down, just checking on the intent of the post.
On ALL things, I am in favor of enabling discussion. Whether its her rants or mine or yours or Bryan’s, I am always in favor of examination and critique.
I just put my post up, and it centers on the idea that 1) RM’s tone isn’t about shutting down discussion and 2) B|L’s initial long comment sort of is.
Just because I take issue with your taking issue, I am not saying you can’t take issue.
In my post, I take issue with taking issue that R Mildred doesn’t want you to take issue, and I think that’s the truth.
But you can take issue with that if you like, so long as I am afforded the same right.
Marc
I don’t mean to sound snarky, but I don’t hink you really understand what a personal attack is.
A personal attack is against the person, not the argument. My comments in #5 are all about theory and ideas — and have nothing to do with who Mildred is in her personal life or what she does for a living.
when People are attacked for their personal behavior or perceived personal behavior or for how they make a living, that is an ad hominem argument. it is avoiding the substance of what the person said in order to make them look like a bad person to the reader.
Where have I made R Mildred look like a bad person? Where did I comment on her personal life?
The _only_ place I implied anything of the sort was when I got snarky about R Mildred’s comments about the ads that come up on The village Voice.
There is nothing legitimate about such a criticism of RKB’s piece. People don’t always have a lot of choices about where they get their paycheck. I sympathize with that becuase I’ve been a single mother for a long time and I’ve had to do things that, well, apparently R Mildred would criticize me for — and maybe even find unfeminist.
That is _deeply_ disturbing to me.
I apologize for the personal attack — for assuming she’s coming at it from a high and a position of privilege. Because I don’t know what she does or where she’s been in life.
I was wrong.
but, the basic criticism remains. It is absolutely unfair to criticize people for how they make a living. That isn’t argument. It’s logical fallacy.
and, the rest of the comments in #5 remain: they’re substantive criticisms of how the term “objectively patriarchal” is used, what it means, and a question about how to claim something is ‘objectively’ anything in a world where most people agree that objectivity, particularly when it comes to social analysis, is not something that exists in some never never land outside of society. Rather, it exist _IN_ society.
Since society is shot through with systems of oppression, no one speaker can be counted on to be objective in their views. They will carry the weight of those oppressions in their opinions, views, and arguments. Thus, the only way to check that bias is to understand ‘objective’ as something that is social — as something that emerges from social agreement as to what is true and why.
which was a criticism that is right in line with your post from way back arguing that self-criticism among the left was generative or productive. Because, as you correctly point out or imply, in a philosophical liberal enligtenment view of knowledge and truth, truth isn’t something that is received from ‘on high’. The days when kinds supposedly ruled by the grace of god are dead, so knowledge must be _empirical_ and accessible to everyone. No one needs to reeive truth from an authority and march in lockstp.
Rather, on liberal enlightenment view, truth emerges from agonistic political dialogue.
SERIOUSLY.
I really do not understand why this stuff makes otherwise intelligent people become goddamn idiots who can’t read.
The primary point that R. Mildred makes, which I think is right on, is that in a patriarchy everything we do is clouded by patriarchy, including blowjobs, whippings, and missionary vanilla. In the initial post on the subject she gets it particularly right when she offers us the “fellatio finger,” and further in the comments when she points out that the problem lies here: “it’s [the sex discussion was] an entirely experiential thing, which is what caused troubles here, you had people saying “this is my experience of this activity†and then takign that a step further by assuming that their experience was the only way such activities could occur.”
Not to mention that R. is quite funny.
As for the ads and the work, hey, I get it. I’ll do damned near anything for cash (I’m unemployed, mind you, and I have no ethics :P), but I don’t think R. was out of line for pointing out that irony.
Crap, in the previous comment awaiting moderation I messed up the link. Feel free to correct and delete this comment.
@ McBoing
Well, color me confused. When R Mildred offered the fellatio finger, I laughed because every man I’ve ever been with but the wasband (which is why it’s was) likes the fellatio finger.
But R Mildred’s argument was, to me, wrong. Just because you are shoving your middle finger up a guy’s ass when you blow him, it doesn’t follow that this is some kind of enlightened sex act.
All you have to do is go to Japanese soap house to find that, in Japan, no one seems to be particularly humbled by their enjoyment of prostate massage and all of a sudden we have sexual equality.
I wasn’t sure then if this was what she was saying, so I left it alone.
But back to the point. One of the things that I pointed out in that discussion was that, like you said, ON A RADFEM analysis, ALL sex is occuring within the context of patriarchy and thus, all sex, even lesbian sex, is occuring in that field.
It does not follow from that analysis that the sex act itself is patriarchal. What follows is that the problem is that it is exists within the context of patriarchy.
Therefore, it’s not and shouldn’t be the sex act that is the problem, but patriarchy.
I’m not kidding here. If you read Catherine MacKinnon, this is exactly why she only has to smikr and laugh at anyone who asks about how she can have sex with her lover and isn’t she just the hypocrite. Not only is the criticism an ad hominem crit and, thus, a fucknutted approach, the criticism doesn’t even GRASP what the fuck it is radfems are talking about most of the time. (At least in their published writing. I won’t even discuss what most radfem bloggers say because I don’t read them.)
there are two points here
1. it’s a radical feminist analysis.
That means that there are other feminist analyses out there and it has to be defended. It doesn’t do to simply assert it. It requires argument, logic, reason, evidence. To reduce feminism to radfeminism, and call out all other feminist analyses as illegitimate be/c they dissent, is not cool. There are plenty of people who do it, but when they do they shouldn’t be surprised that people laugh at the big red rubber nose and funny, floppy shoes you’re wearing.
2. I repeat, as an analysis, the criticism is directed at the conditions of inequity within which such sexual activities take place and not at the sex act itself.
—
as for the claim that it’s not out of line to point out the ads, I obviously disagree.
When you make an argument against a fellow feminist, their way of making a living — that RKB writes for The VV which takes sex ads — is not a legitimate criticism.
RKB’s arguments to do not stand or fall based on anything about her person. They stand or fall on thei merits of her argument.
I have argued this here several times. On my view, when we’re arguing amongst ourself, with people with whom we share political allegiances, then ad hominem arguments and logical fallacies are out of line.
all the time. no exceptions.
Why? because the tactic is an effort to derail the person with whom your arguing by forcing them to defend the way they make a living. And once they fall for the bait — because it’s baiting and spoiling the wells of discourse — then you’re off on an irrelevant conversation and you never get down to brass tacks.
If the person so charged ignores the charge then she allows a lie to circulate. In this case, the lie that might be circulating is that RKB approves of anything in the advertising on TVV.
—
Unfortunately, this is a common tactic with radfems. They think that, if you do anything but denounce pornography, then you support pornography as is. But, any analysis of a sex radical or sex positive feminist writing will nearly always reveal that the writer has serious problems with porn as it stands now. They, too, agree that pornography in the context of a sexist society sucks sewage through hefty bags.
but that is another discussion.
I am sitting here mouth agape about the whole brouhaha about the photo. Seriously?? So-called feminists are picking Rachel apart because of what she’s wearing? Like I said, straight back to 7th grade. Or, straight to Little Green Footballs, where women are judged based on their appearance, where it’s fair game to generalize about a woman’s personality, sexual life, and worth as a human being based on her clothing. Or, over to the Christian Right, where boobs/cleavage are something to be ashamed of, hidden from view, lest all the hapless men fall prey to the evil, Eve-like temptresses!!
Seriously? Give me a goddamn break. This is feminist discourse??
@ marc
finally (for now) since I have to get to work, the reason I find claims about how things are “objectively patriarchal” a problem because they shut down debate should be clear.
To think that something is objectively patriarchal and to reveal that you think it’s enough to simply *assert* that it is so, is to say, “It’s objective. Anyone who’s got half a brain agrees.”
This is hostile to fellow travelers who happen to have different theories about what patriarchy is and if it even exists *as* patriarchy described, theorized, and researched within feminist literature. Which is to say, while I think sexist oppression exists, I do not think there is such a thing as “patriarchy”.
It is also hostile because it seemed to have been deployed in the sense of an “objectivity” that reflects the assumption that there is something like a God’s Eye View in feminist analysis.
And it’s just terrifying, to me, to think that any feminist in bloglandia might think this. The second wavers spent reams of typing paper to demonstrate how such a view is completely unhelpful to women’s conditions — because “objectively” true had been used agaisnt us to tell us things like, “It’s objectively true that women enjoy housework more than men.”
And to fight all that, they had to fight the idea that knowledge comes from objective place outside of society, where the speaker is not influenced by structures of power and domination.
And since that time, we have spent reams more of paper, trying to understand how, even within feminism, various speakers are located in places within a capitalist, racist, and sexist society that mean that even feminists’ views aren’t unabashedly objective.
—
when I wrote that, it comes in really handy to embrace a theory that defines critics as “objecitvely” in support of the patriarchy if they disagree, I wasn’t ‘ripping’. I’m quite serious. This is very big problem in feminist thought and, in fact, in the theories espoused among supporters of any movement for social change.
We recognize, on the one hand, that people are shaped by structures of oppression. That they embrace ideologies that contribute to their oppression. That they sometimes willfully and with pleasure, submit to their own oppression — enable it even.
But, we have to be very careful when discussing what is supposedly oppressive that we don’t shut down people by simply slapping the label “male identified” or “antimfeminist” on people just because they disagree.
This is especially a problem _within_ feminism. Which is why I had a big problem with the first Hummer War. All the women speaking were thoughtful feminists and the conversation proceeded as if they were dumb shits and had never really thought about their actions before.
when you set it up that way, and when you try to reduce the variety of feminist though to one Feminism, then you are simply writing off disagreement.
And yes, that does shut down the conversation.
Rachel apart because of what she’s wearing?
Amusingly enough, they’re not, I had no idea that was Bussel in the photo, so no, that’s not why I attacked her, you’ll have to read the rest of the post where I quote from the peice and then criticise the actual peice itself.
And the Ads just made me almost die from spit taking, here’s this long tirade about feminists (who are all twisty and/or rightwing fundies of course, because a good strawfeminist needs to be holding mutually exclusive opinions at all times) who are tring to take away everyone’s sex (OMG those evil feminists) by objecting to abusive sexuality (oh, that’s all?) and here’s some ads for prostitution!
How dead must Irony be for that to happen huh?
Oh, btw Bitch|Lab, I know it doesn’t in anyway dael with any of the objections people have to my post, but I must point out that I have never said anything, whatsoever, about thongs. I know I did resort to ad hominems (though none were intentionally aimed at bussel’s appearance, that was a freak accident, I’m anorexic so I generally avoid doing things where my really fucked up (and self abusive might I add, but I have justifications for it! so it’s okay (or at least hypocritical) sense of asthetics might cause me to err, but could you not attribute me to an anti-thong stance unless I am actually anti-thong (which I’m neither going to confirm or deny here) please?
@ R Mildred
Well, we disagree about normalizing the rape culture. As anyone who’s ever investigated the so-called rape fantasies that women and men have — these are not typically about rape.
Rather, they are about ravishment. E.g., there’s a film starring Denzel Washington as a small time Florida cop. There’s a scene where for a very tiny moment that there’s someone in her home and he’s unwelcome. It quickly becomes apparent that it’s their shared fantasy and that, indeed, it’s _her_ fantasy.
They are engaged in het role playing. They don’t call it BDSM, but that’s exactly what it is. And the reason they don’t have to call it BDSM and have safe words is that it is such a common part of this culture that no one has to spell out the boundaries.
I don’t have this kind of fantasy myself, but from what I’ve read I have a version of them and, in fact, explictly let my partners know what I want, both men and women. E.g., I like being woken up in the middle of the night or the morning with someone ravishing me.
This, in the Land of The Biting Beaver, is called rape. I don’t call it that because I’ve asked for it. I want it. I want my lover to become turned on in the middle of the night because they dreamt about me or even someone else and they are horny.
This is utterly no different than the BDSM role playing you think is OK.
Now, there is a legitimate criticism of that I think. Here, the idea is that, in our sexist society (I don’t use patriarchy for a reason: I’m not a radfem), women are raised - and if you’re as old as I am, even more so then as now — to think that expressing their sexual desires is wrong. That we must somehow be coaxed into becoming the wanton sluts that we really are. That it’s not ok to simply be that if we are, but that we have to be so wanton in response to the other’s desire first.
Thus, the prevalance (I think it’s like 75% of all women have them ) of ravishment fantasies, are about wanting to be “taken” by someone. I have them even in the context of my relationships with women and I have them in the context of wanting to ravish women.
When I have them, this does not mean I have them about women who don’t want me, but about women who do.
And I think this is a reflection of our sexist culture — because we’ve been defined as people who have this wanton, lusty sexuality deep down, but it is only permissable if it is something someone else unleashes for us.
I don’t think this is natural, but produced in the context of a sexist society.
–
Now, to me, that’s an example of talking about sexuality where I’ve been honest AND offered up a criticism of my own desires.
I did not claim my desire is not shaped by a sexist society. But, you know, neither did RKB.
Where we disagree is that, in talking about these things, I have just reinforced Teh Patriarchy ™.
I’m also not saying that talking about them transgresses Teh Patriarchy ™, either. That is, I don’t think that talking about it “cures” anything either.
But most people do not say, that, to engage in the kinds of things RKB things we should engage — in getting to know our sexual desires — is going to tear down Teh Patriarchy ™ either. In fact, RKB explictly says that it doesn’t.
To have ignored that point is, I think pretty unfair. And for others in Bloglandia to have gone off the deepend and put words in her mouth — things that she never said — is just tragic.
But really, today, I’m just feeling like Bryan. Feminism is useless. I’m with Gayle Rubin on this: feminism sucks at offering any understanding of sexuality in the context of multiple system of oppression. For that, I turn to Queer theory, which is indebeted to Feminism, I think, but which is moving beyond it by throwing the dirty disposable diaper out and keeping the baby.
Maybe I’ll change my mind later today. Right now, I’m serioulsy thinking of changing the tagline for this POS blog.
B|L:
Thanks for the thoughtful responses.
I agree with you on the problematic nature of prima fascia assertions of objectivity on _anything_.
Maybe I am being to generous, but I think R Mildred might not be challenging the reams of papers so much as maybe using “objectively” to mean “obviously,” which might be poor word choice but wouldn’t lead to the idea of “one Feminism.” (It would also explain why she didn’t feel the need to articulate her reasons, b/c if you think something it obvious, sometimes you dont stop and explain it. Also, thinking something is obvious is not saying you are objectively right, just that it seems so glaringly true to you that you would be stunned if others didn’t see it that way. I have changed my mind on something I thought was “obvious” before, as I am sure we all have.)
Again, I am not trying to put words in her mouth, but given how much she challenges people’s ideas, I don’t think she’s into the kind of objectivity you describe.
@ Amber
While I obviously agree with you, I was thinking that, to be fair, I think that this is where there is a legitimate disagreement within feminist thought.
I could be wrong, but what I heard RM saying is that RKB’s personal behavior — her photos that she proudly displays — are fair game because it is legimitate to criticize such actions as RKB’s unwitting reinscription of sexist oppression. She may *think* she’s engaged in a positive act by challenging the notion that women should not objectify themselves. But, if I’m not mistaken, I think the feminist argument RM is drawing on is that, whatever she thinks, she up against a wider system of sexism that will simply eat up those picutures, spit them out, and turn her attempt at individual action against sexism into just another way of supporting the sexist status quo.
—
Now, you and I and a lot of other people here have serious objections to that argument.
For instance, one of the claims people make is that, when RKB and others pose this way and proudly display their photos, they are making life difficult for other women who will be held to that standard. They will be expected to want to engage in that kind of display of their sexuality.
Someone like RKB is lowering the bar, engaging in an act of disobedience against the feminist union by crossing the picket line. She’s a scab who gives her sex away and gives it away in the form of sexually objectifying photos, reinforcing the notion that sexual objectification is ok.
Well, where some of us part company is with the idea that objectifcation is not sexy — as piny said.
I don’t agree with piny. I think the heart of sexuality is and will always involve objectification — and that it doesn’t have to be mutual. E.g., in feminist utopia, my utopia would be that it’s OK to see erotic images of others and enjoy them. It’s mutual in so far as the person doing it wants to do it, does not have to do it to make a living (becasue in my world, no one has to be enslaved to capital), or is treated as a lower form of life for engaging in such things.
After all, what happens when two people are making love? They reduce the other person to an object of desire. We willfully and happily want to be that object of desire. We want them to get turned on by the curve of our calves, the sway of our breasts, the smell of our bodies. And, in turn, they want to be reduced to an object of sexual desire.
In that sense, to me, sexual objectifation is not, in and of itself, wrong.
Years ago, when my gram was going to have heart bypass surgery, we were in the family room beforehand, comforting each other, taking care of paperwork, and just hanging out.
My gram was married to my stepgrandad who’d had alzheimer’s. My mother, in training to be a nurse, wanted to know if gramps was horny all the time b/c, in the literature on Alzheimer’s, people tend to be.
Gram blushed and said, “Oh, sometimes when I’d bend over to get the comet….”
LOL
Now, when gramps rubbed gram’s ass, I’m pretty sure that blush meant that gram liked it that he objectified her ass and wasn’t hoping that he’d rub her ass and say, “Jeannie, your mind is really turning me on.”
heh.
Now, where objectification is a problem is in the context of wider set of inequities, where racist, classist, heterosexist, ablist, and sexist systems circulate, where men are assumed to the sexual aggressors and are free to objectify women outside the context of a relationship of mutual exchange. Where women are objectified far more than men, etc.
Where it’s a problem is where its uninvited and unwelcome.
But RKB’s response is: it’s not uninvetied. It’s welcome. I love my body and I want you to love it too. I’m confident about my sexuality or trying to be so, and here’s one way I’m honing that self-confidence, by overcoming my fears of being on display.
She’s not saying it’s liberation for all women. She’s saying it’s liberation for her b/c she happens to have those inhibitions and wants to break them down.
But the response from the other side is, in the meantime, you’re upholding a patriarchy that would want us all to do what you do and we don’t want to. So stop it. Knock it off. You’re making my life difficult.
I don’t know how to bridge that impasse because, mostly, as piny made clear, there’s a huge difference between us and that’s on the question, “Is sexual objectification always bad?”
piny said objectification is not sexy.
i had to respectfully disagree. and i trust piny to return the sentiment — that he will try to understand that I see objectification at the heart of sexuality and thus not always bad. that i see sexuality as something that is not just in the bedroom, but also public, and that, if we think objectification is at the heart of sexuality, then we might just have to experiment — here and now in the context of a sexist society — with how we might engage acts where we objectify ourselves and put our bodies on public, sexual display.
Because, like a lot of other sex positive feminists, I’m not willing to wait for the revolution for us to explore those ideas. I think we have to do it now.
To make an analogy, I don’t think racism will evaporate once we get to utopia. we have to work on ways to not be racist now.
When we work on ways of not being racist now, as individuals, none of us thinks that we are declaring that our actions will eliminate racism and no one criticizes us as saying that either.
Everyone understands that it’s an incremental step on the way to our goal, and maybe even be necessary to the process of creating that world where racism doesn’t exist.
Similarly, it may well be that we have to try our best to work on creating spaces where, even though we don’t break down sexist oppression once and for all, we work on it as individuals the best way we know how.
The difference then remains. it sounds like RM is saying that to work on it means to not engage in that kind of photo session at all and if you must then keep it to yourself.
RKB, obviously, thinks that the path to liberation lies elsewhere. NOtice I said PATH TO liberation, not liberation unmodified.
Bravo! Who says class doesn’t matter, eh?
Well. You already summed up basically how I feel wrt that argument. But, just to reiterate in my own (quick) words.
Basically, I think that argument is BS and is a way of avoiding an actual substantive argument. I just don’t see the photo connected to the substance of the argument at all. And if there is any relation between the content of the artcle adn the photo that was chosen to go with it - which there probably was, but I doubt a whole lotta deep thought was put into it - well, I just don’t see how that’s important enough to be worth discussing, instead of focusing on a discussion of women, sex, and patiarchy.
I went back and read the post. Multiple times, actually.
And it doesn’t matter if you knew it was Rachel in the photo or not. The very fact that you found it necessary to even mention the photo - or, more accurately, to denounce the photo with accusations that remind me of middle school - is the sticking point with me.
One other point… I think that some radfems perhaps get turned off by the use of the word “objectify.” THey hear it and stop listening. And, I can sorta understand that, bc I take issue w/ that word a lot of the time. Or rather, not the word itself, but its usage. I get the impression that one person who uses the word “objectify” does not necessarily mean the same thing as another person who says it. That’s why I thin kthat until we have a common understanding of our vocabulary to start from, words like that tend to be loaded and problematic.
I understand what you mean when you use it in this context, BL, but others might not (or they might turn away before even getting here)…
The point I would make (and I am not saying you don’t “get” this already) is that in that scenario, yeah, he’s turned on by her ass, and obviously he’s not goin gto talk about being turned on by her mind; but that doesn’t automatically mean that he completely disregards her mind as a part of who she is as a person, or thinks that one trumps the other. This is what really bugs me about a lot of feminist argument I see - it seems that they’ve painted it as, “you can show off your hot ass OR you can use your mind.” To me that’s a big red “false dichotomy!!” flag. I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive. And that is one thing that annoyed me about reading Levy last night.
I kinda expected Jill at Feministe to hop on board with the girls and boys as PAB, but piny??
I’ll come back to the discussion of objectification later, but this is pretty irritating and unfair. I resent the idea that I’m jumping on some sort of bandwagon. I also take a dim view of the “I’m so disappointed in you!” approach to arguing.
piny: I don’t think I was trying to come across as disappointed as much as surprised that so many people agreed with R. Mildred’s assessment, though I did give you credit for your pointed criticisms of her language. Well, anyway, it was written in the heat of the moment and I was just a little shocked and disturbed by the whole thing (the piece at PAB, not yours), so I hope you forgive. I’ve got far too much respect for you to think you’re jumping on some bandwagon uncritically or that you’ve somehow let me down (not that it should matter even if you did).
@ Amber in #47
I agree.
But I also think that we want to get to a place where enjoying the display of bodies and sexuality is like enjoying the display of life on the screen or in a novel.
You know?
In other words, when we turn on the tube and enjoy a DVD, we are enjoying the actors who are pretending to be living life. We are enjoying one thing about an actor, not their mind or their morality or their spirituality. We enjoy their talent.
Nothing wrong with that, right? I don’t have to give a crap what Ellen Barkin’s mind is like. I dont’ have to care what her politics are. Her acting just rocks my socks. And Barkin doesn’t care that I reduce her to her acting ability.
MAybe someday, it’ll be OK to reduce people to their objectified bodies in film, print, etc. Because, when we do, that appreciation and enjoyment is neutral as to the quality of their mind or morality and that, since as we presume it to be the case for actors now, they willingly present themselves to the public as an actor (which is presenting to us only one part of them and an intimate part of them to boot)
–
I know you know what I mean so, yeah, I don’t mean to be typing all that as if you don’t. Just riffing off what you said.
But the big red flag dichotomy thing, that it’s not an either/or — ? It’s hyoooooooge for me. It probably underwrites this blog’s presentation in a way I haven’t been conscious of ’til now. Though, if you look at some of the earlier posts, I was obviously struggling with it — never came to the surface.
I’m really reluctant to talk about it though because it would involve talking about what it has occasionally been like to have been treated as a dumb blonde.
generally, this conversation just hits an antagonism that I understand but I don’t want to subject myself to because it inevitably leads to personal attacks.
piny
yeah, piny, I’ve always seen rather stark differences between us on some of these issues, so I wasn’t really surprised.
wow. Bryan, you’re pretty cool about this. You put me to shame! I need to be much more willing to concede things in the here and now like that.
Awed. seriously.
I absolutely agree. For some reason, though, I just get kinda squiggy about the word “objectification.” I should probably look into why that is.
piny: I don’t think I was trying to come across as disappointed as much as surprised that so many people agreed with R. Mildred’s assessment, though I did give you credit for your pointed criticisms of her language. Well, anyway, it was written in the heat of the moment and I was just a little shocked and disturbed by the whole thing (the piece at PAB, not yours), so I hope you forgive. I’ve got far too much respect for you to think you’re jumping on some bandwagon uncritically or that you’ve somehow let me down (not that it should matter even if you did).
I didn’t agree with her assessment of Bussel’s post or with her ideas about femme sexual/sartorial expression or–fucking hello–submissiveness or sub fantasizing. I’m sorry if I gave that impression; I was responding to one specific paragraph, and should have limited my post to that. I agree with the idea that Bussel’s recapitulation is defensive and somewhat superficial, although as the responses heat up (and after R. Mildred posted her sorry-ass edit) I’m starting to remember why she might have been pushed in that direction. As far as my own reading of the piece, I’m mostly annoyed by the way Bussel wrote about things that feminists like Witchy-Woo find objectionable. I understand that her milieu is far from mine, but she set up the two sides in ways that don’t work too well for me. Anyway.
yeah, piny, I’ve always seen rather stark differences between us on some of these issues, so I wasn’t really surprised.
Really, now? I don’t feel that way at all. What differences?
I absolutely agree. For some reason, though, I just get kinda squiggy about the word “objectification.†I should probably look into why that is.
I think there are two conflicting definitions of objectification at work. The first is seeing someone as the object of your interest/affection/love/desire. The second is seeing someone as nothing but an object with which to satisfy your needs. Second-wave feminism works under the idea that being the object of male desire is the same as being an object men use to satisfy their desire.
@ piny
Thanks for clearing that up a bit. Not that you owed an explanation, but I appreciated you taking the time. I think there’s reason to be annoyed with Bussel, but like others have said, you can’t expect the level of rigorous analysis and nuance in an article in the Voice than you would in an academic work (or even in many blog comment threads). The problem with the dom/sub thing is the damn binary, which we can’t seem to get rid of, no matter what we do. Classifying sex acts as either one of the other does enforce this patriarchal idea of dominance and submission that really shouldn’t enter the bedroom as anything other than role-playing. BDSM isn’t really about domination and power, it’s about having fun in a safe way (because real BDSM should be safe). As (I think) you pointed out elsewhere, the “sub” has a lot of control over the parameters of the situation and, similarly, the “dom” must be trustworthy and respectful of the “sub’s” wishes to stop at a moment’s notice (safe words and the like). In that respect, BDSM is more about mutual trust and satisfaction than any dom/sub dichotomy.
[irreverence]
I felt the slightest twinge of irony clicking the “Submit” button after all this BDSM talk.
[/irreverence]
Not at all. I’m sorry I was snippy. I’m a little oversensitive when it comes to “betrayal,” not that you were laying down a guily trip.
I realize that the venue wasn’t exactly academic, but I feel like if I can complain about Twisty taking liberties on her blog, I can complain about Bussel being a little bit of a lightweight in the Voice.
For me, the BDSM dichotomy is in place for reasons that (ducks) seem to have a lot in common with feminist ideas about keeping women from getting fucked over in bed. It’s about recognizing the potential vulnerabilities and acting accordingly. The phrasing amounts to rules of order. Referring to the top as something other than a top would do more to obscure them than fumble towards egalitarianism. Plus, I know for a fact that tops can refer to themselves as tops while simultaneously abjuring the kind of control over the bottom that characterized the original patriarchy.
[...] Oh and on a side note, Bitch|Lab wondered if I hated thongs, because I guess anti-fems usually object to thongs as well as highheels (not that she would ever try to imply that another women isn’t a feminist if she calls herself one, au contraire mon cheri) as well as all sexual acts that women enjoy (just like I err… didn’t, oh.) I am wearing one right now, but only because I am an anti-feminists and we have to wear those evil bits of underwear to show our allegiance to the patriarchy. Thongs, you’ll recall, are patriarchal because they have sprained more ankles and caused more people to have to have a special sort of foot surgery than all the lesbian blowjobs and hawt dog-on-dog anal sex in the world combined. [...]
You know…the more I listen to R Mildred attempt to defend her mountain of crap and her slut-baiting of Rachel, the more pissed off I get.
Now, she claims that she didn’t know that the photograph in the article was in fact RKB’s…yet that still doesn’t stop her from smacking her down as essentially a guttersnipe slut whose utter existence on the planet Earth is the source of rape and patriarchy?? Yeah, right.
Sorry, RM, but no bit of snark can take away the basic fact that you figuratively lynched Rachel Kramer Bussel for no other reason than the fact that she called you and your radfem sex fascists out on your BS.
And BTW…for Punkass Marc: Maybe you need to redirect your fire, because B|L’s critique of R Mildred was actually rather tame and civil. Ir you really want to see some real flame throwing, I offer myself as a target….because I don’t feel nearly as much need to offer respect for RM’s nutty views as Miz B..since, in my view, her views are NOT worthy of any respect…at least, not from this sex rad feminist.
The problem with all this is in the fundamental belief that human beings are incapable of negotiating their sexual fantasies and their sex lives outside of the political realm….and the attempt of all socially restrictive movements to impose their political restrictions on deeply held personal thoughts and feelings. Sexual desire and sexual thought has a convenient and consistent way of transcending any and all attempts to reduce it to a narrow political agenda. Some examples: Fundie Christians caught masturbating in adult stores or celibate Catholic priests caught abusing children; or the right-wing politician who suddenly discovers his “porn addiction” (not to mention the many cases of vice crusaders whose deep loathing of porn and sexuality coincide with their obsessioon with consuming more and more of it.)
I find it funny that the very same people (whether fundamentalist or feminist) who talk the most noise about “degradation” and “sex objectification” and “‘patriarchy” are the most likely to justify and defend far, far, far worse acts of degradation and objectification of men and women…as long as it is outside of the sexual arena. I guess that there is such a feeling of satisfaction in calling yourself as morally superior to those “sluts” and “whores” who, by their very existence, is such a threat to the charmed bubble of sexual purity and a way into the upper class profession. (Yes, class and race play into the “feminist” sexual hierarchy as much as it does in other matters; it is usually those in the middle and upper classes who are the first to deal out the “slut” card at “lower-class” women for violating the terms of sexual purity.)
Well, gang, forgive me if I reserve my right to defend women who actually like sex for its own pleasure as more than capable of being human; and even willing to use the power and pleasure of sexuality as a means of positive, progressive change. If that makes me in the eyes of some radfems “a tool of patriarchy” (or, since I happen to be a man, THE Patriarch itself)….well, you can’t please everyone.
In fact, I’ll even go to the extreme of saying that it is the likes of R Mildred and Witchy-Woo and their antisex fascist “feminist” allies (and yes, I stand by every damn word of that; as strongly as RM stands by her words) who are the true “patriarchs”, only differening from the prototypical male rulers by their gender and their use of “feminist” gloss to cover their essentially Puritan agenda. They can claim to be against the Christian Right all they want, but in essence, their motives are the same, their methods and tactics are just about the same….and the empirical results — restriction, if not total abolition, of harmless private consensual sexual behavior — are EXACTLY the same.
Condemning and opposing men who commit acts of violence and hatred and brutality against women (sexual or otherwise) in the context of achieving equality and justice is the essence of genuine, honest, and progressive feminism…and I am more than proud to call myself a feminist fpr that particular goal. Calling out a woman because she happens to like certain consensual sex acts that certain “feminist leaders” have arbitrarily declared to be evil, “patriarchial”, “antifeminist”, and “slutty” out of sheer personal private disgust, or merely because she has a different form of sexual desire than some “feminist” are willing to accept….that is NOT the kind of social movement that I want to have any part in as a progressive or a radical. Unless someone is truly physically hurt or harmed, or is directly coerced, what happens in a person’s bedroom or in his/her mind should not be a subject of political debate or public policy matter…there are far, far more important issues that need our attention than whether a blowjob is “feminist” or “patriarchial”. If you don’t like it, then don’t do it…..but, don’t lay your myopic patronizing bullshit on those of us who do like it….or those of us who don’t get bothered by it.
In the end, if you are a supporter of full equality for women with men, then you are a feminist. Anything else is a distraction.
Full. Fucking. Stop.
Anthony
[...] A lot of people in the BJ War of 2006 took it upon themselves to exactly intuit the motivations of those women who enjoy giving oral sex. Lines were drawn, blowjobs were declared unfeminist, everyone is now an anti-sex overlord, R. Mildred gave us the fellatio finger (the importance of which doesn’t lie in prostate stimulation, but in that it is the middle “fuck you” finger, as in “fuck you blowjob haters”), and 50% of Twisty’s readership decided they hated her guts for five minutes until they realized she is far too cutel for gut hatred. [...]
@ R Mildred
I somehow didn’t even see your second post.
Just to clear something up. My thong comment was just an old joke about my dog. Well, my son’s dog that he forced on me.
http://blog.pulpculture.org/20.....h-n-tight/
For the original story. Like I said at PAB, I can’t imagine looking like anything but my earth science teacher with my slacks or skirt tucked up my ass. I can see myself walking around, unaware of this with a skirt on.
hit enter and sent that with the shortcut key. Anyway, sometimes I ‘m guilty of writing snarky comments that amuse me and make utterly no sense to anyone else who hasn’t followed every word I’ve ever written.
Now, you might think that’s conceited. Actually, I don’t think most people do hang on my every word — ‘cept R because he’s a crazy mofo. But there’s is piet who has or used to have a fucking tribute of practically every word i’ve ever written. He called it net.art. heh.
i’m not sure if he likes what i say or not. well, anyway, i think of it as his big art project and he has one for Yoshie and others, too, so I’m not special. I just figure that a few people will remember the thong and the dog story and get a laugh.
ok. so it made me laugh. especially since thong:: brain. geddit?
can’t i fucking engage in a little self mockery
because, seriously, i was confused. i wasn’t using confused in a snarky way at the time.
so my brain felt squished up and small because i felt i was missing something — particularly because it’s been on hellah two days with work.
anyway, just a little me-me-me post to set the record straight.
For the record: I luv everyone.
no, seriously.
Curiously, although I’m wearing my Matsushita Heavy Industries synaptic enhancement thong (now peppermint scented!), which usually makes me cleverer than a chimp playing Pacman, I’m still confused by all of this.
.d.
ohmiGOD, i cannot believe you’re still wearing PEPPERMINT.
and the Pacman reference…well, I shouldn’t even have to tell you HOW OFFENSIVE THAT IS. not to mention WHY.
so I won’t.
you’ll just have to guess.
nyah.
http://www.mintyass.com
i havea post i was workingon that mentions Asteroids and PacMan. I sure hope to be lashed for that. : )
You should hear Dwayne do his infomercial send up. Hilarious!
[...] Not everyone subscribes to the idea that this kind of language is ever okay, and I respect that opinion. But I know Bitch|lab does, because she said so: whiteness is the enemy. every time nubian or Shannon says I hate white people, I don’t cringe. I say, “YAY!†[...]
[...] As is the usual, K at Bitch Lab is having a blast deconstructiong RM’s slipshod analysis; you may feel free to check out her rebuttals here. [...]