in thinking about the recent discussions on privilege, for some reason i had this clip playing in my mind. monty python of course gives excellent commentary on class privilege, and the more scenes i revisit as an adult, the more that sinks in. as a child, i appreciated monty python because they are just extremely silly. but now i realize why wannabe academics and white men like them so much. analyzing class privilege!!11!!1 its subversive, but not really!!!1!!1 which is exactly how wannabe academics and white men like their social commentary. nice and safe.
this kind of class-analysis is nice and safe for wannabe academics and white men because there is never any meaningful commentary of male privilege. what a surprise! in other words: ZOMG!!111!!1 INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL!!!11!!!1 for example, in the above clip, the male “constitutional peasant” calls attention to “the violence inherent in the system” when he is literally manhandled by the king because he wont shut up about class-based inequities. and as usual, monty python hits the nail on the head with regard to systems of class oppression: theres always the threat of violence behind those wielding political power over the lower class. the power to get other men to shut up, when they are saying something you dont like. the power to force them to do things they dont want to do. help! i’m being repressed!
and they are. men are repressing other men with the threat of violence. or perhaps more importantly, or at least more commonly, what men read as violence, but things that arent actually violent: like being coerced from afar, due to repressive social structures, into doing something you dont really want to do, or living in a way you dont want to live. men read anything that gets in the way of their own autonomy as being violent, even when it isnt. meanwhile, the “female” peasant is rooting around in the muck just like everyone else, AND is surely being used sexually by some loudmouthed male peasant who says it is *he* who is being repressed, and that *all* members of his class are being repressed, by the king. but no one is ever repressed by him, personally, or by other men of their social class or community, collectively, because as members of the lower class, they lack the power to oppress anyone. INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL!!!11!!1
but, you know, the monty pythoners are to be forgiven, and will be remembered fondly by history regardless of their intersectionality fails, because making fun of men for sexually exploiting women isnt funny. and therefore not in their job description. and the monty python players (and their audience) were undoubtedly engaging in this one themselves, in real life. so they probably were unaware of it, or simply didnt care.
meanwhile, actual violence, up to and including murder, perpetrated on women by men of their own social class is…ignored? i dont know. i mean, this next scene made the final cut of the movie, and is a memorable one, but what is being criticised here really? men murdering women of their own class based on misogynist religious superstition (literally, insanity masquerading as logic) and sex-based discrimination in the legal system? HA! not likely. taken in the context of monty pythons usual social class-commentary and criticism of the ruling elite, this seems to be a criticism of religion and superstition sullying the legal process, which is usually rational, although perhaps unfairly applied, against men, by other men. isnt it? in other words, the classic race- and class-based criticism of male institutions: that its a failure of application, only, and not of reason. as if the current legal system isnt still, presently, a witch-hunt, if you are a woman. whew! thank (us rational men) this doesnt happen anymore:
so anyway, speaking of white men who indulge in a certain kind of social critique, but are in fact completely blind (or indifferent) to their own male privilege, and the unique ways that women are abused by men with whom they share every social characteristic except sex…i present a clip from well-known white male anti-racist activist tim wise. this is about an hour long, but its worth watching, if only to see for yourself how white male anti-racist activists (or one of them anyway, who has managed to become incredibly successful and highly regarded using this exact methodology and who admits to having used this exact script multiple times, and has other activists begging for more, because its just that good) are framing the issues. and notably, what they seem completely blind to. in other words: ZOMG!!!11!11 INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL!!!!111!1
if you dont have time for the whole thing, the first few minutes (his “introduction” and description of his own generational white privilege) are instructive…but not in the way *he* would probably like:
in fairness, what this clip is good for is a racism-101 (for those complete morons who have never thought of any of this before, aka. the lowest common denominator) and the white-privileged bootstrapping crowd, who genuinely actually believe that if they have gotten anywhere in life, it was due to their own gumption and hard work, and nothing else.
but, unfortunately for tim wise, the other thing its good for is unintentionally illustrating with embarrassing clarity how someone who is allegedly so sensitive to issues of entitlement and privilege, is actually completely blind to his own male privilege, and how these analyses of “white privilege” are really an analysis of white male privilege, and not inclusive or representative at all of womens experience, of being dominated by men of their own class and race. and not taking into account AT ALL the part that male privilege has played, in getting this white man into the position of power and authority he currently holds.
specifically, the fact that his mother took out a loan, and his grandmother cosigned and put up her home as collateral, to send their precious, entitled boy-child to a good school. see? tim wise’s mother and grandmother put their own financial wellbeing and (therefore) their own physical security in peril (and in the case of the grandmother, literally the security of her home, a living situation that somewhat protected her from male violence) for his benefit. so that he could thrive. how incredibly fortunate FOR THEM that this crapshoot actually paid off. because it very easily couldve been the worst mistake they ever made, and left them both destitute and homeless, and even more vulnerable to male violence and dangerous male sexuality than they already were. because they were women.
and luckily for tim wise AND his female relatives i suppose, the bar is set extremely low for some people. and that some people can become well-paid and highly-regarded, pretty much just by showing up. this is one way that white women benefit from white privilege: they give birth to precious entitled boy-children, who because of WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE, have a decent chance at supporting themselves eventually, and paying their female relatives back for all the sacrifices they made, for them, because they were male. but as many mothers and grandmothers (and wives and girlfriends too) are disappointed to realize, many men are just such complete, irredeemable losers, that they fail to thrive even when the decks are completely stacked in their favor. helping them out at your own peril is not a guarantee of any particular outcome. but we do it anyway, because we are women.
but tim wise apparently believes that his little talk mansplanation and description of generational white privilege and how it operates, is inclusive of all white people, doesnt he? meaning that, as usual, women are not included in his definition of people. because hes a man. INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL!!!!11!!1 if he were a feminist, he wouldve been eviscerated for his shortcomings by now. luckily for him, he clearly isnt one.
i knew i wasnt done with old eminem and his newest hit. i knew it! i knew that once i uncoiled from the fetal position and got up off the floor after seeing his new video for the first time, i would actually have something to say. and after reading undercover punks latest, i knew what it was. oh yes i did.
now, i suspect old eminem himself would really, really fight me on this one (if i looked like megan fox he might even give me some of that sexxxay dangerous male attention before he “ironically” murdered me for being so uppity) but i think i may have cornered him here. you see, i strongly suspect that eminem is, in fact, a transwoman!
i posted old em’s latest video here. as we might recall (unfortunately its rather hard to forget) hewaxes poetic about male sexual violence against women. aka. “domestic” violence. in his latest work of art, he paints us a picture of an “abusive relationship” thats not real. as in, he literally fantasizes about it. he has two young female hotties domestic violence victims backing up his version of events, which appears to be that male violence against women is incredibly sexxxay, its not that bad, and its just as emotionally painful for the perpetrator, as it is physically painful for the victim. got that? good.
now. undercover punk has repeatedly posted a quote from transwoman and transpolitical poor-me martyr extraordinaire, the male-assigned-at-birth who renamed himself “julia serano.” cause hes a lady! and it is absolutely the most egregious line of trans-bullshit i have heard to date. in fact, it drives me mad, absolutely mad, and white-knuckled with rage, every time i read it. again, we see a MAAB fantasizing and waxing poetic about male sexual violence against women:
When I was a child, I was sexually assaulted, but not by any particular person. It was my culture that had his way with me. And when he was through, he carved his name in my side so that I’d always have something to remember him by. It’s the scar that marks the spot where my self-esteem was ripped right out of me. And now all that’s left is a submissive streak that’s as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon.
thanks, julia! in case anyone is rightly wondering what the living breathing fuck he is talking about here, old julia is telling us how emotionally painful it was for him to grow up male, in a world that is systematically hostile to females. oh, someone get me a tissue, i am welling up.
he is also making a disingenuous parallel, between womens physical pain at the hands of sexually abusive men, and mens emotional pain, inflicted on themselves, due to self-hatred, patently irrational and unchecked rage against girls and women, and poor-me martyrdom. got that? good.
again, according to both julia serano and eminem, mens emotional pain, inflicted on themselves through their own fucked up attitudes about women, and their obsessiveness, perceived ownership of women and violence…is the same thing as womens ACTUAL, PHYSICAL PAIN, inflicted on women, BY MEN. its just as bad. in both cases, we see MEN, WAXING POETIC ABOUT RAPE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR AND TRAUMA, things that only affect men as the perpetrators of these things *on* other people. ie. womens issues.
so why the shared perspective, and shared compulsion to minimize female suffering at the hands of men, between eminem and julia serano? this is a serious question. is itbecause they are both transwomen?
of course, these things are only sexxxay and romantic from the perspective of the perpetrators, not the victims. ie. from the perspective of men, not women.
see, from the perspective of the victim, male sexual violence is EXACTLY as poetic and beautiful as swallowing your own teeth when some MAN beats your fucking head in, and you live through MOST OF IT. its EXACTLY as romantic and sexxxay as inhaling pieces of your own fucking skull and choking to death on your own blood, where the only person that knows what happened to you is the coroner, because mostly-surviving your own head-bashing and fighting back during it, is the ONLY WAY pieces of your own teeth and skull can wind up in your lungs, and only coroners really know that, because they see it with some regularity. of course, thats IF they even find your body. ie. its not sexxxay, at all, for women. quite the opposite.
and these things actually happen to women. whereas men (and transwomen) fucking mentally masturbate to the image, and make disingenuous parallels between that, and their own “emotional pain.” and of course…some men actually DO THIS TO WOMEN, in real life. and its thanks to real-life murderers of women that transwomen like eminem and julia serano have such poetic, artistic images to mentally masturbate to. and both julia serano and eminem both literally owe murderers and obliterators of women their livelihoods, dont they? i mean, without real life violence against women, where would either one of them be? unpublished, living in their mothers basements, without the ability to organize their thoughts, is my guess.
and importantly, the common theme among transwomen like eminem and julia serano is that male violence and female pain really arent that bad. eminem makes this clear when he sets his unusually violent lyrics (even for him, and thats saying something) to images of sexxxay sex between skinny white kids who dont have a bruise or chipped tooth between them. it tickles! and serano, along with every other transwoman and trans-ally on the planet, actually believes that MAABs can trans-cend their pasts, including their social conditioning, as men. which by implication also means that FAABs should be able to trans-cend our pasts too. you know, the ones where most of us have been traumatized and permanently psychologically and physically damaged by aggressive, entitled men. get over it already!
and that part is fucking ingenious, it really is: while mainstream males like eminem are telling us that male violence against women isnt that bad, self-identified “male feminists,” transpolitics and queer-theory all claim that we can transcend our pasts. which is a nice thought. but what we apparently arent supposed to recognize is that the new rules of the new game, according to them, is that FAABs should just forget about what MAABs have done to us. which benefits all MAABs including transwomen, gender queers and “male feminists” directly, because you know, they are all men, and all want unquestioned, unfettered access to women, and womens space. no matter how much some of them try to pretend they arent “male,” or that MAAB itself is a meaningless category.
so…in the case of old eminem, do i really think hes a transwoman? no, i dont. really, i think its pretty clear that julia serano is a man, and always will be. and of course…that transwomen (and all MAABs) out themselves as aggressive, entitled, dangerous, and male, every time they open their mouths. yet none of them, even in the interest of “passing” as something else, will ever just shut the fuck up. just like the fucking men they are.
part one is here. as i explained before, i am attempting to lay some groundwork, as it were, to any future discussion of dworkin’s “intercourse.” many people report being unable to understand her, but thats really no excuse, is it, for a failure to dissect and discuss PIV, and its implications for women, as a sexual class, around the world?
if feminists arent doing this work, its not going to get done. so, mindful of that, i offer part 2. and…bear with me, because its really a downer!
intercourse can literally kill you, if you are a woman. (sorry! really, i am). it causes pregnancy, which is a medical event that can last for years (including lactation, and assuming that there were no long-term complications, which there often are). PIV is the one and only cause of obstetric fistula, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, miscarriage and abortion, and is causative of the illnesses and deaths of hundreds of thousands of women annually (see maternal morbidity and mortality here, and a discussion of “near misses” here).
and the list of risks of being on the pill are as long as my arm, and include the risk of death by blood clot. and women are more susceptible to STD infections than men are due to biological differences…specifically that we have vaginas that men ejaculate into, and their bacteria and viruses cant be washed away. and trying to wash them away by douching actually makes it WORSE, because you irritate your tissues and interrupt the normal cleansing process of the vaginal environment. (i know, its TRANSPHOBIC!!! to talk about womens vaginas, and the consequences to women to having them. oh well, get over it. because its true.)
and PIV is known to destroy womens careers, and their livelihoods, as well. not even considering the “mommy track” that so many women allegedly “choose,” even if you have an early abortion, you are risking getting in trouble at work if you are too sick to come in, in the first weeks and months of pregnancy due to morning sickness. i mean really. sitting under your desk puking into a fucking trashcan doesnt look so good, because most people assume you are drunk (although appearing unintentionally knocked up doesnt do a woman any favors, either, in the “i am responsible, just like a man!!!11!!” competition). and if you are too sick to even drive or take public transportation, you cant even clock in, to humiliate yourself this way. or to get paid, obvs.
yes, thats right…there are severe consequences to women, but not to men, of engaging in PIV. and i am not about to blame women for continuing to do it, and i am not going to ask (at least not today) why women are having PIV with men. what i would like to know, however, is why MEN are continuing to do it, when they know how dangerous it is, for women. this is not a rhetorical question.
again, since most readers here are women, this can be approached as a thought exercise. imagine, if you will, that there were no consequences to *you* of having PIV. but that all the consequences i mentioned above, actually applied to *men* and not to you. imagine that fucking your husband, or bf, or anyone with a dick really, could literally kill them, or make them very ill. imagine that they were taking on all the risk, and you werent risking a thing.
would you still do it? would you ride your mate into the sunset, bucking wildly on his dick and screaming when you were about to come? (pornified version). would you tenderly “make love” to him, knowing how potentially fucking screwed he could be, in the weeks and months to come, by virtue of the act you were about to perform on his person i mean with him, lovingly? (its an “act of love” version).
and in this topsy-turvy world i have created here, where there are consequences of PIV to men but not to women…would you ever pressure him into it? or expect it? or demand it? or “take” it? (the rape version). what if he wanted it, and claimed to enjoy it? what if he really, truly did enjoy it? would that change anything, for you? would his “consent” be problematic, in your mind, at all? or would it be a free pass to place him in harms way?
now…what if you knew for a fact that there was very little chance that he was even going to enjoy it? would that matter to you, at all? what if it were common knowledge that most men didnt really like PIV anyway, or at least it wasnt their preferred sexual act, and that their bodies werent really built to orgasm this way? what if the numerous risks of PIV to men were somewhat (or largely) causative of their inability to enjoy it, or to enjoy it fully?
would you still do it? if so, why, and under what circumstances? if not, why not?
and finally…what if mens social status was that of, literally, dirt. of filth. what if mens corpus, mens bodies, were regarded as disgusting, and filthy too (even though, ironically, you were the one likely to infect *him* with something, and not the other way around). what if the language women used regarding having PIV with men was synonymous with harming them, and socially men and boys were the thing everyone else wiped their feet on? what if it had always been this way, and was this way currently, around the world?
if this were the state of things…what would PIV “mean” to you? what would you imagine that it “meant” to men? in other words…why do it at all, and is it at all possible that mens and womens “reasons” would differ?
the whole problem with this “its just sex” credo is that its a fucking fail, right from the start. and as far as problematic ideologies go, thats a big fucking problem, being problematic from the start. its like…adding a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar. or trying to raise free-range chickens in hyena country. someone fucked up, and theres no reconciling it. theres nothing you can do in these situations, except reassess, cut your losses, and start over. right? thats what a normal thinking human would do, if they had any ambition at all, and the resources to do it.
it does make it more difficult to see the problem for what it is though, to stick with the above analogies, when some 99.9% of us dont have tastebuds. and half of us are hyenas.
you see, words have meaning. yes, they do. they arent just ink on the fucking page. and this game of life has rules. so when it comes to written rules (or “laws” if you prefer) theres a definitional section in the beginning, and a legislative history (aka. “context”) on the record so that we can all reasonably figure out *whats being said* and whats meant, when a new law is being hashed out, and later when its being enforced. we have to know whats being expected of us, as citizens. otherwise, its not fair. in fact, theres an entire multi-billion dollar, international industry thats been in existence for thousands of years, dedicated to ensuring that things are fair, and that the meaning and the intended meaning of words are vetted, and clearly understood. you know, when it comes to understanding whats being expected of MEN. and that industry is called “civil and criminal defense.”
when it comes to vetting and understanding whats being expected of women, and ensuring that things are fairly applied and interpreted when it comes to *us* we have…radical feminists. yeah, all 19 of us, taking on the same responsibilities and taking it just as seriously as a multi-billion dollar, international industry…and we are doing it, largely, with no money, and no time. and most of the laws pertaining to us are unwritten, to boot. (something men would never stand for by the way. if its not written down, they dont have to do it. simple as that).
and interestingly, our “clients” (other women) rarely appreciate our services, at all. almost all of them fight radical feminists every fucking step of the way. then when they have what they want, and are enjoying the fruits of our (and our mothers and grandmothers) labor, they call radical feminists fucking cunts and thank the men for “evolving.” the lack of appreciation happens in civil and criminal defense too, but at least most lawyers dont have their clients trying to claw their way BACK INTO prison. and most of them arent “consensually” fucking the guards (or very deeply in love with them).
so, understanding that this is the context in which we all live (and it is) let me ask a simple question, about the definition of a word. what is meant, and intended, and expected, when we use the word “sex?” as in, “its just sex!!!!11!1!” this is not a rhetorical question.
because there are many, many people out there bandying the term about, and many more who are using it to con other people into doing stuff. the religious right are telling women to have “sex” with men, in certain situations but not others, and for certain reasons but not others. and the lefty liberals are telling women to have “sex” with all men, in all situations, for any reason, or no reason at all. the religious ones, some of them, tell women they can desire it, as long as its with their husbands. for the lefty liberals, they dont care whether the women desire it, or not. (both sides: “yay, hookers!!11!!!!11!1” oh, and so much for anyone claiming that the religious right are “anti-sex,” yes? so stop making the comparison between allegedly “anti-sex” radfems and the religious right.)
but sticking your dick into a vagina AINT SEX. mm-kay? its not. since when did “sex” come to mean “men sticking their dicks into women?” because thats what it means. thats the intended, and working, meaning of the word. someone fucked up here, people. we need to start over, because “sex” has nothing to do with being sexual, with arousal, or desire, or with being interesting or creative or anything. and its definitely not about “expressing” anything, except penis-worship, and mens entitlement to put girls and women in harms way, without reproach.
so if someone were to say to me, “its just erotic massage!!!!1!!11!” or “its just mutual masturbation/digital penetration!!!11!!” or “its just authentic female desire” or “its just a warm, wet, aroused vulva with a non-phallic-looking vibrator stimulating it to orgasm!!!!1!!1” i would say “yay sex, bring it on.” but thats not what anyone means, when they say “its just sex.”
“sex” as its intended to mean, means “penis in vagina” and since that puts girls and women at risk for pregnancy and STDs, the payoff is not worth the risk. even if our clits were located in our vaginas, IT STILL WOULDNT BE WORTH IT. but they arent, and its not. “its just sex” means “its just misogyny and male entitlement.” and if you dont have a problem with that, you have a very serious problem, indeed.
this narrative is so old and tired it could be mocked in a superbowl ad (and i think it should be. seriously). men are sexual beings!!!11!!1!1 thats the premise we are all expected to swallow, and we get it already. they like to get laid. they want them some poon. they think about it every point-zero seconds and shit. its even like, hardwired and stuff.
yes, its so thoroughly assumed to be true that its even been explained. with science! now, science can “explain” the origin of things that arent even real! how…disquieting. and its also been mansplained to death, but that goes without saying doesnt it? but what a great indicator of the popular, most base-level understanding of any issue: what the doodbros try mansplaining to the rest of us, when they are drunk. and sober.
think for a second, if you havent already, what mens sexuality (including their alleged “desire”) would look like, if they werent having PIV-sex with women and didnt feel entitled to it, either. would men be lining up to enjoy sex with women, if it didnt involve sticking their dicks into us? would their cultural fucking pasttime be picking up women in bars, so that they could pleasure us with dildos? or better yet, for illustrative purposes, non-phallic-looking external vibrators? would they make video games and movies and advertisements extolling it? no. they wouldnt.
and their interest in only a certain type of porn tells us all we need to know. most men would not obsessively use porn that only included women and ugly, external vibrators, and no dicks anywhere. they wouldnt spend a single evening alone watching us massaging other men with essential oils. or, you know, watching us penetrating them with stuff. but giving men anal is a legitimate sex act too, and one that many if not most het men enjoy, not unimportantly. they fucking like taking it in the ass! yes, they do!
so the question becomes, with all those pleasurable sex acts out there that *dont* put girls and women at risk for pregnancy and STDs, and that men fucking well enjoy, why do they seem to like PIV-sex so much more? why would they feel “incomplete” and “disappointed” without it? this is not a rhetorical question.
its because they fucking feel entitled to it, thats why. and it illustrates the difference between a “preference” and an “entitlement.”
simply put, i would feel both disappointed and incomplete if i had to eat fish and chips without coleslaw, and malt vinegar. it comes with it, and its free, and i fucking want some. thats my preference. my *strong* preference, even. and even so, i really dont care about it that much. but multiply those very ordinary feelings of disappointment and incompleteness times a billion, and i think we are coming close to understanding—and its fucking horrific—men, and their feelings of entitlement to “poon.” and men clearly think of PIV as the main course too, but interestingly i cant even imagine an analogy to an ordinary, everyday “preference” that would parallel that dynamic. although i admit i am not trying that hard at the moment. can you?
and obviously, my preference for coleslaw and malt vinegar doesnt fucking hurt anyone. cabbage is not the one and only cause of obstetric fistula, gestational diabetes, prolonged labor, or known to cause illness and death. its never given anyone AIDS. its not directly causative of poverty, or destroying another persons career.
and noone has ever been beaten or murdered over malt vinegar, and they never fucking will be.
no, men are not “sexual beings” at all, are they? certainly not any more so than anyone else, and seemingly much, much less, when we examine it in any honest way, at all. if men were the “sexual beings” they claim to be, they would be just as interested in a massage, or in getting us off, instead. (thats right, fun-fems, i said “instead,” not “too.”) or shoving things up their butts. all that “other stuff” is “sexual” afterall. duh.
in reality, these allegedly “sexual” men, arent: they are simply aggressive and entitled, and routinely abuse girls and women by demanding PIV-sex, which is problematic for us, and not them. theres really nothing more to it, than that. and all the mansplaining in the world wont change it.
femonade 