It's All Comes Down to Cats

I have a confession to make. I don't actually like cats that much. So I've always been wary of the strange hold they have over the internet. LOLcats are one thing, but catblogging? Blech.

But I have finally realized that resistance is futile. That there is no problem to large or too rant-inducing that cannot be solved by cats.

Even this one.

That particular question seems to be on everyone's minds lately. And not just on the minds of a handful of idiots and the people who were unfortunate enough to stumble across such stupidity.

No, I even ran across it the other day while I was reading the sequel to Save the Cat!. Snyder's parting thoughts on Superhero movies was "why aren't there any movies about females superhero? C'mon, we can do better than that!"

(or something to that effect, I don't have the book in front of me.)

Snyder is smarter than he realizes, because he answered his own question earlier in the same chapter.

Snyder defines superhero movies in the original Save the Cat! as movies that have an "extraordinary person who finds himself in an ordinary world." (And yes, he uses "he", which explains why he couldn't see that he's already answered his own question.) The plot of such stories always revolves around being the misunderstood genius. In the sequel, he elaborates on that, clarifying that superhero stories are essentially stories about gods. More specifically, here in America, God/Jesus.

And everyone knows that God made Man in His image, not Hers.

This is in many ways one of the last impregnable assumptions about what makes men the default and women the Other in western (and I'm guessing most all) cultures. So I wonder if part of the reason why superhero movies about women always suck so very much is because people may be used to the idea - even like - women who kickass, but most are still comically uncomfortable comfortable with divinity as feminine. And so they sabotage their own great ideas without even meaning to. Because every time they are presented with the problem of who she is and where she came from and what she can do, they fall back on the kinds of things that are least likely to be godlike. Because a female hero is one thing, an all powerful Goddess is another.

Which makes the story and the character unsatisfying at best.

Take Claire, for example. She can not only regenerate, she's even crucified (which is why the scene works even though it's yet another sexual assault against a superheroine), but she not only remains anything but a leader of Heroes, taking charge of this often passive power results in her turning evil, if the hints of what's to come are any indication.

And this, I think, is the final proof needed for the argument that the whole root of the problem lies in culture's inability to accept a female Jesus - because anytime a superheroine accidentally gets powerful enough for the analogy to really work, her power threatens to destroy the whole world. And so she must be destroyed instead. It's like we're not just telling the Story of Christ, we are also retelling the story of the Church.

I think it's also why Wonder Woman works better (as a stand alone character) than any other female superhero, and we she is so timeless. Her divine origins are not only explicit, they are explained away. She is a Goddess rather than a god, but she is not of our world. Unlike Superman, she didn't even grow up here, among us. She may be a Christlike figure, but she isn't our Christlike figure. She remains in many ways, completely alien, and so doesn't directly challenge this particular argument culture makes about women being the Other.

*headesk* repeat x infinity

So, my uncle has written a fantasy novel. And has asked me to critique it.

Three chapters in and the phrase that keeps circling round my head is a quote from Emma:

Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a school -- not a seminary, or an establishment, ...-- but a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.

(well, ok, what I remembered of it anyway. i looked that up, obviously)

needless to say, when you are a 21st century aspiring fantasy/sci-fi author making the same general kind of pronouncement as the one above, without any hint of the irony found in Austen's 19th century high society novels, you are not off to good start. at least not the kind of start that doesn't make me want to smash things, in any case
.....


he's been bugging me about my opionions on it.

wtf do I say to him?

do I lie and say "oh, it's really good."?

or do I tell him the truth and say "it made me want to smash things. such as: whatever part of your brain decided that " "…[name withheld] was the kind of girl that I’ve always wished there could be more of. …[she] was bright, but she didn’t try to intimidate others with her intelligence when they failed to see her point of view. " was a sentiment that deserved to be typed out on your computer, much less shared with anyone. especially me."?

seriously, how the fuck does an intelligent woman that actually has opinions respond to that piece of shit?

sigh

I have an answer typed out to him. It's as polite as I can make while still being honest. bc I can't just say "it's not my cup of tea" and leave it at that. Not when he presents me with crap like that and asks my opinion. It's like a fucking dare. It's certainly taunting me in any case.

I did lie though. I told him I took no pleasure in letting him know that I would mock him mercilessly if he wasn't my uncle and I simply came upon his novel randomly in a bookstore.

Bullshit. I take great pleasure in calling shit shit - especially when it's shit that says that I should be a good girl and not say words like shit, much less call a man's work a piece of shit.

I'd just also like to get through family functions intact.

sigh

what to do……

FYI (Twilight Edition)

To understand the popularity of Twilight, you need to understand 4 things:

1. - Adolescence is depressing and confusing

2- Teen girls are discouraged from being so unfeminine as to be depressed - ever, but when they are upset they tend towards mopey since being angry and violent and actually making people pay attention to them is even more discouraged

3 - YA books are mostly for girls not just because girls read more than boys, but because boys read adult (ie - violent) books earlier than girls do; this is mostly because girls parents freak out more when girls read adult (ie - sexually graphic) books than when boys do

4 - even teen girls tend to like the Twilight books less and less with each book (you just can't tell by the sales bc the overall sales keep growing with time)

*******

I do not think any of these things (with the exception of #4) is healthy. I don't think the way the Twilight series ended sounds even remotely interesting (which is why I haven't read the last book), much less healthy.

I do however find it extremely unsurprising that teen girls like this series. I also think that anyone that is upset by the popularity of this series by itself (as opposed to culture overall and are simply dissecting the Twilight series as part of something larger) needs to stop underestimating teen girls. Bella isn't blah because teen girls are okey dokey with heroines with no personality, Bella is blah because teen girls know that everyone else expects them to be blah - and they hate that, but they don't like disappointing people. Edward does stuff and Bella feels stuff, but never the twain shall meet, because together they make up one complete character. Not because women need men, but because Bella, who feels like half a person like many teen girls, needs an exciting alter ego who can do the stuff that she thinks she can't.

(Note that she spends the entire first book not just wanting to be with Edward, but to actually be Edward, or rather a vampire. In fact, she even ends the first book with the decision that being a vampire - and yes, being with Edward in the long run - is more important to her than doing what Edward wants her to do.)

Also, Bella may not cross the "no sex in ya books" line but it flirts with it really well, because the one thing it does have is discussion about desire and the the fact that girls want sex. (not Men, not boys, not women, but girls.) Which happens in ya books, but rarely to the degree that Twilight takes it, and almost never outside of ya lit and mags.

That the author wrote the later books to explicitly say that women need a man to be whole is bad. That girls feel like half a person because they are teens and because girls are pressured to be blah (and think of sex as something they have but that only guys want) is a fact of life. That teen girls like Twilight has more to do with the latter than agreeing with the author on the former - which is obvious by how actual teen girls and young women react to the books. That a series that makes the former argument is so popular is depressing, but more in the sense that it's sad that it's easier to address this split that teen girls feel by falling back on bad gender roles. Not so much in the "OMG impressionable teen girls are reading this!" sense.

I certainly wish they had something better to read, but I also don't find it entirely worthless. In fact, I think the first books is fairly good and intriguing. Because while Meyer's series comes to some disturbing conclusions, she captures how teen girls feel really well. Which means that despite glossing over all the bad things her solution to this problem will create in its stead, teen girls are still exploring this feeling of being half a person more than if they simply got the same bad gender roles from, like, every romantic comedy ever written. Which means they are more likely to come to a different conclusion about how to deal with it by reading Twilight than by not reading it, despite the overall message of the series itself.

It would be much better still if Twilight presented a different solution altogether and there are a lot of other things to complain about. (God forbid I should ever tell anyone to not complain about anti-feminism in media.) However, in order to create and talk up the kind of media that is better than Twilight, it really helps to understand why Twilight is so popular. What really doesn't help is talking down to teen girls and making condescending assumptions about the media they consume and why they choose it.

So, can we please lay off the OMG the vampires are sparkly and how in the world could teen girls like this stuff?

PLEASE?!?!?!? PLEASE?!?!?!? PLEASE?!?!?!?

Also?

Bite Me





(ps - why the article thinks that the girls that went to go see Hannah Montana are the same ones that made Twilight popular, I don't know. Either the fact that tweens like to pretend they are teens is confusing them or they are as stupid as the guy that thought that they added the action into the movie that wasn't in the book. wev. I never said they would get a clue about everything, just about the fact that teen girls exist.)


(pps - ok, so they moved HP and Nick and Nora went largely unnoticed. from what I understand, largely bc it was a lame adaptation. but still. any movie exec that doesn't at least start looking at the ya section of their BN deserves to lose $)

Logic: You Do Not Have It:

(or it may be that language confuses you, it's a tossup)

From the comments at Zuska's:

If the power wielded is via the fear of sexual assault, then it is useless without the assumption that every man is a potential rapist.

Now look what happens when we apply logic to this sentence:

"If the power wielded is via the fear of sexual assault, then it is useless without the assumption that potential victims are unable to read minds."

The logical - and statistically supported - assumption that one can't tell which men are rapists just by spending time with them (much less just by simply looking at them) = / = assuming every man is capable of rape.

The only thing more annoying than women being cast as perpetually illogical is women's very logical decisions being used as "proof" of this.

Bad Numbers

Charlie is explaining stuff to Don and LAPD guy by talking about groups of high school students coming into a cafeteria at lunch time. Cheerleaders. Then Jocks. Then "mathematicians." ie - nerds. I get the cheerleaders and jocks being girls and boys respectively, but why the hell are all the "mathematicians" boys?

Well, Copying = Stealing, So....

I've been watching various Daily Show clips in which they make fun of Republicans and talking heads for asking people to respect Palin's family's decision to have Bristol keep the baby, but then on the other hand, saying that other people shouldn't be trusted to be able to make the same decision themselves.

What I find really interesting is that they are having such a hard time defending themselves from this argument.

If they really believed that abortion was infanticide (as Gingrich claims he does) then the response is a no brainer. All they would have to say is that if murder was not illegal, but they were trying to make it so, no one would consider it hypocritical of them to applaud people's decisions not to murder.

But they can't do that.

And they know they can't do that because most people don't think that abortion is murder - and they know that the only reason the "abortion is murder" argument gets them any points is because we make such high demands on mothers (women in general, really) to be perfect and to sacrifice themselves for their children. For most people, women who get abortions are "murdering" their children in the same way that overprotective mothers "smother" their children.

There are a lot of reasons why abortion "feels" wrong to people. Most people, however, don't think that it's wrong the way that murder is wrong. Often, they mainly think that it's wrong the way that they think that candidates leaving their infant children at home while they go campaigning is wrong. They may agree or disagree with someone's decision, but they mainly think it's their decision to make - with the caveat that mothers (and mothers to be) are judged differently than fathers (and fathers to be).

If You Have to Ask.....

...then I'm not sure that I can explain, but I'll try.

I'm not going to waste your time trying to convince you that comments about Palin such as:

Okay, she's a whore who defeats all espectations.

or

There is nothing remotely attractive about Barracuda Girl.

or

NOT hot. ... Plastic. Barbie doll.

are sexist, unnacceptable, and hurt the cause - both yours and mine.

This isn't a feminism 101 post. I'm not going to hold you hand and explain that yes, gendered slurs are gendered slurs and that aiming them at awful people doesn't magically make them not gendered slurs.

But I can understand why some people who only barely passed FEM 101 might be a little confused about certain things. Such as why the following response to "I am striving to be gender neutral when criticizing Palin in general." is absolute fail:

I would like to.

Except that she's trying to help the GOP screw other women out of our rights.

The main problem with this argument is that it is a complete failure of logic - if one considers being "gender neutral" refraining from using sexist slurs. And since the second commentor was also responsible for several sexist comments, including the third one listed above, this does appear to be the case. This isn't the only type of behavior being shoved under the misnomer "being gender neutral" but it is the one where logic fails.

One can certainly criticize Palin for being hypocritical when it comes to women's rights. She's not quite Phyliss Schafly, but there are definitely commonalities between SP and PS, which means there is a lot we can call Palin on.

But to use sexist slurs to do so amounts to criticizing her for simply being a woman, which means complete FAIL for obvious reasons. Obvious as in feminism 101 obvious.

So what makes this slightly beyond feminism 101? Because it's not always obvious what consitutes a gendered slur. While the 'NOT hot" part of the comment is obviously wrong, "Barbie doll." is not always a purely sexist comment. One can give such insults a context that makes it clear that the woman being insulted is being insulted for something that she did, rather than being insulted simply for being a conventionally attractive woman.

One good example of this insult working might be comic fans complaining about their favorite superheroine being turned into a Barbie doll. While slip-ups can - and very often do - still happen in this context, there is at least a foundation for making it clear that the issue is not that she is female or even feminine, but that she is a generic, uninteresting, stock female character; that she lacks the seriousness and strength of personality to be a good superhero; or even just to make snarky comments about the homegeniality and over-sexualization of superheroines in general.

This? was not one of those cases. The only "context" is that Palin is female and pretty. Which means that "Barbie doll." is still a gendered insult in this context. Even though other complaints from the same commentor make it clear that there is substance to the ire directed at Palin, the potentially sexist insults that are said are not at all related to the complaints listed - making them simply gendered slurs. (Except perhaps for "plastic", but that one seems rather out of the blue and only related to the Barbie doll insult itself rather than any of the other complaints. it's possible that I'm missing some of the connections on that one, but, well, see next paragraph...)

Keep in mind that creating clear context is very, very hard. It's really easy to accidentaly turn what should be an insult about someone's unhealthy obsession with conformity to the modern, media driven definition of femininity, into simply another way of saying that girlie stuff sucks. Or add unintended sexist overtones to what was simply an attempt to call someone plastic or fake.

Your right to free speech certainlly allows you to say whatever the hell you want (although, be forewarned: not on my blog), but ask yourself if it makes sense to do so. I'm not going to try to tell you that you catch more flies with honey, because there is just so much that is so very wrong about that "advice." What I will say, however, is that being clear about what you mean is a not a bad thing.

If what you mean is that she's a bitch, then by all means, call her a bitch.

But if what you really mean is that she's a narrow-minded, abrasive, douche just like her running mate - but you are feeling the urge to call her a bitch because it sounds more powerful - you may want to rethink calling her a bitch. Because that's what bitch may mean to you, but to those of us that have been called bitch, usually just because we aren't willing to be doormats or fuckholes, it means something else entirely. And no, we aren't going to give you the benefit of the doubt. (especially when you also discuss how fuckable she is as well) Neither, btw, are the Republicans. Both the ones that will hypocritcally call you on your sexism and the ones that will applaud you for putting the bitch in her place.

Still not sure you are ready to go back out into "the real world" and not be an accidental sexist asshat? Then let's try another example of bad logic:

i think palin's hotness is the issue

if you imagine her as a boring looking dude, you get a fundie with a lightweight resume and a brewing influence scandal

but everybody is blinded by the giant cute

it'll wear off...

Palin's "hotness" - and gender - is very much an issue...in this context. It is not, however, an issue in and of itself. In other words, the issue is McCain's reasons for choosing her, not the fact that she is female and "hot." Statements like this are right on the money (aside from the fact that i hate "hot" as a stand in for sexy)....except when they are used to defend "debates" about whether the debaters would like to fuck her. (which this exactly what this comment was meant to be) It may be useful to debate if her looks are the right kind of looks to get McCain votes (assuming that's even possible). It is not useful, however to simply discuss whether or not you think she is pretty - especially as if this were the most important thing about her that one could possibly discuss.

Now that we've done the warm-ups, we are ready for the trickiest bit: the generic sex jokes. Which, by definition, ought to be non-gendered. Except that nothing is non-gendered about sex in our society. So on the odd chance that you weren't able to make the previous disctinctions yourself prior to coming here (and yet are still willing to listen to advice from me for some odd reason) I will leave you with this one last bit of wisdom:

Stay far, far, away from "generic" sex jokes. At least until this whole post seems like elementary logic to you.

If you do not, you may be the unwitting perpetrator of such idiotic and unfunny slurs as:

Does the governor do anything?

She once had a three-way with Michele Bachmann and a moose.

Seriously people, the only thing funny about that "joke" is the moose part*. And no, I wouldn't have an issue if it were Cheney, Bush, and McCain. (i still wouldn't find it funny, either, but wev) And yes, it makes a difference that these are women we are talking about. Not becuase it will always make a difference, but because you and the media are the ones making the two jokes mean two different things when you all obsess about how fuckable Palin/Hillary is, but whether you'd like to have a drink/dinner with Bush/Obama.




Now, go forth and bring McCain/Palin down! Only now working with the wondrous power of feminism, not against it.



(all quotes are from the thread for this post:

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_08_24_archive.html#2853241893953280348)

*actually, the crack about the moose having the best rack was the funniest part of the whole thread. but that's just cuz i'm a sucker for bad puns

Its a Bird! Its a Butterfly! It's....

Do you know what part tends to trip me up in debates? When people ask the kinds of questions for which the answer is so obvious you've never really thought about why it is, you just want to bang your head against the wall repeatedly that someone felt they had to ask it.

But never fear!

Here to save the day is Girl-Wonder!

No, seriously.

Yes, we all know that TPTB thought that Girl-Wonder was going to crawl back to her little pinkified mini-batcave once her namesake had been resurrected. You'd think they'd have learned by now that if anyone deserves to be shanshued* around here it's the ever-persistent and always optimistic heroines that run Girl-Wonder.

Not content with forcing the big boys to pretend that making feminist comic book fans happy was what they had intended all along, Girl-Wonder has recently turned their attention to the abysmal way in which female fans are often treated at comic book (and other) conventions. Not only have they put together a whole website about it, they have put together one of the most awesomeist FAQs ever:

6. Why do cons need to spell it out that sexual harassment is unacceptable? They don’t tell anyone not to murder someone else on the con floor.

And there aren’t widespread reports of people murdering others, so clearly that’s already understood. But some people seemingly feel that harassment is con-appropriate behavior, and it’s important that cons clearly tell them it’s not.....

7. Why is this even a problem? People should be flattered when someone lets them know they’re sexy.

Harassment isn’t about polite and respectful admiration. Polite and respectful admiration doesn’t tell the admired person how they “should” feel about it.

Tell me again why people say feminists aren't funny? I'd guess that maybe they all just think that one can't be funny and dead serious at the same time; except that then they would have to be completely ignoring the existence and popularity of The Daily Show.

(bonnet tip to hoyden about town)

* not that they need to be, not being vampires and all

These Are Not the Droids You're Looking For

I made the profound mistake of listening to KROQ's Love Lines as I was out picking up dinner tonight, just to see if it was as bad as I remember.

Dear god, it's worse. Much, much worse.

Right before I turned it off, Dr. Drew was answering the question "I'm 27 weeks pregnant. Is it ok if I use a vibrator?"

(Do these people not have access to Web MD? It's a lot faster and doesn't moralize quite so much.)

The host of course decided that what he was going to jump on was the fact that she was 17. (Which they only knew because they always require that callers state their age. Which not only makes sense from a medical standpoint, it better facilitates slut-shaming as well!)

Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that the first thing out of his mouth after "You're 17. You're pregnant" was "You have a vibrator." A teenager with a vibrator. (lucky bitch, most of us have to make do with all sorts of weird household objects) This is a bad thing? Why, exactly?

But that, dear readers, is not the best part.

Neither is the fact that the question directly before that was from another teen girl who asked "I'm almost 18. I heard that most girls get orgasms at age 18. Is that true?" You might think the best part was Dr. Drew's answer to that question, which was essentially "yes, most women orgasm for the first time in their early 20's."

(because - WTF? That's your answer doctor? Simply to state that most women have their first orgasm in their early 20's? With no other commentary or explanation? As if this all happens for the same reasons that most girls get their period at around age 12 and most kids get their first visit from the tooth fairy in second grade?)

No, the best part was that the same guy that was slut-shaming the pregnant 17 year old for having a vibrator of all things was also the one making fun of the fact that the other teen girl was treating orgasms as if they were simply something that women got at a certain age (like the ability to vote). Because, you know, it's not like the latter idiocy is at all responsible for the stats Dr. Drew was spouting earlier. Don't worry though, dear readers, Stryker knew better than to make fun of the good doctor for pepetuating the idea that physiology alone is to blame foir most women not having their first orgasm until nearly a decade after they hit puberty.

(Cuz, you know. That's the most logical conclusion ever.)


In other, completely unrelated news, the only reason boys peep into windows is because we have antiquated clothing taboos. Plus they are curious. Or something like that.


Girls don't do the same cuz we just aren't as curious. Plus there's not really much that's interesting about the male body. Or something like that.





Move along. There's nothing to see here. These aren't the droids you are looking for.

I had to do an online sexual harassment training today for work (bc I'm now a supervisor) and it was just as aggravating as you'd expect it to be.

I desperately wanted to smash my computer screen when the training told me that a pat on the back was not considered inappropriate, even though the person being patted has one of those fake smiles and the lesson directly before had featured a guy telling a joke and coworkers with mixed reactions, including one coworker faking a laugh.

Of course, their point in the previous lesson was that you can't tell by how someone reacts what they are really thinking about the joke. But since I correctly guessed what everyone was thinking, I think the more important lesson was "learn to properly read facial expressions, you idiots."

and that was just the beginning.......



I am so effing sick of people using the word "offensive" when it comes to harassment and discrimination.

1) Learn to use a thesaurus people. Legal term or not, there's got to be a few others that you can use without confusing the lawyers.

2) That really isn't the fucking point. The frickin' point is that it's disrespectful. I am not offended by porn. I think that's it's disrespectful and inappropriate to look at it in the workplace. I am not offended that you notice my DD's. I think it's insanely self-absorbed when people can't keep such observations to themselves or need to be told that they ought to do so.


Also, that "pat on the back" thing is still bugging me. Keep your hands far away from my neck people, or I will go apeshit.


On a related note....wow. Free Credit Report Dot Com just went from illogical to...just...wow. (and yet.....still illogical) "If I had gone to some stupid website I would have found out that my girlfriend had horrible credit and I could have left her before we got married!" (did you just not bother to ask your future wife what her credit was, or was she lying and yet you still decided to stay with her?)

The Problem With Feminism Lite

I'm not yet done watching all of the Christy episodes, but it's already pretty clear where the shows version of feminism fails.

The best example is in A Man's Reach, the episode where Christy helps Rob Allen prepare for a test that could win him a scholarship to Fordham University. The subplot of the episode revolves around Zadey Spencer, the daughter of Fairlight Spencer and a fellow student in Christy's class.

Zadey is a foil for Rob Allen. While Rob has a tremendous talent for the written word, Zadey is gifted in math and science. Rob faces prejudice from a culture that sees high literature as unmanly and unproductive. Zadey must deal with a society that not only sees her talents as unfeminine but that also often fails to believe that she even has them.* Rob is on the cusp of adulthood; in the end he decides to stay in Cutter Gap because of the responsibilities he has to the family that depends on him. Zadey is just entering adolescence, which means she is suddenly misbehaving and acting selfishly in ways that she never even did as a young child. Rob story ends with him deciding who he is and the kind of person he wants to be. Zadey's story is all about how adolescence is a time of uncertainty of identity, and the confusion and possibilities that brings.

Zadey's subplot also revolves around Christy learning a lesson as well (of course). In this case, it's that becoming too focused on any one student makes it hard to see when others need her too. Zadey's is hurt at being left out of the older girls giggles and confidences. Which is made worse by Christy ignoring her need for validation and purpose in her schoolwork. This is resolved at the end with Christy apologizing to Zadey, admitting that she still has a lot to learn as well, and promising to help her study when it's her turn "to go to college."

The first part of Christy's apology to Zadey, where she does the actual apology and admits that she is still learning herself, is very sweet in the sappy way that makes me love the show. It's very nicely done in that "gosh I wish I always knew the perfect thing to say" way.

It's the last bit that turned the light bulb on for me as far as exactly why the show gets feminism wrong.

Because, of course, knowing what it's like to female and talented at math and science at the turn of this century, my first thought was "And who's going to offer her a scholarship to study math - in 1912?!?!"

It's not entirely impossible, but it's a lot less likely than Rob Allen's offer, and that was rather unrealistic itself. (Rob Allen entered a writing contest. He didn't win, but one of the judges was a professor at Fordham University and wrote offering him a scholarship - if he passed the test.) It's not like newspapers hold math contests, and science projects usually take a lot more capital than writing stories.

But there is no mention of that, or reassurances from Christy - who has just spent the past episode pressuring Rob Allen to go to college - that she will take the time to try to find a scholarship for Zadey Spencer, who, unlike Rob, is expressing interest in college long before an out of the blue offer to go.

Most of all though, lets not mention that the University that was so generous to Rob won't even admit women until Christy's great-granddaughters are ready to matriculate.

This is the false feminism that makes people think that feminism is no longer needed. The feminism lite that pretends that Christy promising Zadey Spencer an equal amount of time in tutoring her for college scholarships equals an equality of opportunity for Rob Allen and Zadey Spencer, even back in 1912.



*No one tells Zadey that she can't do math, but there are lots of comments about how girls aren't good at math. In Zadey's presence.

The way Zadey reacts to this felt very real to me, but I was frustrated with how the adults handle it. Fairlight has a great handle of how adolescence is affecting her daughter, but her response to Zadey's confusion about her gender identity and her frustration at sexism is to say (to Christy) that John (Zadey's oldest brother) being a boy isn't ever going to change. And while Fairlight and Christy can see that the age difference is part of why the older girls are leaving Zadey out of their talk of boys and the like, they fail to see or address how the girls use Zadey's lack of gender conformity (minor as it is, Zadey's never shown as a tomboy) to imply that her problem is not the age gap, but instead that she isn't "girl" enough.

Also, they left out the scene where the other kids ignore Zadey's right answer. And instead put in a scene where Zadey strives to get Christy's attention every time she knows the answer, which is always. Which, again, not very realistic. If Zadey actually did that regularly, she never would have been friends with the older girls in the first place; she would have been shunned long ago.

Zadey is much too old to want to always be the one that's called on in class. She's already at the age where her issue is that her peers don't respect her talents, not that she feels shunned by the teacher. Which Christy does make mention of at the end, but she suggests that the solution is that she calls on Zadey more in class in order to let her show off, which isn't really the problem that needs addressing or the solution that Zadey needs.

Comment Policy - Or Lack Thereof

I've never felt it necessary to have any kind of comment policy. Mostly because hardly anyone reads this and even fewer people bother to comment.

But this is the second time in as many months that a newbie (in the case of #2, a drive-by, most likely) has left a comment that discusses a woman's looks in a way that is absolutely irrelevant to the point of either my post, their comment, or both.

So, oh wise and benevolent ones that are gracious enough to grant me the honor of your fine words, to you I say:

It's not just that you insult how a woman looks, or that your manner of doing so make you look like a petty high school bully, it's that you say it as if it has any bearing on the worth of her actions or words.

It's not just that you are crude in your appreciation of a woman's looks, nor just that you try to preempt criticism of such behavior (on a feminist blog, no less) by being "cute." It's not even that you think I give a shit, it's that you have the audacity to come to my blog and make it clear that you don't give a shit about anything that I have said at the same time.

I'm hardly above caring how people look. I have the tag "pretty boys" for a reason.

But there are plenty of places where you can discuss to your hearts content whether or not a woman turns you on. Most of the places I have to spend my time in are places where you can discuss to your hearts content who turns you on.

Just in case the "feminism" in the subtitle didn't make it clear - this blog isn't one of those places.

If you want to comment here on how a woman looks, it had better be relevant to the actual post in question*. Otherwise, expect deletion without prior warning.

*gushing about grand dames like Tyne Daly - even if it's include looks - are considered on topic. Comments that subsist of nothing more than "All I know is that Kellie Martin is hot. Hubba-hubba." do not. Especially when the only sentence in the post about Kellie Martin herself is on her acting abilities.

There Are Times When Being a Supervisor Sucks

One, I hate disciplining my employees.

Unless they've pissed me off. Which isn't really the best way to handle things.

And oh, completely unrelated (NOT), coming up to a coworker and rubbing their shoulders, aside from being inappropriate* to begin with, is sexual harassment, even if the person getting the shoulder rub never complains. At least, it's sexual harassment if person doing the rubbing is male, the person being rubbed is female, and the person doing the rubbing would never dream of doing that to a male coworker. (vice versa, as well, of course)

And really, when how often is that "if" not true?

And why the fuck can't my supervisor see that?

I'm almost happy we didn't deal with this already, bc I'm totally making that point before we talk to the employee in question. I'm ok with the talk being more of a heads up than a warning, because of how the policy is written and because of how we generally deal with other types of disciplining. But only if my boss is agreed that it's not just inappropriate but also sexual harassment even if no one ever complains.

And yeah. I'm going to be a bitch about this - fuck, I'm going to be a man-eating cunt about this - because the other employes that this particular person works with the most also happen to be my youngest and least assertive employees.

And having people assume your body is community property because it's female not only sucks, but is really hard to fight when you are 17/18/19, don't have the language to describe any of this properly, and your bosses don't address the problem properly.

*perhaps in some workplaces - especially those that don't involve the workers being out in pubic view at the time - this is not true, but it is at my workplace.

Is Rainbow Brite Scifi?

(A question from this thread, via the Hathor Legacy)

The thing about "girls don't like [X]" is that they are always redefining what [X] is until that statement becomes partly true.

The Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Strawberry Shortcake are all very much fantasy stories, and, aside from a few fangeeks that are very into one and not the other, most people see SciFi and Fantasy and so analogous to be practically interchangeable. Certainly more interchangeable than Mysteries and Romance novels anyway.

Yet, somehow, I have a feeling that Rainbow Brite would not be on anyone's list of '80s scifi cartoons. I'm willing to bet it wouldn't even be on most people's lists of '80s fantasy cartoons.

Certainly there is a difference between ray-guns and the Care Bear Stare, but the biggest difference between "girl" and "boy" cartoons is not in the storyline or even the amount of action vs. drama (was any '80's cartoon more melodramatic than Robotech? Any 90's cartoon more soap opera-ish than Gargoyles?), but in who the story is marketed to. Which boils down to mostly window dressing and the number of times the weapon of choice is wielded by female characters.

This isn't to say that He-Man was really all that much like Strawberry Shortcake or vice versa, just that they both have equal claims to the fantasy genre, but only one gets used as an defining example of the genre. It gets to the point where The Smurfs and The Gummi Bears are not considered to by definitive examples of fantasy cartoons for kids either, despite the obvious untruth to that statement, simply because they are both less violent and less reflective of stereotypes of adult fantasy than Dungeons and Dragons.

Obviously, all of these strategically shifting definitions make for very circular logic when one then turns around and claims that boys are more into fantasy or scifi.

It's the same kind of effect we get from pretending that women played no part in history until we gained the vote. Ignoring girl's and women's experiences makes it really easy to flat out lie about what girls and women do and like.

Likewise, when one ignores or glosses over the connection between Lord of the Rings and Victorian fairy tales like The Princess and the Goblin, it's really easy to pretend that modern fantasy is completely disconnected from the princess stories my niece likes to act out. Which in turn makes it sound completely ridiculous to suggest that Rainbow Brite was Fantasy (rather than fantasy), much less science fiction.

Kind of the same way that ignoring scientific data makes it really easy to pretend that evolution is all made up.

And yet, aside from the flying horse, is there anything (other than gendered assumptions made by people that never watched the show) that cause us to define it as fantasy, rather than scifi? Or worse yet, fantasy-lite? What makes Teenage Mutant Turtles scifi for kids, but not Rainbow Brite?

Yes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles featured a bit of comic book inspired* radioactive gook in their origin story (which itself is very much a rip-off of the magical elixirs and pools in myths, which is why faatasy and scifi are so often lumped together). But ignore for the moment the rainbows and the martial arts, ignore your prejudices that says that boy = scifi and girl = fantasy. Which of the two characters below looks like they belong in a fantasy? A science fiction story?




Which of these two characters lives on another planet? Cavorts with friendly aliens? Uses technological tools? Fight enemies that use technology as well? Whose story features intergalactic travel? Uses basic physics (light and color) as a thematic metaphor?

Which character uses weapons designed centuries earlier? Whose story features lots of mystical sayings spouted by a Wise Old Man? Who fights enemies that wield mysterious powers? Even the very idea of animals that talk is a very fantasy-like element - despite the scientific origin story.

I like action, adventure, and even violence. And I think that a lot of "girls" cartoons could have done with a bit more actual action and a bit less less running around. More importantly, the writers could have bothered to give their audience more credit for being intelligent. But lets not pretend that quality is what defines something as scfi or fantasy. (If it was, we could simply pretend that the Gor novels have no connection to the genre either.)

Most all, lets not forget that Gummi Bears was not only vastly better than Dungeons and Dragons but also a much better example of Fantasy cartoons for kids.

PS - if anyone feels in the mood to add some more arguments for why Rainbow Brite - or any other "girl" cartoon - was really scifi and not fantasy or anything else, I may feel grateful enough to go digging through old photos and find the one of me all decked out in the incredibly awesome Rainbow Brite costume my mom made for me in third grade. :)

*appropriately enough, since it was originally a comic.

Conversations With Young People

So, I was chatting with a teen that comes into the library a lot.

Her friend is a volunteer and the three of us squeed over Dramacon a couple weeks ago, so we talk about what manga she's reading when she comes in now.

Anyway, she was showing me her artwork and mentioned that she had drawn some yaoi*, but that it was hidden underneath another drawing (in the clear plastic sleeve on the cover of her folder) because the boys complain about it.

I noted that they never seem to have a problem with the opposite. Which, in fact. is acceptable enough to be a common joke in mainstream movies.



Yes, I am on a mission to corrupt them all, one kid at a time.




*exceptionally tame, yaoi, as it turns out, in case anyone cares.

I Don't Get It

People that normally make a lot of sense to me have tried to defend GTA to me before.

The advances in game play are mentioned. I am reminded that it is a game, it's not real. It is explained to me that no, there isn't anything anymore disturbing about controlling such action than there is watching it in a movie. And that, of course, the game actually discourages such behavior - really!

But I still don't get. I still don't buy it.

(Perhaps partly because I think sexualized violence poorly done and overdone in most movies as well.)

I don't "get it" anymore than I'd "get" a video game where players go around trying to lynch PoC.

But my reaction to it is more emotional and less intellectual that it is to things like Resident Evil 5. Which means that I have a lot of work to do on becoming a better ally, and that I have a really hard time coming up with coherent arguments that explain how not ok this is.

They No Longer Spend Pitch Meetings Looking for the Button That Opens the Secret Trapdoor

You have no idea how much I wish I had a copy of the recording they did of the panel on Superhero Comics at the Festival.

Its not that I want to listen to it over and over again (it was funny, but not that funny) its that there were tons of hilarious quotes that I can't really quote 'cuz I'm not going to get them quite right. So as you read all the stuff below? Remember that it's being filtered through my crappy auditory memory. Take even the stuff in quotes with several teaspoonfuls of salt. Also, I make no claims to accuracy when it comes to the order in which things were discussed.

With that said, here goes:

The panel was kicked off with each creator being asked to describe how they got from Comics to Hollywood. Mignola and Niles had fairly similar stories. Someone fairly influential liked their comic and wanted it made into a movie. For Niles, it was Sam Raimi. For Mignola, it was Benecio Del Toro - not that Del Toro got things going, more that he kept them going and made sure that things went well. Both at this point and throughout the talk, both Niles and Mignola were very emphatic about having a powerful ally working on the project who was also a fan of the comic itself being essential to it being a decent movie that still resembled their work. Or something like that, anyway.

Loeb said that it went the opposite way for him. He had always loved comics, but started out in Hollywood instead (didn't think he could make a living at comics) and then one day DC called him up and asked him if he would like to write a comic for them.

Before I continue, (1) Loeb is an awesome oral storyteller; I very much fear that my recap will fail to do any justice to his talent. (2) I'm sure there was more to this story than he let on. See #1

Loeb said "of course!" and "Can I write Superman?" "Um, we already have someone for that." "Batman" ditto and on down the line. Turns out they wanted him to do The Challengers. (and yeah, that story is even funnier in retrospect now that I'm more familiar with his resume)

The second question had to do with graphical nature of graphic novels and whether that made them easier to translate into film. All said yes. Having pictures helps studio people visualize what you are talking about, especially when those pictures closely resemble storyboards. Loeb (or Mignola?), mimicking execs internal diologue: "Oh, so you meant this really cool spaceship, not the pencil shaped thing that was in my head." Niles also mentions that, when originally pitching 30 Days, the studio people probably pictured scores of vampires running across the snow in Bela Lugosi capes.

The next question (I think) had to do with whether or not it's easier to pitch Superhero movies now than it used to be. Everyone's reply can be boiled down to "duh - you have seen the figures for the Spiderman movies, yes?" (I kept thinking, don't forget LoTR! It's success certainly helped as well. Geeks Unite!) Someone - Mignola or Loeb, I think - pointed out that time has helped as well, that it it's not just a single hit, but several successful movies, and people getting used to the idea of Superhero movies, untill finally Superhero movies are treated as just another genre rather than an unknown. (File this thought away, it will come up again later.)

They said that it was still hard to pitch comics as movies, especially if you aren't pitching one of the big names (Spiderman, Superman, Batman) but that "It used to be that they seemed to be looking for that secret button that open the trapdoor under you." Not anymore.

One of the other things that helped, obviously, has been the advances in cg. There was talk about how they used to say that movies would never replace comic creators, because there was stuff they could do that would just look dumb in movies. You could never get Spiderman to swing from a web and make it look real! Loeb: But then (?) and I went to the screening of Teminator 2 at Comicon. Beforehand, we weren't really sure what it was going to be like because Schwarzenegger actually had to talk in this one. We left the screening and I turned to him and said "we're screwed."

They still fuck everything up, though, apparently :) (shocker, I know) Niles talked about some guy who was working on 30 Days in the script stage. Nobody seemed to get why the Vampires were in Alaska. (wha?) So this one guy suggested that maybe Vampires were searching for a diamond that was buried underground in Alsaka. (wtf?) A diamond that would make them daywalkers! "He doesn't work there anymore. Not because of that, but I think he tried pitching the diamond idea for every movie." There was also mention of certain people wanting to call the Hellyboy sequel HB2 Instead. (why, exactly would one want to do that?)

This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzier, but the conversation at some point turned to DVD sales, what is still hard about pitching Superhero movies, and how much money movies actually need to make. The gist of that part of the conversation was: studio people don't pay enough attention to DVD sales because DVDs and movie production are different divisions, but it's getting better. They always want to change lots of things, some of which needs to change because comics are so much longer than movies, some of which is completely in opposition to the heart of the story, and some of which is necessary in order to appeal to a larger audience. "The truth is that even the best selling comics only have a fraction of the audience that movies need to make money." Or something like that.

I don't remember when or why, but the topic of what terms people prefer came up (ie, comics, graphic novel, etc.) and they all agreed "comics." Niles joked about Raimi referring to comics by some complicated term "graphical something or other." Someone (Loeb or Niles) made the amusing remark to a studio person that it was ok to call them comics, "graphic novels was the term we made up for you guys!"

It was also established that we were all "geeks." "You all know the difference between geeks and nerds, right? All of you in this room right now, you're all geeks, not nerds." (I beg to differ, but then I'm the idiot that didn't even know he worked on Heroes before he mentioned it, so I think he'd make an exception for me.)

At some point Loeb told several amusing stories about working in Hollywood:

The first movie he worked on was this low budget film called Teen Wolf (cheers from the crowd) While working on it, he'd tell people about it and mention who was in it and people would say. "Oh, that kid from Silver Spoons, right?" But then two things happened, Family Ties was moved to directly after The Cosby Show and Michael J. Fox was picked to be the star of a little movie called Back to the Future. heh.

That lead to the story about the movie thought he was going to be able to retire on: Firestorm. It was starring Howie Long. No reaction from the audience to that name, prompting Loeb to say that we obviously weren't football fans. That prompted some laughter. :) He explained who Howie Long was and that the great thing about Howie Long was that you knew he could talk. Anyway, things were going well and it was getting closer and closer to the release date, and then an Important Studio person broke the bad news. The studio had just finished making the most expensive movie ever made. And it was going to completely flop. Loeb knew he was telling the truth because people were literally packing up their offices in cardboard boxes and leaving. It was going to be that bad. So they needed to release a bunch of other movies at the same time to cover their losses. Firestorm was moved from fall to January. That's ok, Loeb thought, it should still be ok.

So, the flop? Was Titanic.

His last story was about the call that got him working on Heroes. A Hollywood buddy of his called him and said he needed some advice. Loeb figured that he was buying a vineyard and retiring or something, 'cuz he couldn't think of what this person would need his advice for. So they met and it turns out that this buddy had the brilliant idea of doing a Superhero type show and needed to talk to someone who knew Superheros. They spent hours talking, with the guy pitching ideas and Loeb responding by saying, that sounds fantastic, but you can't do that, it's (insert name of character) Marvel/DC will sue you. Repeat for several hours.

That's it. that's all I remember. Recordings will be available in a few weeks, I might try and clean this up when they are released for sale.




Oh, wait.......you were wondering why I was left yelling (well, muttering, really) Wonder Woman.

Yeah, so, at some point near the end - it might have been during the questions - Loeb or Mignola made some comment about Superhero movies needing to appeal to non-comic readers in order to make money. Loeb added "like how do you get women to go see your Superhero movie?" (Or something like that anyway.) To which I muttered Wonder Woman! and started ranting in my headspace about how the arguments made earlier about Superhero movies and needing to let people get used to seeing them as just another kind of movie and not a fluke can just as easily be applied to movies with female action heroes.

Ditto for non-white (and non-kung-fu-asian) action heroes, as well, of course.

Personally, I still think Runaways would make a kickass movie. The ending is a disappointing in terms of racial diversity, but it's still a step in the right direction. (Especially if it does well enough to warrant sequels.) Plus, I think it would not only appeal to a larger audience, it would appeal to that teenage audience studios are so hung up on. Provided it's done right, of course. That's always the catch. But seriously, while the point about comic sales being only a fraction of what the movie needs is valid, better-selling is better than not-better-selling. And better-selling to a wider audience (ie, bookstore patrons, not just comic store patrons) has got to be huge plus as well. So here's to hoping Twilight is the insane success I think it will be, and to studios everywhere mining the YA lit for ideas.

On the Bright Side

It's all so very snark-worthy

"This should be a better world," a friend of mine said. "A more honest one, where sex isn't shameful or degrading. I wish this was the kind of world where say, 'Wow, I'd like to touch your breasts,' and people would understand that it's not a way of reducing you to a set of nipples and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful."

I must fail at logic, because I completely fail to understand why saying "your body is beautiful" is massively more complicated than saying something like "Wow, I'd like to touch your breasts."

And I will say, yet again, that if any guy ever comes up to me and compliments me by saying simply "you're beautiful," I will die of shock. Which will be very sad, because he was sure to get my number and/or my first born child otherwise.

We were standing in the hallway of ConFusion, about nine of us, and we all nodded. Then another friend spoke up.

"You can touch my boobs," she said to all of us in the hallway. "It's no big deal."

I'm fascinated by her phrasing here, and how everyone in the group finds this so refreshing. I mean, I'm very much not down with the whole "sex is a special thing that should only happen between two people who are in love!" meme that most of the world pretends to be caught up in, but isn't it a little insulting for her to say that "it's no big deal?" Unless her breasts are completely lacking in nerve endings, shouldn't she have some kind of feeling toward the experience? Otherwise, isn't it just a mini version of pity-sex?

Now, you have to understand the way she said that, because it's the key to the whole project. The spirit of everything was formed within those nine words - and if she'd said them shyly, as though having her breasts touched by people was something to be endured or afraid of, the Open-Source Boob Project would have died...

I agree. Her lack of (stated) desire and the fact that she was making an offer and not a proposal, very much is the spirit of the project, and very much why the project is complete FAIL.

Yet it wasn't a come-on, either. There wasn't that undertow of desperation of come on, touch me, I need you to validate my self-esteem, and maybe we'll hook up later tonight. There was no promise of anything but a simple grope.

Because, of course, when women do come-on's it's because we are desperate. Guys on the other hand, are just being guys. So when they say 'Wow, I'd like to touch your breasts" women should translate that to "your body is beautiful" and not get sidetracked by all the "me/I" statements.

We all reached out in the hallway, hands and fingers extended, to get a handful...They were awesome breasts, worthy of being touched.

Which raises the question of which breasts are not worthy of being touched, and how the poor women attached to such breasts feel about that.

And life seemed so much simpler.

Yeah, not having to think about privilege is like that.

In this moment, all of the societal restrictions had fallen away, and we discovered an eBay-like need: We liked to express adoration of her body, and she liked the compliment of being desired. It wasn't a one-way flow; it was a stream of compliments being passed back and forth as we explored that small zone of her body, a My God, these are beautiful breasts you have, along with the backstream compliment of Thank you, you're worthy of touching them.

Dear idiots, the issue is not your worthiness, but her desires. You can pretend all you want that you are living in a brand new world, but if she says you can touch her breasts because you are worthy, oh great one, and not because she wants you to, then it's really just the same old world. As it usually is.

Plus, "an eBay-like need"?? wtf is that even supposed to mean?

It could have been a base lechery. But instead, it was sexual desire made simple. We knew we couldn't go further, but being allowed inside this area of restricted access with nothing more than a question was somehow amazing.

After all, usually women make using their bodies all complicated and shit.

Oh and wtf is up with confusing desire and pleasure? Dudez, the desire was made simple by skipping from compliments to expressing your id. It's the getting of sexual pleasure, not desire, that you are talking about here.

We stood there afterwards, a little shocked

Do I really have to say the obvious?

Then someone else spoke up in the same tone of voice:

"You can touch mine, too."

Well, at least this time there was no "it's no big deal." Although, I must ask, why no "Can I see your cock?" Cuz that's totally what I would have said instead.

And my God! We all reached out like zombies trying to break through a door to get to those breasts.

Yeah, no desperation here.

And it wasn't getting any worse! We weren't degenerating into an orgy....

Isn't that a direct contradiction to the above sentence? Or maybe he thinks zombies are sexy.

Nobody was trying to pull off a bra or suck on a nipple; we'd been given access to a very special place that only lovers usually touched, and why would you be so crude as to try to push the boundaries of that?

You mean men can be expected to respect personal boundaries? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you!

No really. After reading all of this, I kinda am.

And every girl in that hallway was then asked the question: "May I touch your breasts?" They considered, and said yes. And we all did.

Wow, no pressure there.

And my Lord, I'd had experience in breasts in my time, but having so many compared right next to each other was beautiful. One of the reasons I love sex is because every body is so different, and the differences in size, and skin tone, and nipple sensitivity, and bras - bras were a big deal in how a boob felt - were highlighted....

Yes, every breast is different, but only some are worthy of being touched.

We went back to some of the first open-sourcers, eager for comparison. "Can I touch them again?" "Sure!" And the feel-ups continued.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. As others have painstakingly pointed out, open-source is about who owns the rights, not who ultimately uses the software.

I felt the terrors of high school washing away from me. It could be this easy. Just ask!

Apologies, but I really must quote CM on this one:

"I wish all our unsubs tacked their profile up on the wall like this."

Unresolved issues much?

And then the real magic happened. Because a beautiful girl in an incredibly skimpy blue Princess outfit strode down the hallway, obviously putting her assets on display (the thin strips of her clothing had to be taped to her body to stay on), and we stopped her.

Oh dear god, no.

"Excuse me," the first, very brave girl asked. "You're very beautiful. I'd like to touch your breasts. Would you mind if I did?"

Ok, now I'm really confused. If the idea is that people should take "I'd like to touch your breasts" to equal "You're very beautiful" then why the hell did she say both? Methinks someone isn't being very honest with themselves.

We held our breath. We didn't want to offend.

Yet, they "didn't want to" enough to not take the risk of doing so, obviously. How daring of them to risk her feeling humiliated so that they could cop a feel.

This could go wrong, collapsing and turning us into cruel lechers who'd make her feel uncomfortable and shamed of who she was....

You know, most people get past the "it doesn't happen unless I see it" stage at about age 3.

A tip for all dudez (and dudettes) thinking of trying this. Her saying that you are lechers is not what turns you into lechers.

She thought for a heartbeat, sizing us up. But there must have been something honest and trustworthy in our eyes that promised that we wouldn't get out of hand... Because after a moment, she smiled and said, "Sure!"

Again with the worthiness. And the idea men behaving is shocking. And the lack of awareness of risk analysis. (She decided that they were trustworthy, not that what they promised was worth the risk of what might happen. And god forbid we mentioned the possibility of peer pressure or the risk analysis often involved in saying "yes" when you want to say "no.")

The first girl touched respectfully.

The repetition of "respectful" is really making me wonder why such respect is considered so noteworthy to the author.

And reported that they were glorious.

More than any other part of this post, this sentence makes me want to beg the writer in question to never write anything ever again. Please. With sugar on top.

.... It wasn't that she was a piece of meat to be felt up, but rather that a living person that we did not know had voluntarily lowered the barriers that separate us and allowed us in... And we were so grateful that we were showering her in pure adoration.

You know, I might actually believe this if I thought for one nano-second that any one of them asked her how she wanted to be touched, rather than if they could touch her or how she didn't want to be touched. But since I'm fairly certain none of them did, I fail to see how any of this is adoration.

It was exciting, of course. I won't deny it was sexual.

Except for her, of course.

But it was a miraculous sexuality that didn't feel dirty, but clean.

Dare I suggest that it's because you weren't bothered by thoughts of her pleasure? Plus, your issues are showing again. You might want to take care of that. And no, not caring about how others feel is not the way to do so.

Emboldened, we started asking other people. And lo, in the rarified atmosphere of the con, few were offended and many agreed.

Which makes it all good, cuz that's what a democracy is about, right? As long as most everyone's ok with it, it's ok to do it.

And they also felt that strange charge.

You know, it might have been just you. I doubt that most SF fans are quite as repressed as the stereotype says they are.

Or, it could have just been the static electrcity

We went around the con, asking those who we thought might be amenable - you didn't just ask anyone, but rather the ones who'd dressed to impress - and generally, people responded. They understood how this worked instinctively, and it worked.

Gee, there's no rape apology lingering under all that. No siree.

And on a completely unrelated note, I wore oversized t-shirts all through high school because I was all about being comfortable at that age.

By the end of the evening, women were coming up to us. "My breasts," they asked shyly, having heard about the project. "Are they... are they good enough to be touched?"

I just can't snark about that. It's just too sad.

And lo, we showed them how beautiful their bodies were without turning it into something tawdry.

I'm glad you've finally figured out how to do that, but I still don't think a public space is quite the right place for it.

Oh, and I thought I'd give you fair warning that I'm trying to find a way to ban the letters l and o from the internet.

We talked about this. It was an Open-Source Project, making breasts available to select folks.

Really, there is no end to his lack of understanding of the idea of open-source.

(Like any good project, you need access control, because there are loutish men and women who just Don't Get It.)

Irony, my good friend! So nice to see you.

And we wanted a signal to let people know that they were okay with being asked politely,

For their sake, of course.

so we turned it into a project:

The Open-Source Boob Project.

At Penguicon, we had buttons to give away. There were two small buttons, one for each camp: A green button that said, "YES, you may" and a red button that said "NO, you may not." And anyone who had those buttons on, whether you knew them or not, was someone you could approach and ask:

"Excuse me, but may I touch your breasts?"

Ok so, I'm going to give the Douche the benefit of the doubt and assume that people with the latter buttons were left alone. But still, what is the point of the "No!" buttons?

Oh, silly me, I keep thinking that he's being sincere in trying to make this easier for the gropees. No, it's always all about the gropers.

And if you weren't a total lout - the women retained their right to say no, of course - they would push their chests out, and you would be allowed into the sanctity of it. That exchange of happiness where one person are told with gropes and touches that they are desirable and the other is someone who's allowed to desire.

Again, desire =/= sexual pleasure. Which, in turn =/= access to other's bodies. There is a connection, yes. But they are not all the same thing.

For a moment, everything that was awkward about high school would fade away and you could just say what was on your mind. It was as though parts of me were being healed whenever I did it, and I touched at least fifteen sets of boobs at Penguicon.

Unresolved issues. Drink!

It never got old, surprisingly.

Surprising? In what way is that surprising?

Some women didn't want to. That was fine.

Wow. Good to know.

We never demanded anything of anyone.

You know, despite the obvious douchbaggery involved here, it never actually occurred to me that any of them did (explicitly). The fact that he felt the need to clarify that makes me wonder, however.

And if you didn't want to put yours up for the Project but you wanted to touch, well, that was fine, too. It was simply for folks who felt like being open.

Open to what, exactly? Other than being reassured that I am worthy enough to be groped, I'm a little confused as to what I'm supposed to be open to.

It was a raging success at Penguicon.... And there haven't been any hookups that I know of thanks to the Open-Source Boob Project.

So, I'm not saying that touches aren't good by themselves, but still, this is a good thing why?

I've left off the names, because frankly, people should reveal for themselves whether they're Open-Sourcers or not. Not everyone wants to go public with it, and what happens at the con stays at the con. But trust me. If you are, and I meet you, I will ask.

You have insurance, yes? Good.

And you'll understand the beauty and simplicity of the Open-Source Boob Project for yourself.

Well, yes, being the crazy feminazi that I am, I'm always eager to kick men in the balls. I so rarely get socially sanctioned chances to do so, however. Nice of you to do me that favor.

Touch the magic, my friends. Touch the magic.

And here, I though that earlier sentence could never be topped for pure "dear god, I wish I'd never read that"-ness.

Why, Why, Why?!?!?!?!?!?!

Every time I get all set to buy my tix for ComiCon, the idiots of the world make me rethink that decision.

I mean, do I really want be in a packed convention hall full of guys like this guy?


Is even ComiCon really worth that price?



Oh, but! How silly of me, I forgot....

...a brief plug: If you're totally put off by the con you read about and worried that bad things could happen to you at cons everywhere, I'd suggest visiting WisCon, the world's leading feminist science-fiction convention, which I can guarantee you is completely different.

Gee, mister, that's awfully sweet of you, to allow me my fluffy little cage over there. 'Cuz god knows that:

1) the point of WisCon is to be a pink version of ComiCon, and not something else entirely

2) all the special guests that go to ComiCon go to WisCon

3) driving down to San Diego and staying with my cousin is in no way more affordable than flying halfway cross the country and staying in a hotel

4) nor is it more fun, because my cousins will be just as willing and able to hang out with me in Wisconsin as they will in San Diego

5) "separate but equal" is always a dandy idea



I'm seriously tempted to simply spend all that time writing fanfic for Criminal Minds instead.