On Footbinding. Or, If I’m Not Raping You, It’s Because I’m Chivalrous! September 18, 2010
Posted by FCM in books!, feminisms, gender roles, health, international, PIV, pop culture, rape.Tags: chivalry, dworkin, footbinding, high heels, PIV, rape, woman hating
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this is an image of an elderly chinese woman, who was footbound as a child. in “woman hating,” dworkin characterized chinese footbinding and witch burning as the two most obvious, widespread and devastating gynocidal atrocities ever perpetuated against women, in the history of the world. in china for 1000 years, women were permanently hobbled as children, by having tight bindings wrapped across and around their feet, bringing the small toes under and across the bottom of the foot, and bringing the heel and the ball of the foot closer and closer together, until there was a cleft between them. its cleavage, but for your feet! heres what it looks like on the inside, along with what a human foot is supposed to look like, in case anyone isnt sure (the normal foot is the one on the bottom):
now, i am not the first to notice a connection between chinese footbinding and modern high-heels, the fashion accessory thats more likely to permanently cripple you than any other, and in fact even on a good day limits your mobility and spontaneity, alters your gait, and depletes your very spirit as you writhe in excruciating pain, even if you dont show it. i even have an xray film of a model wearing heels in my collection of multimedia snark:
podiatry snuff film
ouch! and the point has been made elsewhere that whats so everloving sexxay about targeting womens feet for patriarchal abuse is that it does hobble them, and makes it harder for women to get away from violent men who would rape them. metaphorically, it symbolizes womens subordinate status, and in actuality, it solidifies that status, in a real, tangible way, by literally handicapping and hobbling us. sure, absolutely. i think thats true.
now, lets take it a bit further, shall we? consider what must be going through mens heads, seeing all these pathetic, crippled women teetering about on mile-high heels? completely ineffectual humans who cant even walk, and most certainly could never run, or run very far, or very well?
heres what they must be thinking: “wow, i could totally rape that woman if i wanted to, and arent i such a great guy for letting her pass?” arent i chivalrous! now, someone give me a cookie.
and in fact, its true isnt it? men are being chivalrous for not-raping women, who could do very little about it, if a man were to decide to do it. in mens own minds, men who arent rapists, not-raping women is the good-guy thing to do. they sure as hell arent not-raping women because they are afraid the women would kick their fucking asses if they tried, thats for sure.
now, lets talk about the fun-fems “enthusiastic consent!!!11!!!1” bullshit. from the fun-fem or male feminist perspective, calling PIV “enveloping” instead of “penetration” solves all of PIVs problems for women, because the only thing wrong with PIV is that women just take it wrong. and being “enthusiastic” about your “consent” makes it easier for everyone to distinguish between a wanted act and an unwanted one. you know, according to them, in their own words. i am not making this up. now, my question is: why do PIV and rape look so much the same, that you literally need special language thats outside most peoples understanding, to tell PIV and rape apart? or to separate a creepy act of sexual aggression from a loving act of, well, love?
what i am thinking at the moment is that theres a reason (DUH) for all this very calculated mental-gymnastics, that the sex-positive crowd and everyone in fact obsess over, where they try SO HARD to separate PIV from rape. and its to solve (well, obfuscate anyway) the very obvious problem that penis-in-vagina pretty much describes, if not defines, most acts of rape. doesnt it? and penis-in-vagina also both describes AND defines the act of heterosexual “sex” and het sexuality too. and thats kinda a big problem. really, problems dont get much bigger than that.
regarding chivalry too, i think its clear that mere everyday PIV, the PIV everyone wants to have, the PIV that we think about when we think about it at all, is PIV with “chivalry.” whereas “rape” is PIV without it. isnt it? chivalry being something that makes women “feel” better about the encounter, and something arbitrary (rather than substantive) that separates the rapists from the good guys, when they are all placing women in harms way by sticking their dicks into women, with only varying degrees of coersion, aggression, and violence?
so if the only thing (or a very important one) that separates PIV from rape is chivalry (and only very recently, fun-fems “funny language”, but even thats not mainstream yet) then the more opportunities for men to appear chivalrous, the better. because good-guys dont, and in fact, cant rape, if chivalry makes rape impossible. indeed, most men are “good guys” within this paradigm. how convenient! for them, of course. not for us.
see, in order to create opportunities for male chivalry, men must also create instances of women needing to be rescued. and its nonstop. indeed, women as a sexual class need to be rescued; so men as a sexual class are seen as chivalrous. (and viola! the problem of rape is solved. for men, of course. not for women.) binding the feet. women starving themselves to be too thin and lightheaded to function, or taking diet pills that make you nuts. hobbling women financially, emotionally, physically and socially with medical events and childrearing duties. keeping us tired and broke through expensive and otherwise oppressive feminine rituals. in this pathetic state, women do need help. because men have literally turned us into the pathetic, ineffectual humans that they need us to be. so they can be the heroes. so they can be chivalrous. even when they do nothing. ie. not-raping women who couldnt do a damn thing about it, if they tried.
and in the end, the reason for all of this female pain is to convince whomever is worth convincing that PIV and rape are so different, and that PIV is inherently valuable and benign too, and that its very easy to tell them apart. so that rapists dont go to jail for rape, and no one sees PIV as inherently harmful to women, so that we can all keep having PIV, and being harmed by PIV.
not quite worth it, if you are a woman. totally and completely worth it, if you are a man.
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femonade 
Oh my gosh, I’d seen illustrations of the effects of foot-binding before, but never a photo. Holy, shit. Again, another brilliant post from you FCM.
Nor are they against rape because it is a violation of your rights AS A HUMAN BEING, even though, I believe, every single man has done something that is/could easily be called rape at some point in their lives.
From the very limited reading I’ve done on chivalry as well, they were usually ways of protecting the MAN from imaginary harms.
Exactly! It’s an extension of this harm-minimisation bullhockey that funfems and their allies are so fond of. Rather than addressing the actual source of the harm (the cultural obsession with men over womyn & PIV) they’d rather make the activity “less dangerous” – which totally negates the fact the situation is hostile to begin with! It’s like telling someone in a room filled with hungry tigers to remember to bring some kevlar.
i added links to my posts on “woman hating” parts one and two:
https://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/always-so-tired-and-broke/
https://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/woman-hating-part-2/
in “woman hating,” dworkin talks about fairy tales and the social narrative of women needing to be rescued, and men being heroic, no matter what they do, or dont do. and men making their most fucked up fantasies of women as pathetic, ineffectual humans come true. i think thats pretty obviously the case, and that the ways that patriarchal conditioning operates on the female mind and body, to hobble us, is deliberate; it has everything to do with chivalry; and that chivalry has everything to do with differentiating rape from ordinary PIV. EVEN IF THE MAN WOULD HAVE FUCKED HER ANYWAY, IF SHE SAID NO.
and truthfully, even if he violently raped her. as long as he bought her dinner first, who is going to believe it was rape?
Footbinding is seriously fucked up. I could’ve sworn I read years ago a reference that men liked sticking their dicks into the cleft. Doesn’t surprise me at all.
What’s with this enveloping shit? So, if I stab someone, I can say, “Oh, you don’t understand. See, your organs are enveloping my knife. How awesome and empowering is that?”
yes, there are all kinds of stories about what men did to and fetishized about the bound foot. another one was washing the foot of its rotting skin, then drinking the washwater. sexxxay!
“now, my question is: why do PIV and rape look so much the same, that you literally need special language that’s outside most peoples understanding, to tell PIV and rape apart? or to separate a creepy act of sexual aggression from a loving act of, well, love?”
That’s something I’ve been wondering as well. When I was new to college I went to a party and basically passed out on a couch. Not wanting to pass up a prime opportunity, a guy I barely knew took me home and fucked me. When I woke up the next morning I walked homes, crying. I called one of my guy friends (Big mistake) and told him what had happened. Know his response? “Oh, that’s not rape, that’s just normal sex.”
While what happened to me definitely wasn’t legal (like consensual PiV is), I began to realize that perhaps the effects of PIV and rape aren’t so different after all. Both are physically and emotionally traumatizing and it can be argued that neither are a choice that women can freely make. This thing called “enthusiastic consent” doesn’t make the act any less dangerous.
I really like your connection between foot binding and PiV for that reason. People forget that foot binding was once considered healthy and beautiful and natural too. Girls gave consent to risk death in ordered to be crippled for the rest of their life! That narrative exactly mirrors how people view PiV today. Ugg. I really hope the funfems wake up to this fact soon. Men certainly aren’t going to stop harming us on their own accord.
Correction: when I said “and it can be argued that neither are a choice that women can freely make,” I meant to say that they Are Not choices that women freely make. By definition, oppressed people never have “free” choices.
actually, the girls didnt “consent,” it was forced on them by thier mothers, who did this to them, just as it was done to them by their mothers. for a thousand years, mothers did this to their daughters. it was as you say, completely normal, and acceptable “collateral damage” to literally cripple your own daughters, so that they could land a man. there is definitely a correlation here between girls learning to practice modern “femininity” rituals from their mothers, and the matrilineal passage of footbinding. it wasnt “consent” as much as it just WAS. thats the way it was in china, for 50 generations. so far as i know, noone even questioned it.
and as for rape and PIV both being traumatizing, YES, i believe that to be the case. i think its a fantastic feat of mental gymnastics by which we are able to convince ourselves that rape and PIV are really that different, when they are both so dangerous, and yes, even consensual PIV is traumatic, causing us to bond with these men we barely even know, who arent even good people, just because they fucked us. or to tell a rape vicitm that she needs to go back to having PIV with her partner, because its completely different. that her rape “wasnt sex, it was violence.” oh sure it wasnt sex. thats why she needed emergency birth control at the hospital, along with her rape exam. right? right.
and as you correctly note, your “male friend” was wrong about what happened to you not being rape. but troublingly, he was also right, in that just about everything about it was just “normal sex” which brings us back to the original problem. why are we going to such lenghts to distinguish PIV and rape, when things like what happened to you, actually are COMPLETELY TYPICAL experiences for women under the PIV = sex = PIV paradigm? why not smash this paradigm to bits, as irretreivably fucked up, and stacked against female pleasure, and toward our harm?
gee, i wonder.
I think this is a great post. Women, with our cut breasts and crushed feet are reduced to commodities.
Making the mothers undertake the long slow torture that is foot binding, is part of the process itself, it cripples women in an additional way by driving a wedge between mothers and daughters and dividing women generationally. Again, making the father appear chivalrous by comparison, and rendering women more helpless by their isolation from each other. All oppressors seem to do this the Nazis forced the Jewish people to put other Jews into the chambers, the Romans forced the Brits to hand over other brits to the lions. But we all know who is really doing it. Nevertheless it wrecks potential alliances and renders subject populations easier to control.
That’s an excellent point, that fathers appear chivalrous, in comparison. They do, don’t they? Even though they never step in to stop it, and they themselves demand a wife who “takes care of herself” and they demand piv within the context of the marriage, knocking up the wife of course, which is how she ended up with the daughter she’s currently hobbling. Oh men, they are so wonderful aren’t they?
Very good point about the enveloping veganprimate.
Bella Shea, I am so sorry and saddened to hear that you had to go through that.
FCM, the whole rape isn’t sex idea has bothered me for a while as well. For a long time after I was raped I suscribed to that belief as a way of feeling better about myself, before catching glimspe of the light that is radical feminism, and realising that it’s something men do as a class to hurt, repress and intimidate womyn into aquiesing (sp? No spell check on my phone) to their fucked up requests. That rape is about violence is just a watered down radical feminist idea, I think, adapted by liberalist, hedonists and harm minimisers to reduce it to something ONE man MAY do to ONE womon. That way it keeps western womyn from questioning the real systematic, synchronised violence against womyn EVERY WHERE.
I agree FCM, zeph has made an excellent point. It helps to dehumanise the mother and encourages young girls to start internalising misogyny early also.
Heh. Guess this ones a thinker.
My understanding of the “rape isn’t sex its violence” meme is that it was a feminist idea, and the point was to make raped women feel less shamed if they were raped, that they were still virgins, that they hadn’t cheated on their partners, that they weren’t sluts, etc. But somewhere along the way the meaning was changed, so that it further obscures the ways piv and rape are the same. If we didn’t judge women so harshly for not being virgins etc, or if we refused to even entertain the idiotic notion of virginity to begin with, we wouldn’t have had to do the mental gymnastics to begin with, to make raped women feel better about having been raped. But we don’t make the rules. We are trying to improve women’s lives but having to play by the existing rules, and using the existing framework and language too.
Which brings me to another point. In “spinster,” jeffreys makes the point that early feminists stressed “sexual purity” when what they really meant was “piv is harmful to women, and its not even sex”. But there was no language at the time to concisely express what they were driving at. Another reason their beliefs are seen as “anti sex” but its not their fault, and its not what they meant. Anyone who reads spinster will know that, and its a crucial thing to understand, and to remember.
“yes, there are all kinds of stories about what men did to and fetishized about the bound foot. another one was washing the foot of its rotting skin, then drinking the washwater. sexxxay!”
My face upon reading this: D:
“podiatry snuff film”
Pffft! I love your sense of humor. 🙂
I think the differentiation between rape and sex, where rape is violent and oh-so-different just serves to make men who want “sex” with “consent” look better. It’s supposed to make rapists those bad guys over there, who are totes different from the nice liberal guys.
You kinda brought up a similar topic on a post of mine once, FCM-how many of the men women have “sex” with would be rapists if they had said no? Because men start out trying to “get” sex, the horrifying thing is you can’t really know how they would react if you turned them down. And the woman’s “consent” is just an afterthought, that will enable the guy (however much of a pig he is) to say he’s not a rapist or a bad guy.
It’s hard to express this idea because the concept of rape is always centered around whether the woman said yes or no, not the man’s intent (although we can never know that)…so I hope I’m getting this across correctly. It’s all the more problematic because women are always assumed to say (or to have said) “yes” until proven otherwise, even if their ability to say no is severely compromised-like it would be, say, if your professor asks for “consent” to fuck you.
The idea that rape is a crime of violence was only part of the story, and I do believe this feminist insight was aimed at not blaming the woman. But sex and violence go together for men, which is why these themes are everywhere in movies, TV and porn.
So men want sex AND violence against women. They love this stuff and want opportunities to engage in it without getting caught. Why do you think men are still signing up for the militiary in droves and love war? Sex, rape and violence in foreign lands is a real lure. Think of it, these men go overseas, they slaughter people, they rape women, they rape prostitutes and buy girls, then they come home decorated war heros, and act as if nothing has happened.
Ever wonder why so many veterans have PTSD? Well maybe part of this is their conscience getting at them for committing all those attrocities against women. Maybe it’s the package deal. Men believe they can do this with impunity and it will not eventually do some damage to their psyche, they believe that women are nothing, that men can compartmentalize. Well, yeah, they’re great at that, but they are also dead inside. The great revelation about men is just how dead they are, just how unable they are to even endure the critiques of radical feminism without shutting down the conversation, or trying to erase the hertory of women.
And in the past, they did have more control over the press. Liverlips used to be the presses, and liverlips rejected the MANuscripts. Now it is not as easy to silence radical feminism, and liverlips will have a lot to answer for. Eventually his true opinions will get out there. Maybe young women might just stop going to his classes entirely.
That is my hope anyway.
Why is it that a felon isn’t hired for a job at McDonalds, but an admitted preditor and man who has screwed up on four marriages to women is teaching women’s studies? If that isn’t patriarchy in action, I don’t know what is!
Why is it that a felon isn’t hired for a job at McDonalds, but an admitted preditor and man who has screwed up on four marriages to women is teaching women’s studies? If that isn’t patriarchy in action, I don’t know what is!
I was just reading through some of Hugo’s old posts about his affairs with students, and he referred to it as his “acting out phase.” As if fucking students could be compared to, like, getting a tattoo without a parent’s permission or skipping class to get drunk under the football field bleachers.
He never admits that any of it could be considered rape.
He also waxes poetic at one point about how if people think it’s okay for teachers to fuck students then they’re not holding teaching up as important or as influential as other professors like lawyers or doctors or therapists, whose ethics and legal codes forbid sex with clients and patients.
What he doesn’t mention here, CONVENIENTLY, is that doctors who fuck patients and therapist who fuck clients LOSE THEIR LICENSE. They don’t get to work in that field anymore. They are considered sexual predators and even if they “repent” or “change” they need to look for new lines of work.
Hugo wants to have it both ways. He wants teachers to be held to the same standards as other professions ethically and legally wrt sex, but he wants to not have to deal with the real consequences of what he’s done, which is that HE SHOULD NOT BE TEACHING YOUNG WOMEN ANYMORE. He wants to look at his raping of women as “acting out” (it even brings a kind of air of “boy those were the days… too bad I had to grow up and pretend I respect women now”) and then wax poetic about how teachers need to be held to higher standards. NOW. Now that he’s already gotten his own rocks off.
Jesus.
mscitrus said: “I think the differentiation between rape and sex, where rape is violent and oh-so-different just serves to make men who want “sex” with “consent” look better. It’s supposed to make rapists those bad guys over there, who are totes different from the nice liberal guys.”
Yeah, the nice liberal guys won’t rape you if you don’t consent to sex. They just break up with you, divorce you, leave you with kids and refuse to pay child support.
You know, I just almost can’t keep the bile out of my throat when I hear a man say, “I love you.” There’s no fucking way they even come close to feeling love or behaving in a loving way towards any female.
Veganprimate, you give liberal men way too much credit.
Correctomundo. I am reminded of the time I was at the ICU with my mom. A code blue happened in the next room. All the staff rushed in to work on the patient but, sadly, she didn’t make it. I could hear her decades older husband leaving the ICU after she succumbed. He said, crying, “I married a young woman so I wouldn’t have to go through this again. Now I have to start all over again with someone else”. In other words he wasn’t mourning for the 32 year old human being who tragically lost her young life. He was mourning the inconvenience of having to go out and find another wife slave. Oh, yeah. Men lurve women, alright.
That should have been “
wifeslave.”Spinster sounds awesome, I am definitely adding that to my next batch of books.
I’ve often wondered the same thing. Interestingly, when ever we hear about PTSD in the media it is always in reference to war veterans, and no-one actually mentions that it’s more common in womyn due to the over whelming rape epidemic on our planet. I think, again, it’s helping to put the message out there that a man’s problems are “real” while a womon’s are not.
Fuck, why aren’t people with pot convictions allowed to leave the country, and this woo (waste of oxygen) is teaching? Good question Sheila!
No, funny that, even over at Ms.Citrus’ blog he won’t even admit it, even if one of his commenters DOES! Oh you can’t call me a rapist honey, but you can tell me why you think I am (even if I am going to ban your comments, belittle and annoy you) what a joke.
What a great idea, banning teachers who fuck their students, from ever teaching again! Hell, I’d go so far as to say they should never be allowed in the company of anyone under 30 again. Haha.
I think you might be forgetting the part where they rant on and on about how womyn love “bad guys” and how the poor “nice guys” like them NEVER get laid EVER. But still, like FCM said, even that might be giving them too much credit.
FemmeForever, holy shit. You know, no matter how many times we get exposed to their toxic bullshit, the stench and over-powering moment of “wtf” never seems to diminish. Also reminded of how many men say OH ALL MEN HATE RAPISTS AND ABUSERS NONE OF US CONDONE THEM but it’s like, well, if you fuckin’ really didn’t, how come there are so freakin’ many of them moving around?
Re telling rape victims that rape isnt sex, my mother was acquaintance raped when she was first married. She told me about it when I was a teenager, about how he invited her up to see his new furniture or something, and raped her. She said it was really confusing, because she knew he was raping her, but he was acting like he was “making love.” The pained look on her face as she was telling me about how confusing it was for her, is something that has stuck with me for 20 years.
Mental gymnastics, people. That’s what this is, and its causing rape victims even more pain, because they are trying to work through it in their minds, and they know it doesn’t fucking work. Then, they are expected to go back to having piv with their partners, or get dumped. And everyone is telling them it shouldn’t bother them, because its TOTALLY DIFFERENT. But it does bother them. Now, why would that be? Are rape victims just stupid fucking cunts, who cant tell apples from oranges in general? This is a serious question.
@Mscitrus’s # 8 comment.
Somewhere, maybe over at Echidne’s, someone said that she had always been confused by radical feminism. She said she didn’t know what all the fuss was about — hey her husband wasn’t a pig. But eventually she realized that she never told him no to sexual activity even when she didn’t feel like it or when she was too sick or tired etc. It eventually dawned on her that she never had the opportunity to find out if he was a pig or not — how he would react when she told him no — because she never told him no! She always gave him everything he wanted regardless of her own needs and preferences.
We only find out how egalatarian a society or a community or an individual man really is, when women go against the expected norms. Look at our own society. Womyn who prefer to hang out with only other womyn are shamed, shunned, and harrassed into compliance. The funfems get very angry with these womyn, and insist that men must be included. The reason given for their anger is that “hey our society is egalatarian now ” but IF our society was as egalitarian as they claim THEN they would recognize that womyn are allowed to say no to whatever they want, be that having sex with men or including non-womyn into a womyn-only-space.
The insistence that a woman let her husband fuck her when she expressly does not consent at that time, is patriarchy in action. The insistence that womyn include biological males into her sacred womyn-only-circle, is also patriachy in action. They are the exact same. And while we’re on the subject, please examine in greater detail the reason given for that funfem anger: “hey our society is egalatarian now”. Funfems insist that to exclude men in an era of egalitarianism is “rude and unfair” — but their reason is no reason at all, it is merely a justification which assumes sexism does not exist.
That was a little off topic, but it’s such a good argument (if I do say so myself, heh) that I thought I’d share. Hope you don’t mind FCM. And it was Mscitris who inspired it, right after reading Dirt’s post on mitchfest.
It’s the same thing with rape victims though. Apples and oranges as you say. It’s like they’re trying to say that the only reason rape doesn’t feel good is because the victim didn’t consent. Duh, that’s the whole point. Except radical feminism wants everyone to understand that saying no is acceptable and is a choice which should be respected, but funfems want everyone to believe that we should exist in a permanent state of consent — because that way we won’t be unhappy when we ARE raped.
I suspect funfems are having difficulties reconciling their hope that men aren’t sexist, especially after exposure to so many feminist deconstructions, with the obvious evidence that yes, most men still are very sexist. So now they’d rather convince themselves that up is down.
They’d rather inflict sexist norms on themselves, before men do it, because that way they can honestly say that men aren’t enforcing sexism and then they don’t have to blame men. It’s the same dynamic we see with the chinese mothers footbinding their daughters.
Swear to goddess I’ll stop posting now! 🙂
MISPLACED GRATITUDE. Everywhere.
Care to elaborate on that UP?
Sorry, I’m not feeling my usual enthusiastic self today. MISPLACED GRATITUDE is my primary argument against what I call “Male Exceptionalism” aka Nice Guys. Because of the atrocious state of aggregate male behavior, women have been led to believe that men are doing us a favor by, for example, not raping us. Women feel THANKFUL for men who aren’t even nice, but who simply refrain from the much-too-common displays of aggressive misogyny that amount to currency among men. I mean, even a guy who bothers to give you an orgasm– like, ooh, he’s so AMAZING in bed. What a keeper! Don’t let him get away! Better be a GOOD GIRL. Better keep the other women away from this unicorn I’ve captured! EXCEPTIONAL!!!!1!!!1111!!! This is in stark contrast to acknowledging that being treated as an equal human (which never happens between men and women anyway, but just IF it did) is boiler-plate/nothing-special that women should be DEMANDING as baseline behavior for any relationship.
Misplaced gratitude. That’s me saying YAY! to your post.
podiatry snuff film, that’s just fucking funny. could u please just caption the world for us, doll, so I could laugh more? so true.
what about partnering with men? I love what you say about PIV, do you think there are psychic effects to living with the oppressor?
curious.
Sorry sonia, but I am completely unable to discuss anything except piv anymore. Could you rephrase the question?
Actually, i don’t know the answer to that. I imagine that it would have to be inherently oppressive, wouldnt it? I mean, piv is the greatest oppressor of women worldwide, so if you arent having piv anymore, does that solve anything for anyone but you? And…if you are still living in a way that reinforces misogynist norms, aren’t you still fucking yourself over and all other women too, as members of class female?
Living with a man still reinforces the het patriarchy 100%, and as far as anyone knows, you ARE having piv. There’s no way to avoid the assumption, bc its almost always true. I can reduce my own risk, but not anyone elses. Noone even knows I’ve done it, and most people aren’t in a position to do what I’ve done.
So as far as psychic effects…I don’t know. Its still pretty fucked up.
What do you think?
Or, maybe this is more what you were getting at.
It bothers me very much that he doesnt have the first clue what any of this radical feminism stuff is all about. And the more I hear men’s voices on this blog and others, the more I realize that no man will ever understand this, and no man wants to. It bothers me greatly that he will never be proud of me for anything I ever write on this topic, unless I get some kind of recognition for it, which i never will, because its anonymous. It bothers me that he looks at me like i have three heads, when I don’t feel like I have three heads, at all. It bothers me that I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that men are paper shells of human beings compared to women, and that he is a man, and he always will be.
Also, for anyone who’s interested, julian real is handing Hugo his ass on hugos “radicals in the bedroom” post. God do I hate thinking about hugo and a bedroom, in the same thought. What a fucking infantile euphemism too. Like him saying that he “slept with” his students. Someone get me my binky!
Google “Hugo schwyzer assclown” to visit his blog. Heh.
hugo and a bedroom…. I was thinking more of hugo at an archery range, with Amazons aiming their arrows at the target..let your imaginate flourish here 🙂
No men aren’t going to get radical feminism and it is a complete waste of time engaging them. What I aim to do is try to get women to pay attention.
Again, the basic message of radical feminism hasn’t reached even most white middle class straight women, so this is the challenge.
If the radical feminist message is powerful enough, and blogs provide an incredible resource here, then we stand to really win. All women deserve to be exposed to discussions like this, before they become too enmeshed in the PIV-hetero system.
What women say matters here. It is a powerful testiment that all women who find spaces like this deserve to read. What men think or say is irrelevant.
I guess what I think is, the damage done to women in the p occurs on physical, emotional,and psychic levels. The reason I use the handle Sonia is because of Sonia Johnson, IMHO the most brilliant radfem writer for the specific reason that she addresses the crazytalk that other radfems don’t as much, Daly excepted, but that is real and crucial to the power struggle. Basically, that men psychically rape women as well as physically. I believe that. In any case, I am finding personally that the effects of interacting with men in the patriarchy are detrimental. I was telling my gf the other day, I do have lots of guy friends, but it’s strategic, you know, and it’s for other reasons. I don’t know. There’s no fucking way to win. They’re going to grind in your coochie or your mind. Sorry, I’ve had a few.
Someone get me my binky. hoodehoo, LOL.
What’s psychic mean in this context? Like energy sucking? I’m an atheist, so some of this metaphysical funny talk doesn’t compute. Haven’t read daly yet either, but she’s on the shelf.
And lol at sheilas archery range. Yes, that’s SO much better!
Not to speak for anyone else, but I personally tend to use psychic and psychological interchangeably when talking about things like this. The root word psyche means soul, so yes it can get into the metaphysical when talking about either concept. But usually I would think of it as how it affects one’s mental health or if we’re talking about energy-sucking it’s the real, tangible energy that women are expected to put into the emotional work of caring for the relationship, and in many cases caring for the man, and in either case to the detriment of her own self-care. I mean it can get metaphysical for those of us who want to, but it doesn’t have.
Also, I think I mayve gone too far with this post. Oh noes, don’t talk about piv and rape in the same breath!! Nooooo!!!111!1 It’s devastating to our argument that rape is an anomaly, while simultaneously casting piv in an unflattering light!
Well let me put it this way. If they had nothing in common, then examining them side by side would reveal that. As it is, the examination reveals something else. Deal with it.
And yes, I am aware that saying “pathetic and ineffectual” and “crippled” in the same sentence is like a triple ableism fail. Oh well! I actually think that teetering around on disabling footwear that you can remove when its not fun anymore is ableist. And that the possibility of offending minority men is never a good enough reason to NOT discuss something that affects primarily women, and not men.
Differently-abled women on the other hand, or mothers of disabled children, would probably agree that they are easier targets for abuse.
At FCM’s invitation, I’d like to announce a feminist VICTORY against the Facebook page It isn’t r.a.p.e. …it’s SURPRISE SEX. (: !! This page had over 43 THOUSAND people LIKING it before it was finally deleted by FB’s administrators. Yes, THAT many people (and more) think it is FUNNY to joke about/trivilaize RAPE. There are more pages just like this one, but the most popular one is GONE. V I C T O R Y, my sisters! Carry on!
http://undercoverpunk.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/victory/
“Oh noes, don’t talk about piv and rape in the same breath!!”–fcm
But, but…normal piv and rape can’t come from the same place, so to say, can they? I mean, a most holy Catholic priest told me a couple of decades ago, that a man his age HAD to really LOVE someone in order to get an erection. Of course, he did qualify this statement with the phrase “his age,” so I guess maybe, just maybe, ALL men don’t have to lurve a woman to perform piv. But how indelicate of you to point out the similarities between piv coming from the “right” place and that other act coming from the wrong place.
Haha, the above imparting of priestly wisdom is a true story. This liverlips (love your Hefner-esque descriptor) dude in a collar apparently fell for my Duggar-wear jumpers meaning that I was a patriarchically compliant, innocent femme who just needed his rod and staff for guidance. It was lost on him that a youngish woman might deliberately dress modestly in order to (1) DIScourage Tom, Dick, Harry, and Father Whoever from assuming she wanted piv from them and (2) to look feminine enough in a sexist work environment in order hold down a frackin’ job, for Pete’s sake, so she could have the proverbial room of her own without manly presences under its roof. He was sporting an erection, natch, when he mentioned this nugget of wisdom, which he tried to conceal by a quick leg crossing while garbed in his robes. And here’s where I get wicked: I am way more happy than a good person should be that he is currently going through the criminal court system for molesting little boys years and years before he polluted my brain with his filth. Ha! He was a multi-tasker, it turns out. I am saving newsclippings with glee (latest one regards a negative response to his piteous pleas for removal of his home electronic monitorint). And you all know he got nowhere with me!
Seriously, the pervasive disinformation that “normal” piv is 100% A-OK and linked with a male’s loving feelings for the woman needs to be repeatedly held up to the light of day. If nothing else, the obvious fact needs to be repeatedly stated that the physical risks are the same to women whether guys are thinking happy, nice thoughts about them or not. Men have piv with women they love, are indifferent to, and hate. There’s no necessary emotional casuality here on their parts, and the results are the same regardless of their feelings.
monitorint = monitoring
When I don’t sleep enough my typing can devolve into stuff that looks like word verification phrases.
Levelbest, is “hefner-esque” referable to Hugh himself, or to a simpler time, when liverlips was used as an actual insult? I got it from watching MASH. Frank burns is liverlips. Heh.
And re your priest…that’s fucking horrible. I wish so much that it didnt happen every minute of every day. But it probably does.
Sonia Johnson………….Basically, that men psychically rape women as well as physically.
Sounds like an author I would love. I’ll have to check her out.
Ok, now Mandos is handing Julian his ass. This is freaking hysterically funny, and its exactly why men should be discussing these things with other men. Because in the end, none of this really matters to them. They can debate until the cows come home whether something is “logical” or internally consistent, for example, and to his credit, old mandos is still maintaining that the radfems piv- critical position is both. But in the end, this is all just a hobby to them. They don’t really care about it, like we do. Like we HAVE TO. Because they DON’T have to.
And now old Hugo has taken the position that he simply doesn’t have the time to thoughtfully engage the people who are criticising him on his own blog. Because he has a life, don’t you know. Well guess what dickwad? It’s only by your boot being firmly placed upon women’s necks (ie. Male privilege, and thats just ONE) that you have such a nice life to retreat to, in the first place. And this feminism stuff, while its a mere hobby to old Hugo, actually means quite a lot to the actual feminists, who are doing all the work, and for which Hugo accepts all the positive attention and praise. Even when he steals our work, waters it down, and claims that he came up with the ideas himself, and lies (obviously) about how they logically follow from HIS ideology. Like oh say, decentralizing piv.
If anyone familiar with hugos blog wants to drop some links to his prior work calling for a decentralization of piv that PREDATES this little blog war he’s started with me, then feel free. And no, changing what we call it is not the same thing. Really, links please.
And now for a preemptive: that’s what I thought.
Predates FCM. Old horn dog wouldn’t have even thought of this stuff. Even when Sonia Johnson wrote about, so did Dworkin and so many others.
And not one word on how men define “conscent” legally to their advantage as well.
So when Prof horn dog is cornered with the logic (whew women out-logicing men), the he’s too busy.
Nice little excuse there. Wonder what wife number 4 thinks of this?
heres the link to UP’s latest:
http://undercoverpunk.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/victory/
apparently, there are literally thousands of people on facebook who find the following statement agreeable: rape is just a word for “surprise sex”. which is very relevant to this discussion isnt it? surprise! theres a dick inside you! how you FEEL about that is up to YOU, and how you FEEL about it is the only thing (or a very important one) that separates rape from just regular old PIV. if i am really NICE about it, maybe you wont mind as much. aka. CHIVALRY. if you watch porn, you will FEEL more comfortable with all kinds of things, by becoming desensitized to them, you know, like men. if you had a dick stuck in you yesterday or last week, you wont MIND, or SHOULDNT MIND, having one in you tomorrow. aka. “loose” women are unrapeable.
surprise sex indeed. its all in your PERSPECTIVE. rape isnt REAL. get more comfortable with PIV in any and all circumstances, (even brutally violent ones! yay porn!) and the “problem” of rape disappears. for men, that is. never, ever, for women.
Thanks, FCM! Agreed ENTIRELY.
Just to add to the fun, in case y’all haven’t heard, there’s a provision in the Federal Rules of Evidence (#412) that allows the admissibility of allegations/proof that you’ve previously “consented” to PIV with a PARTICULAR man as evidence to support his INNOCENCE in a rape trial.
ALLOWED:
(B) evidence of specific instances of sexual behavior by the alleged victim with respect to the person accused of the sexual misconduct offered by the accused to prove consent or by the prosecution;
SURPRISE!! It’s the law, sisters. And the effect is that it’s a (near) LEGAL IMPOSSIBILITY for any of your past “lovers” or fuckers to RAPE you. You consented before, he OWNS you. Stop FEELING violated. It’s all in your head– you know you liked it!
http://undercoverpunk.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/federal-rule-of-evidence-412-and-rape/
Jesus fucking christ, I just received probably the longest comment in the history of blogging from some asshat named “dwight” from oneutah. Anyone know who this asshole is? And why he might find my analysis of piv “problematic”?
That last part was rhetorical. Welcome to my spam folder dwight. Bye.
“its all in your PERSPECTIVE. rape isnt REAL. get more comfortable with PIV in any and all circumstances, (even brutally violent ones! yay porn!) and the “problem” of rape disappears. for men, that is. never, ever, for women.”
“And the effect is that it’s a (near) LEGAL IMPOSSIBILITY for any of your past “lovers” or fuckers to RAPE you. You consented before, he OWNS you. Stop FEELING violated. It’s all in your head– you know you liked it!”
How true (of course … I mean … it’s FCM and UP, you’re always right ;)).
If they do it to you “gently”, even if you don’t want them to do it to you, then they don’t think it’s rape. Hey, if she thinks it’s rape, she just needs to watch more porn and loosen up! It sickens me.
This whole thread has been making me think for a few days. I don’t have a lot to add other than agreement. I’m home visiting my mother, in Podunk America, where I can’t even have feminist rage because I would be angry all the fucking time.
This is the land that feminism hasn’t even touched. I hang out at the food co-op because the staff is mostly women (the management is all women). My mother doesn’t understand why I don’t even like to go other places, because:
“Womyn who prefer to hang out with only other womyn are shamed, shunned, and harrassed into compliance. The funfems get very angry with these womyn, and insist that men must be included. The reason given for their anger is that “hey our society is egalatarian now ” but IF our society was as egalitarian as they claim THEN they would recognize that womyn are allowed to say no to whatever they want, be that having sex with men or including non-womyn into a womyn-only-space.”
(Not off topic at all, m Andrea. You’re always right, too. ;))
Coincidentally, my mother also has a fiction book about nineteenth-century Chinese women, and of course it involves footbinding. My mother had me read it, because she knows I’m a feminist (was she trying to provoke my anger? prove me wrong? see what I thought? a complicated discussion for another time) — and the description of the footbinding actually triggered my rape-induced PTSD.
Being held down and forced to do something you KNOW is painful — you KNOW might kill you — but everyone is telling you that you MUST do, to the point that YOU, and YOUR MOTHER, EVEN BELIEVE that YOU MUST DO IT …
Gee, does that sound familiar?
Joy’s new flippant equation: PIV = footbinding. With = meaning, equivalent.
PS: my mother doesn’t believe that I was molested as a child. And the first time I told her I’d been raped, she sighed and said, “Yeah … that happens to everybody.”
She is a fiftysomething farm woman, a lifelong member of the lower working class, but she still buys the lies. She still involves herself with abusive men because “they’re better than nothing.”
But she agrees that Old Hugo is probably cranking your chain just to be a willfully ignorant asshole, and the name FCM came up for him (“old bungholio”) makes her laugh.
As it does me. Whenever I need a bit of cheer, I just think the word: “old bungholio.”
Speaking of whom, he is a dickhead and deserves to lose his fucking job. And all of his (false, falsely upheld, fun-fem) “credibility.” Who woulda thunk that Old Mandos, bane of IBTP for so long, would be the one to hand him his?
Also, FCM, if you don’t mind: what’s your beef with Julian? (I have one with him too, other than the obvious, but I’m just curious about yours.)
Don’t know why, but this latest from you FCM just had me howling with laughter. “In the history of blogging”… with emphasis thus HIStory.
“Jesus fucking christ, I just received probably the longest comment in the history of blogging….”
Thanks Sheila and joy! I’m here all week.
just what i wanted to see this morning:
Did drugmaker hide birth control patch risks?
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39306467
how many of these executives wives, daughters and mistresses went on the patch, when these guys knew for a fact that they were 18 times more likely to have blood clots and 12 times more likely to have strokes, than if they were just on the “regular” pill which can also kill you? or did they disclose their billion-dollar secret to the women they supposedly loved? anyone care to speculate on that one?
what were these men thinking, when they fucked them, knowing what they knew? what were they thinking when they were getting rich off it?
[…] similarities between Eminem and transwomen (both are oppressed by their maleness, apparently,) on footbinding, chivalry and rape (and how they’re all intertwined) and mathematical genius exposing the phallisified side of […]
So heres what I am currently thinking about all this. Among other reasons, including keeping women subservient and hobbled etc., I think that men are invested in piv, BECAUSE its so similar to rape. They are invested in normalizing piv BECAUSE they are going to stick their dicks into women regardless, and they would prefer not to go to jail for it. And they sure as hell don’t want to send OTHER men to jail, for something that every single fucking one of them do, under various circumstances.
So by normalizing piv, they are normalizing women having dicks stuck in them. If penis in vagina wasn’t normalized, it would be EXTREMELY EASY to tell when a woman was raped. And all men benefit from it being actually VERY DIFFICULT. And it IS extremely difficult to tell, because by definition, they objectively look very much the same, if not identical.
It’s deliberate.
And the fun-fems buying into all of this…what’s significant about that part of it? Well, I think its clearly the only (and I mean ONLY) way that men would ever, ever get on board with this whole feminism thing. If we actually participated in normalizing piv, even more than it already is, if that’s even possible! That’s where all piv equals sex equals piv sex positivism comes in handy, and the accusations of sex-negative against “real” feminists too.
Also, if it were extremely easy to objectively tell rape and piv apart…well let’s just say many, many MANY men would be in jail, for rape. And when your partner is in jail, its pretty difficult to access his male privilege. Now isn’t it?
that’s fucking scary, UP.
it’s legal!
oh ok. by psychic I mean, the mental control men have over most women. most women don’t realize they’re being controlled, literal zombies. it takes a sort of experiential breakthrough to stop acting it out. a lot of these separatist women, lesbians etc have had the realizations, that’s why I mention Johnson/Daly. One of Daly’s big deals was, she worked in academia in the midst of the mind control while writing about her realizations, so she also had constant experiential fodder to analyze. what trips men pull on women. something as basic as someone thinking they can’t leave their man because they won’t make it, all the way to subtly controlling what a woman notices about what a man is doing to her or other women. a state of bondage where for psychological reasons a woman feels or believes she’s unable to act in certain ways, or even can’t think outside the paradigm because of the mind control. We are all brainwashed, in essence, and since we are victimized so early on- I hear people in this same thread writing about the systematic early victimization that creates wounds within women that make us easy to psychically, or rather mentally/emotionally control…
but i think there is an energetic hoodoo-y aspect too. patriarchy being a magic of pure evil and all.
Rape is problematic. Men see that. It is problematic for them because it isn’t allowed. One more proof: Recently I read an article by an evolutionary biologist. They are known rape apologists. This one had found the solution for the problem of rape: eugenics. Yes, I thought, logical. Don’t allow rapists to breed (or to spawn, as they say of evil things). But no, the solution was to ‘breed women for indiscriminate mating’. (Creating women who love being raped.)
This was a biologist. He knows that ‘breeding’ takes generations. He sees this as the simple solution. Thinking any more about this would make me first puke and then kill myself. Or him. So I won’t.
FCM, please keep on keeping on.
I think the majority of women have already been bred for indiscriminate mating.
I’ve been linked to again, by the turdtastic mansplainer “dwight” over at oneutah. This time, he tells radfems that we are just big babies, who dont want boys in our clubhouse! Ouch, dude. Don’t hurt my feelings.
Google “oneutah bite my ass” to visit old dwight. It will show up in their stats. Heh.
Now I know why Mary Daly stopped talking about and to men. What on earth is that man talking about? Did he even read what was here? Why would I waste my energy trying to figure out what he is talking about when he sort of claims he is responding to you? No he is not. He is trying to reframe the whole argument. As Dworkin said one has to double double unthink. What a waste of time.
Seriously Rhondda. And he actually wonders why I didn’t post his idiotic “response.”
What’s also so downright offensive about people like old dwight is that they don’t appreciate or even understand at all, that radfem writing is a precious gift. And i mean precious literally, as in its extremely, extremely rare. Whenever i come across radfem writing, i savor it. I really do. I read most things more than once, and think about it, and about the author, and just really appreciate that someone took the time to think about these issues so deeply, and to make connections that frankly NOONE ELSE is making. It’s exhilirating, is what is it.
And fucking assholes like dwight think that “debating” with the author is more fun. And asking endless fucking questions, instead of trying to understand what’s already been said.
And old liverlips is over there will bells on, of course. Now, he claims that “the last straw” for him, where “fcm’s community” lost his “support” (oh god its all just so unintentionally funny) was our, now get this…wait for it….TRANSPHOBIA!!!111!1
Funny…I would’ve thought we’d lost him when I proved mathematically that his piv-centric sexuality is complete fucking bullshit…or perhaps when Sheila suggested that his career could be destroyed, by picketing his classes, and informing all his students that hes an abuse of power rapist, and that he admits to it, and doesnt believe its relevant.
I also liked how old Hugo suggested that because of my TRANSPHOBIA!!!!!11!1 I would be unhireable at his university. As if I would ever, in a million fucking years, want anything to do with a womens studies program that would hire HIM to teach feminism, to teenaged girls. Or with fake feminists like him, who believe that only feminists who play nice with MAABs deserve to be heard.
At least Julian acknowledged how utterly marginalized radfems are, and suggested that we deserve to be allowed to speak, on our own fucking blogs, in peace.
YES! A precious gift. I just read Sheila Jeffreys’ Anticlimax. Like most rad fem books I have to read them more than once to make sure I got what she said. In this one she totally destroys the argument that sexual liberation is women’s liberation. Every excuse I had for ‘fucking’ men was destroyed. No wonder men hate rad fems. I think I am still in a bit of a daze. It’s men who have to change.
I have this personal project of trying to get rad fem books before they disappear totally. Second wave women got it so right. I keep finding such gems and I am so grateful that younger women are finding them too and really thinking about it. Bless you.
I am buying up used copies of all the classics, for the same reason. Dworkin, daly, jeffreys, and mackinnon so far. Anyone who can recommend authors of this caliber, are welcome to do so here.
Also, re radfem writing being a gift, the biggest gift of all is that radfem writers are absolutely putting it all on the line to SHARE what they are thinking, with the rest of us. None of us have to do that, and we are sacrificing much when we do speak. We make ourselves targets for the worst kinds of abuse, because we are so marginalized. Julian really hit the nail on the head with that one. Heh. It was his first.
Marilyn Frye’s The Politics of Reality and Gerda Lerner’s The Creation of Patriarchy and her Creation of Feminist Consciousness.
I have just ordered Frye’s Willful Virgin.
You know I had such a mind block to reading Lesbian theorists. As Jeffreys says it is a negative label for heterosexual women and alot of ‘born’ lesbians really think we are trying to take their territory. The label political lesbian does not do it for me. I am talking about mind stuff here, not sexual stuff. What lesbians have to say in their books is incredibly interesting.
The ones I knew personally were too sexually aggressive for me and giving me ultimatums. I won’t take that from a man, so why would I from a woman. Yet that is just my experience and I am not universalizing it.
And what the hell kind of entitlement mentality must it take, that when someone offers you a gift, to not only not appreciate it, but to demand even MORE? With a LIST of fucking demands even. Answer this. Define that. Validate my feelings, and everyones feelings. Explain more. Rephrase it. Apologize to anyone who may be offended. Take it back! You cant possibly be serious. More fucking questions. More fucking demands on my time.
Damn. And old dwights moronic and unresponsive “response” to me was the picture perfect example of exactly what i am talking about. Luckily, he memorialized it, for everyone to see. What a fucking clown.
I had a mindblock towards reading separatist theory too, except nothing really changed in my life until I did. Good point Rhondda. It seems like lesbians have the most truth to impart. Possibly their brains are simply functioning correctly from the lack of PIV.
Well they sure as hell don’t have to lie or exaggerate or cheerlead about enjoying piv, that’s for sure. So they are already way ahead of the game.
Sheila jeffreys is amazing. Seriously. Spinster is still blowing my mind, and I’m not even done.
Also, re Julian, he does what he does for cookies, way more than he should. That’s my main issue with him, but there are others. Basically, hes your run of the mill clueless douchebag self-identified male feminist. Funnily though, compared to old Hugo and his insane clown posse, old Julian almost looks like the real thing.
Man Made Language
Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done To Them
Women, Church, and State
Caliban and the Witch
Poor Hugo, he’s just so shocked that you have no patience for ersatz feminists even after he explained how you were serving his needs and everything.
m Andrea:
Totally agreed. And it’s an easy way to prove to teh menz that they don’t hate them.
I’m pretty sure he’s tried to comment over at my blog & Ms.Citrus’ telling us to speak softer if we want to actually be heard and that us radical feminists NEED MEN (of course hah, hah hah)
here’s a gem:
OH COS PIV HURTS TEH MENZ TOO! You hear that FCM? Cos you don’t want to stroke these poor wittle menziez egos they’re just going to spit shit about how they’re oh so oppressed too. Seriously, this crap reads like it’s straight off an MRA blog or coming out of some 16 year old male douchehounds mouth.
Yes, I’m building up a collection. Viva la genuine third wave! I haven’t actually read too much MacKinnon, although I get the feeling I should start. These conversations are precious. Said it before and I’ll say it again – I often learn more on these online discussions than I do at university. Not to mention (certain crappy what I think is a mormon-state-blog) we get told we shouldn’t discuss our rapes, our abuses, the suffering we have endured at the hands of men, because we might invoke libel or slander.
What a joke, it always amuses me how the men who make these comments always feel safe enough to use their first and last names on the internet, often with pictures of themselves alongside. Whereas, it’s not safe for us to do that. People (men) would be seeking real life vengeance on us for daring to voice dissidence. And that’s what these men just don’t fucking get.
And as for the transphobia claims. Gah. Castrated and delusional males are not womyn. I wish these ass-hats would get over it.
Off topic again, but my frustration level is off the charts. Somebody tell me how much men suck, before I lose my mind.
And I really am very sorry FCM, I read somewhere you positively loathe off-topicness. Perhaps you could have an open thread and we could just post random stuff in there?
Gawd, I’m dying and need to vent real bad. MEN SUCK FOREVER AND EVER, why is this such a difficult concept? They’re never going to change, so why bother?
So by normalizing piv, they are normalizing women having dicks stuck in them. If penis in vagina wasn’t normalized, it would be EXTREMELY EASY to tell when a woman was raped. And all men benefit from it being actually VERY DIFFICULT. And it IS extremely difficult to tell, because by definition, they objectively look very much the same, if not identical.
So true, which is exactly why they don’t want you to talk about it. Rape is all about “power over” and all most of them want is to control women, to have power over. You’re speaking too much truth, so of course they’ll try to cut you down however they can.
What’s off topic ms.a? I don’t recall having a problem with off topicness specifically. It’s people who dont know how to fucking read that make me crazy.
I just want to thank The Bewilderness for the book Caliban and the Witch. It sounds quite interesting. I have the others that you listed. This is so cool.
Also, may I say that Jill Johnston died on Sept18th. She wrote Lesbian Nation. I have not read it, but it is on my list. They are all dying, these women who wrote in the 70’s and left us their gifts.
Here is a thing that really pisses me off. Kate Millett wrote Sexual Politics where she analyzes male writers’ works. She could not get a job teaching, and is very qualified. Yet, they hire a numskull like liverlips to teach feminism. It is totally the colonization of feminism by men.
“…the biggest gift of all is that radfem writers are absolutely putting it all on the line to SHARE what they are thinking, with the rest of us.”
And I thank you, really – all of you – for this great think-tank of REAL progressive thought – they’re like breadcrumbs in the deep dark woods.
So glad I found my way 🙂
Women of ideas and what men have done to them – yes! Also Marilyn French – Beyond Power, and the war on women.
And The Golden Notebook, and maybe the Women’s Room?
“Now, he claims that “the last straw” for him, where “fcm’s community” lost his “support” (oh god its all just so unintentionally funny) was our, now get this…wait for it….TRANSPHOBIA!!!111!1”
Shocker. Not.
“Funny…I would’ve thought we’d lost him when I proved mathematically that his piv-centric sexuality is complete fucking bullshit…or perhaps when Sheila suggested that his career could be destroyed, by picketing his classes, and informing all his students that hes an abuse of power rapist, and that he admits to it, and doesnt believe its relevant.”
Yeah, you’d think, right?
It’s not like old Bungholio is lying to make himself sound good, is it? Naaaaah. It’s not like men EVER do that, do they?
“I am buying up used copies of all the classics, for the same reason.”
Fight you for them. (I’m doing that too. That dollar copy of Anticlimax available on Half.com? Totally mine, folks. As soon as I get home.)
“Also, re Julian, he does what he does for cookies, way more than he should. That’s my main issue with him, but there are others. Basically, hes your run of the mill clueless douchebag self-identified male feminist. Funnily though, compared to old Hugo and his insane clown posse, old Julian almost looks like the real thing.”
Yeah. Agreed.
Compared to most dudes, yeah, he looks legit. And I’m glad there are men talking to other men about this, yeah. I just wish he would be willing to restrain his role to THAT, and stop trying to talk to women. Whenever he does, he seems to mansplain.
Big shocker.
(He mansplained a bunch of shit over at ND’s blog, and I handed him his ass over it.)
But he doesn’t talk to men very well, in terms of refuting arguments. Imagine that, too.
“People (men) would be seeking real life vengeance on us for daring to voice dissidence. And that’s what these men just don’t fucking get.”
Biting Beaver.
Does she have a male equivalent (ie, a douchebag man that radical feminists have hunted down and frightened -off the damned internet-?
No. Of course not.
Funny how, whenever I mention this on a thread where men are whining about HOW SKEEERED THEY ARE of TEH EVULL BAD FEMINISTS WAAAAAAH! … they magically change the subject or even shut up.
Also, as long as I’m on a roll of serial commenting:
re, rape vs. PIV and knowing “the difference” (note scare quotes):
In an attempt to get my life back on track (ie, learn to get rid of the insomnia, intrusive sense of alarm, persistent and pervading feeling of myself as degraded and worthless, that came as a package deal with my rape/s), I recently attempted to enlist the help of a noted therapist who specializes in rape and child molestation victims.
Name available upon request.
When I told her that I no longer blame myself, but blame my rapist/s, and that I am sick of men to the point that I no longer want a hetero “relationship” or PIV — she told me that I seem “angry” and “looking for someone to blame” (aka, men).
Not like I ever trusted ‘therapists’, but my instincts as to which ones were mindless patriarchal/male-identified/pharmaceutically inclined assholes have been pretty good. I’d really thought this one was okay, especially given her track record with helping women and girls ‘recover.’
This led me to the realization that ‘recovery’, to most people, means ‘going back to PIV’; and that therapists/fun-fems (for all their talk about ending self-blame and so on) really don’t want us to stop blaming ourselves.
When we do, they don’t know what to do about us. We’ve gone off the radar. We pose a serious threat to male supremacy, to males’ sense of entitlement to rape, I mean PIV, I mean sex, I mean rape.
The only way, I’m now convinced, for a woman to “recover” from rape is to never again have PIV. I know that every time, EVERY TIME, I’ve ever had a man’s dick inside of me that it was rape. Even if I’d said ‘yes’ or ‘given’ ‘consent.’ Learning complicated mind tricks to keep us trapped in PIV is just raping us again, and again, and again.
Of course, most dudes/funfems/assholes/etc. would claim this was a religious hangup or something. it comes closer to the ‘purposeful virgin’ idea, the one that Dworkin put forth in the Joan of Arc section of Intercourse and that back-in-the-day feminists espoused. I do not wish to degrade my fucking soul, and that has nothing to do with some imaginary butthead in the sky.
Not that I have to tell this to anyone here.
Is the obsession with PIV perhaps tied to an obsession with procreation (ie, keep women barefoot and pregnant, keep the family name going, make more heirs to the deed, whatever)? Which is tied to religion (‘go forth and multiply’)?
Wouldn’t that be an LOL. (Looking at you, Hugo and friends, ‘father religion’ asshole especially.)
well said joy. “recovering” from rape absolutely means going back to having PIV, and seeing not a thing wrong with it. just like you did before. (now theres an assumption right?) and not blaming MEN for being rapists. you know, it was just bad luck, and couldve happened to anyone! aka. the way MEN experience harm. not women.
its fucking disgusting, and the fact that this came out of the mouth of a female therapist SPECIALIZING IN FEMALE SEXUAL TRAUMA speaks volumes as to the standard of care in that industry. and who made the rules. and who defines mental health. and who defines womens mental health, and what womens mental health revolves around. horrible.
thats what “therapists” tell you about abusive fathers, too. and that the relationship between your mother and your father was “between them.” oh sure it was. had nothing to do with anything, except 2 people, who lived in a vaccuum. now, go out and find yourself a man!
joy, it sounds like we could have had the same therapists? Except mine were male.
which is the point, it’s a totally male orientated way of ‘getting you better’. I managed to find a female therapist, who was mainly for my e.d but she was a LOT more understanding. She didn’t/doesn’t always agree with me but, the look on her face sometimes is like what i’m saying makes more sense that what my previous pysch told me about ‘getting better’
yes, because the only thing wrong with rape is that is damages male property. you are “damaged goods,” and if you never let another man stick his dick into you again, well, that means you are permanently damaged. from their perspective, of course. the only perspective that matters.
“because the only thing wrong with rape is that is damages male property.”
That’s what they think, isn’t it. And it’s so sick.
Because woman as a default is male property. Always.
And every woman is for sale. in the eyes of men.
“you are “damaged goods,” and if you never let another man stick his dick into you again, well, that means you are permanently damaged.”
A big part of this woman’s thing is ‘helping girls and women to understand that they aren’t damaged goods.’
I thought, hey, awesome! Because I feel fucking damaged. My sense of self is damaged. And I definitely don’t think I’m goods, so here we go.
But what she and others don’t explicitly state is, they still want us to think of ourselves as “goods”. If we don’t, they don’t know what to do with us, because to them, we ARE goods —
“from their perspective, of course. the only perspective that matters.”
I asked this woman why she listed as her accomplishments the patients who went on to get married, have babies, etc., and why she pushed for women to get back ‘in the game’ (so to speak).
She said, “Well, that’s very important for most women. Most women WANT that.”
I asked her if she’d ever wondered why. Or how she quantified success with those of us who don’t ‘want that.’
Which was when she started to get impatient and called me angry.* I think she felt that, with therapy, I would decide I did ‘want that.’ I felt like she saw me as damaged goods, because I was adamant about not wanting a man’s dick in me, and that was actually disturbing.
*Describing myself as ‘kind of a DIY hippie-punk, and a radical feminist’ when she asked me to describe myself, was probably part of it too. She was probably envisioning Lisbeth from that misogynist book series that’s getting all sorts of press lately.
Because we all know punks are just angry. And radical feminists, well. All angry, just for no reason. Right?
There couldn’t possibly be a reason.
Yes. It’s actually incredibly disturbing, what other people find disturbing. Ditto with what they find normal, too.