Haven’t you ever heard of the “Harem effect?”

Kidding!

You’re right of course, I’ll clarify: female dogs are called bitches as long as they can go into heats. A spayed dog is no longer a bitch.

Suheir Hammad witnesses to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIE_8NsqzT0

the word bitch isn’t just a name for a female dog, it describes a female dog IN HEAT, a dog who desperately needs/wants to get laid.

It does? I didn’t know that. I wonder why the announcers at dog shows invariably refer to all the female dogs as bitches, then. Surely they aren’t all in heat at the same time.

Yeah, my brother also went to the gulf, and my child’s half-siblings are going too. So? We all know soldiers, relatively few of us here reading blogs are or have close relatives who were enslaved in joy divisions.

That’s because we’re in the guilty class. Big wup. You get no coddling for being in the guilty class.

Suki Falconberg, PhD’s letter is remarkable because is exists. Women who are used the way she was aren’t supposed to ever speak, least of all complain. Most of them never do.

That’s a painfully powerful letter.

I first saw it when Heart linked to it. I almost didn’t finish it upon my initial reading because of its tone. When she calls “almost” every GI who served in Japan a rapist, I recoiled. Shit, I knew people who served in Japan!

But I did read it all and I know her facts are indisputable: the rape of Berlin, the comfort women stations,etc. Her outraged is warranted. Hell, there would be something wrong with her if she wasn’t so outraged!

Now I’ve read it three times and it haunts me. Everyone should know this history, particularly as it’s still happening in the present. Shame on all the war historians and propagandists who continue to ignore women.

Agreed.

You can’t reclaim something that never belonged to you in the first place. Bitch is not redeemable.

Oh, and one other thing: the word bitch isn’t just a name for a female dog, it describes a female dog IN HEAT, a dog who desperately needs/wants to get laid.

Now consider the connotations when it’s thrown at an “uppity” woman.
Same old, same old.

Well said, TwissB. I have a big ol’ comment up-thread you can’t see because it’s stuck in moderation. It’s a letter to Ken Burns about his bullshit PBS series glorifying “The War,” written by Suki Falconberg, PhD, an ex-prostitute who fights against the sexual enslavement of women. She is also a passionate animal-rights activist. These two causes are directly related as the boys persist in dehumanizing women. Read her letter

http://www.energygrid.com/society/2007/10sf-thewar.html

then connect the dots between the reason boys war and the rape kennels that proliferate in war’s path. Support the troops?! I don’t THINK so. Little motherfuckers.