Comments on: Sartorial Sundays: the ‘Slut-o-ween’ Report

By: Crystal

Crystal — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:11:43 +0000

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Now, not so much.
Last Halloween I went to this big outdoor party in the middle of nowhere thinking it would acceptable because they had a good musical lineup and it was invite-only. It turned out to be a total dude-fest, complete with high-end strippers, endless beer, a giant mud pit and a bunch of surfer dudes.
My sister and I were the ONLY women there in non-sluttastic costumes. I had a very loose and covering Indian housewife ensemble and my sister had a tree costume complete with real branches.
At one point some drunk dude came up to my sister and was like “wow, awesome costume.” His dudely friend quickly intervened saying, “Back away man, she’s fat.”
My sister wasn’t even what I would consider genuinely fat at the time, just kind of chubby, maybe a size 12, but we were the only women there not in porntastic condition. Not that it wouldn have been legitimate if she was, but still, it made it even more ridiculous.
I was still up for TRYING to enjoy myself so I decided to see if the mudwrestling offered any entertainment. Unsurprisingly it turned out to be soft-porn. I was actually considering jumping in myself to liven up the evening until some dude next to me yelled “Come on girls, get in the pit!!!” I shot him a look and he backed up and was like “not you, I didn’t mean you.” I decided to take his advice and not jump into the pit and not waste anymore time trying to derive any “ironic” pleasure from the whole spectacle.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but I just had to vent about this somewhere.
I have no plans for this Halloween because I can’t think of any place to go for non-pornified entertainment. Any ideas?
I got invited to the Playboy mansion this year. HA! I don’t know how I even keep getting these invites when I’m such a PRUDE! Do they think they’re throwing me a bone or being equal opportunity or inclusive by doing this? I’ve already RSVP’d that I’m NOT coming to any of the parties I’ve been invited to.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:46:31 +0000

Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, cooking for your husband and kids?

By: mearl

mearl — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:27:03 +0000

Once again the lurk-back, only because just now I happened across octogalore’s attempt at a comeback to my post. Thanks for the reply, octogalore, I laughed all the way to 7-11. Three points I have to make: the first thing you iterate is that you think being a size 2 is an achievement. This speaks for itself. Second, You assume that I am HUGE and OVERWEIGHT and FUGLY, the Holy Trinity of Hideous Sins attributable to those lazy, unlittle, unfeminine women who don’t spend their days on ellyptical machines. You’re wrong; I happen to have been born with a tall, thin, muscular frame, but I wouldn’t give a shit if I had a more normal female build (to clarify for anyone reading, huge, overweight, and fugly are the opinions I infer from someone who highly values her own size 2 as an achievement). Finally, I am not in the feminist fight to support its detractors in male or female form. Other people can be all sunshine and support. I’m not so postmodern (although I see its points) that I don’t look for a functionality of ideologies. I make my own opinions about what is a result of patriarchal brainwashing and what isn’t, and they’re my opinions. You don’t like it? I don’t care. I think it’s shitty when someone takes up the banner of feminism and starts trumpeting about it while ingraining patriarchal values into her M.O. without once questioning them. Maybe if you spent less time on the ellyptical machine and more time thinking about it, you’d have some light bulbs going off above that size 2 head of yours.

That said, I will admit that no, I just can’t silently put up with dum-dums. Immaturity can be constructive, instructive, AND fun!

By: Edith

Edith — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:39:29 +0000

Wait, wait, wait. When did fat-bashing become OK at this site? octogalore, you do realize that some of us can work out all day and still never be a size two? In fact, I would think that working out religiously would make many women develop body types that of course are FAR from a size two, since a size two is, after all, a very, very small size. Where do we put our muscles, I wonder.

By: Mandos

Mandos — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:26:51 +0000

I have been excommunicated by Mar Iguana! Whatever will I do?

But I haven’t spent any time even communicating with MTW and OG or even participating in their parallel discussion, so it’s kind of odd…

By: Mar Iguana

Mar Iguana — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 15:32:39 +0000

…Iâ€™d like to take a sentimental moment to express my appreciation of those who have been willing to entertain my line of thought and incessant questions on this thread.” Mandos

I would not be one of “those.” I’ll not be responding to you, octogalore or maggiethewolf from this point on as to say what I’d like to would only get me in trouble here with Twisty and she has better things to do.

By: Organic Mutant - » All Hallows’ Eve

Organic Mutant - » All Hallows’ Eve — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 06:02:04 +0000

[…] Many have commented on halloween’s tranformation into a lecherous holiday, an excuse to let it all hang out. That element has lessened some of the joy I once took in it cos I felt like if I dint partcipate in the hoochi-ness then I wasn’t doing my part to support the troops. In the last few years I started getting my strength back and this year I said, ‘Forget about it.’ I will not be a sexy-whatever-cop or a sexy-fairy-something-or-other in a short skirt. I will be the character I choose to embrace sans shortness or sluttiness. So I spent hours shopping and working on my apron and I was, for a few short hours, Alice. Wade was a 6′2″ White Rabbit & a few days later Mon Cheri was a sweet little pirate. We did it ourselves to our own exacting standards & enjoyed it immensely. […]

By: Mandos

Mandos — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:17:27 +0000

So Kali’s post has gotten the Twisty mark of approval, and hence it is probably risking blasphemy to continue, but what the heck.

You need to reframe your thinking around the origins of the patriarchy. You are framing it in terms of a deterministic, cause-and-effect, if-a-then-b, simplistic natural/physical process. However, it is better understood as a historical event, somewhat like a crime that took place over millenia, and something that can be explained in terms of the anatomy of a crime - motive (womb envy, greed, lust, etc.), enabling conditions (physical size differences, relative lack of conscience or empathy and love, relative freedom from responsibilities towards children and the elderly), and tools (violence, exploitation of maternal attachment and responsibilities).

So I went down this path for a specific reason. You already mentioned your enabling conditions and tools, and you demoted womb envy to a contributing factor. I asked in particular about your enabling conditions: what was the cause (of “lack of…love”, etc)? Then Mar Iguana decided to reassert that causative relation with womb envy and connect your enabling conditions ultimately to a womb envy theory. So I went back to the original line.

Alright, then: whence these enabling conditions? I mean, not merely the physical size differences, obviously—since I’m not totally convinced that these are *that* important (should I be?) as some of them are actually social reflexes.

Now, you bring up two components of a possible solution: female solidarity and what I’ll call for conciseness the economic neutrality of reproduction. I’m afraid the former leads me to ask the same question. You assert various enabling conditions and tools that allowed, effectively, males to break female solidarity. How do these conditions not still apply? Why would you think that female solidarity would work out any differently? I do not see, after all this time, a great deal of solidarity being generated on the feminist blogosphere, but instead I see just as many women dividing themselves, often without assistance, on familiar and age-old lines. So how could female solidarity have survived in the past? Or, put differently, in what hypothetical past and future would males NOT have enjoyed these enabling conditions and tools (aside from physical differences)?

Secondly, regarding the economic neutrality issue, well, saltyC mentions

I for one am ready to quit quarreling and would rather brainstorm utpian visions, which would include consideration of women who cannot play the boyâ€™s game in boyâ€™s terms.

So, if the boys are still playing the boy’s game in their own terms, then that suggests that they will always have a material advantage over women, no? I mean, as long as the boys can spend more time on gaining material advantage for themselves—which is, really, a function of time in itself—even if you financially compensate the girls for the economic penalty of childrearing, they’ll still be spending less *time* on other things than the boys are.

Or you would have to envision a world in which girls and boys spend the same amount of time childrearing. Which of course is a well-known feminist goal that extends even unto the liberallest of liberal feminists (assuming you recognize this division). Which then leads us back to the original question: what changed?

Lastly, I’d like to take a sentimental moment to express my appreciation of those who have been willing to entertain my line of thought and incessant questions on this thread.

By: redneckmother

redneckmother — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:02:27 +0000

I’ll stop lurking here to say Kali, you rock. And for better or worse, Twisty, you inspired me to write about my own foolish attempts to appease Dude Nation many years ago. I can’t get pingback to work so I’m shamelessly whoring it here:

http://redneckmother.blogspot.com/2006/10/my-year-as-slut-preamble.html

Cheers.

By: octogalore

octogalore — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:02:52 +0000

SaltyC — now I know what you mean by male dominated. I used to be an engineer and in product development in a car company (Ford) and I would imagine the videogame area is even more of a boy’s club.

I hope you get a chance to be profiled by maggiethewolf in a magazine.

I don’t know much about that area, but if I run into anything that could be useful I’ll definitely let you know.

In the meantime, if your company ever needs a heavily discounted legal search (for a GC, IP counsel, etc.), let me know. If I could, I’d do it free, but the boys above me wouldn’t go for that :)