Feb 16 2012

Spinster aunt prattles on about pornography

Categories:

Men Hate You, Oppression Culture

by Twisty

Metal Teapot, in the comments to a recent post, sez:

I have grown up to believe that if a man says he doesn’t watch porn he is lying to you. I think, I’d rather a partner didn’t watch porn, but I’d also like several million dollars and to never have to work again. I certainly get the impression that men just tell you what you want to hear then continue to act the same. I guess that is where trust comes in but once again my cultural programming tells me that I’m not meant to see a guy lying about porn use as a violation of trust because I was being unreasonable.

Convincing women that they are being unreasonable, that dudely porn use is natural, normal, and even necessary-for-his-health behavior, and therefore you should support his porn use, and by the way you’ll never even find a dude who doesn’t use porn — this is one of the most successful misogynist campaigns of the modern megatheocorporatocracy.

The truth is that if you’re with a guy who uses porn, you’re with a guy who at his core believes that women are subhuman fucktoilets.

Women never want to believe this, for about 386 reasons. The idea of being objectified by the entire ruling class of default humans is too awful to contemplate. The implications are unthinkable. Women disdain to consider that life under the auspices of a culture of domination inexorably taints all relationships. But mostly they just don’t want to have to confront the porn-usin’ dude they love, the dude who will think they are being unreasonable, the dude they know will dump them before he’ll give up his porn.

So they think maybe their Nigel is different. A dude who believes that women are subhuman fucktoilets would have to be a mean, nasty sociopath, right? But their Nigel isn’t that guy; their Nigel is nice and smart and funny. He’d never dream of being violent. He makes great hummus. People like him. He’s a progressive. Sometimes he even does housework. He voted for Hilary. Yes, this Nigel uses porn, but he’s a great guy, so his porn use cannot possibly indicate that he eroticizes misogyny. And even if he does eroticize misogyny, that must mean that the eroticization of misogyny is no big whoop, or possibly even a swell thing for all concerned, because a guy as great as Nigel would never do anything to hurt anyone.

Nope, sorry. I will now unleash the aphorisms.

Pornography is the graphic representation, not just of violence against women, but of male supremacy. It degrades all women. It erodes the humanity of all women. Porn use fetishizes violence and supports male supremacy. Porn is the expression of patriarchy. Porn use is the practice of patriarchy.

You get the gist.

Nigel, in other words, gets off on practicing patriarchal oppression. He is actively antifeminist. He is actively wielding privilege. I don’t give a shit about this Nigel’s feelings, so I am free to assert that his indulgence in this entirely voluntary behavior somewhat mitigates his greatness. Proceed with caution.

Many women would sooner run me through a cheese grater and call me a man-hating prude who is too ugly to get laid than consider this: that global patriarchal oppression has effected between Nigels and women an intransigent opposition of interests. Women’s health and well-being depend on our acquiring fully human status, whereas male privilege depends on confining women to the sex underclass. For women to achieve human status we must dismantle male privilege, not acquiesce to the mania that celebrates pornography as awesome health-giving fun. Sex can never be a politically neutral interaction as long as the interests of one party are by universal decree prioritized over the interests of the other.

183 comments

Feb 13 2012

No. 2 Science Information

Categories:

Number 1 Science Information, Sexploitation

by Twisty

“Idleness is the parent of all psychology.”

Nietzsche said it, I believe it, and that settles it!

The gasbag Nietzsche, as you know, was a horse lover. Like many horse lovers, he went nuts trying to save a cart horse from being beaten in the streets of Turin and died, a madman of the first water, 11 years later.

O how I tire of the gasbag Nietzsche and the tragic donkey he rode in on.

I cannot say whether the gasbag Nietzsche, when aphorizing about idleness and the ancestry of psychology, was alluding to brainiacal afflictions of lazy people, or to Psychology itself, that pseudo-discipline purporting to liberate from the tyranny of perpetual mystery the darkest, clammiest secrets of human behavior, but his remark rings kind of semi-true in either case.

To wit: are you a delusional visionary with a drug problem and too much time on your hands? Invent psychoanalysis! Conversely, are you a disaffected 21st century neurotic with an hour to kill and $150 in your pocket? Seal your fate with some psychotherapy! It’s all your mother’s fault!

Psychology, it may be argued, is an affliction of the patriarchally-invested leisure class. How many hunter-gatherers, their waking hours immersed, not in the contemplation of their “issues,” but in the exigency of rudimentary survival, do you suppose suffered from anal retentiveness, penis envy, or “unconscious conflict” arising from kind of potty training mishap?

Psychology is on our last nerve here at Spinster HQ. The mythology! The misogyny! The introspection! The jargon! And omigod, the specialized branches! Omigod, evolutionary psychology! Also known as Dudely Wish-Fulfillment psychology, where No. 3 Scientists claim not merely to know the psychology of cavemen — deduced, apparently, from studying modern chimpanzees because obviously we’re identical in every way — but also to “know” that this imaginary caveman behavior is inexorably “hardwired” in modern humans, causing war, football, femininity, pornography, and dudes like omegapoint7@gmail.com [66.68.95.191] to write on my blog, “You live in Texas eh? I’m going to find you and rape you.”

Given that the whole enterprise threatens the structural integrity of my lobe, I was surprised to catch myself nodding at an article in Psychology Today, which is a humor magazine, concerning the role of readily available internet porn in “rewiring” the dudely brain to manifest a sexual response to “hairless genitals” and concomitantly, prepubescent girls.

The thesis — get ready for the shock of a lifetime — is that “intense stimulation can alter sexual tastes in some brains.” Dudes look at porn, look at porn, look at porn, all the live long day, it’s normal and healthy to jack off on computers, it isn’t hurting anyone, right, but ruh-roh, suddenly they discover that they’re looking at eight-year-old girls and seeing sexholes.

You see, there are these chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters, and –

All right, I admit it. It is not altogether sciencesque to identify a phenomenon based solely on a single observer’s sense of her own common sense, but, fuck, it’s just common sense. Of course prolonged exposure to a buttload of pornulated imagery, when persistently rewarded by orgasm, will result in acclimation to the “aesthetic.” Of course jagoffs who jagoff at images of depilated, labiaplastied women are gonna start giving little kids the eye. Phenotypically, there is little to distinguish the genitalia of pornulated women from that of actual children. Little kids = orgasm, dudes! Operant conditioning!

Slap me with a Skinner Box if you must, but dang it, operant conditioning works. At least it’s the basis of all animal training here at Spinster HQ. You reward the desired behavior, the behavior becomes associated with the reward, you add the command, and presto, the command produces the behavior. I have used operant conditioning to train my horse Pearl to play catch, to teach my horse Stanley to distinguish between a blue and a yellow traffic cone, and to make my dog Bert pick up a Frisbee and put it in a laundry basket. Why I don’t train them to do anything worthwhile, like clean out the refrigerator, remains one of the last great cosmic enigmas.

You can operantly condition a simple behavior in any reasonably sentient being in about 15 minutes, but it takes a little finesse. Timing is critical, lest you accidentally select for an undesirable behavior. It was through sloppy timing that I inadvertently taught my horse Stella to bite the crap out of my arm in an effort to make me produce a carrot. Obviously, unfavorable outcomes are possible if you’re not paying attention. So, as stupid as psychology generally sort of is, I gotta say I’m on board with this notion that dudes are using porn, whether inadvertently or not, to self-condition into oblivion any last, lonely vestiges of their aversion to sexing up little girls. Because let’s face it, who is paying less attention to the adverse effects of pornography than dudes who use pornography? Fucking knobs.

_______________________
“Can a donkey be tragic? – To perish beneath a load that one can neither bear nor throw off? This is the case of the [gasbag] philosopher” [and of the feminist]. Fred Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, “Maxim #11.” 1889.

Also, one of you blamers originally hipped me to this Psychology Today article, but my sieve-brain has apparently leaked the fluid containing your identity. Thanks, though, you know who you are!

236 comments

Feb 11 2012

Hugs, Twisty: I may have finally found that guest blogger I’ve been looking for

Categories:

Announcements, Hugs, Twisty

by Twisty

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 4:27 PM, kelly marsh wrote:
Hi,
My name is Kelly Marsh and I am a writer and a blogger. I’m just getting in touch to ask if you’re open to reviewing content from freelance. If so, I’d love to put together a high-quality article written specifically for the site. There is absolutely no charge for this and no strings attached; the only thing I would ask in return is that I’m able to include two do follow links to the sites of my choosing within the article – nothing shady or unethical, just one of the professional businesses I freelance for and I have some ideas that I think your readers would love:

1. Chicken Patriarchy
2. Biblical Patriarchy And The Doctrine Of Federal Representation
3. CORDANI SHOES-MAKE YOUR FEET HAPPY

Do let me know if you’re interested, and if so I can get something written for you over the course of the next few days.
Regards,
Kelly Marsh Blogger & Writer
E-mail: marshmarshkelly@gmail.com

kelly marsh marshmarshkelly@gmail.com to me
Feb 9 (2 days ago)

Hi,  Hope you doing well…:)  It’s a follow up email to you regarding my previous one which I send you couple of days back. But still I didn’t get any reply from your side whether you except guest post or not.

Thanks Kelly Marsh
*********************************************************

Dear Kelly Marsh,

I apologize for having taken so long to get back to you, but as an avid reader of my blog you know how busy a spinster aunt can be.

Your no-strings-attached offer of a high-quality guest post written at absolutely no charge containing random links of your own choosing is of great interest to me. I find I am unable to choose between the 3 exciting options you offer, and wonder if you would consider combining the topics, producing an essay titled “Biblical vs Chicken Patriarchy: Towards a Dialectic of Pedal Equanimity and the Deconstruction of Cultural Culture”?

Please let me know as soon as possible, so that I can leave my blog in your capable hands while I take a Hawaiian vacation.

Hugs, Twisty

40 comments

Feb 10 2012

VAWA in hot wa-wa

Categories:

Men Hate You, Politics, The megatheocorporatocracy

by Twisty

The Violence Against Women Act — VAWA — has had a rough time in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. It needed to be “reauthorized” for some reason — Congress probably needs decide every five years or so whether throwing a bone at abused women will win them votes — and, brace yourself for a huge shock, every single Republican on the committee said “no way, José.”

Addressing the human rights crisis of violence against women in the US literally required an Act of Congress. Hence, 1994′s VAWA, which, you’ll fondly recall, enhanced judicial, law enforcement, and social programs to deal with stuff like domestic violence, rape, stalking, etc.

Obviously VAWA hasn’t eliminated violence against women; the National Domestic Abuse Hotline gets 21,000 calls a month. But apparently the Act has resulted in some improvements. In addition to the creation of the aforementioned hotline, there are now VAWA-funded rape crisis centers and shelters, stalking is now considered a boney-fide crime (at least on paper) and date and spousal rape is now supposedly considered just as rapey as rape rape (again, on paper).

So why would a bunch of pink-faced Christian legislators* go on the record as being against a bill that seeks to eliminate violence against women?

Because they’re xenophobic gayophobic transophobic pod people from the Delta Quadrant.

See, there are provisions in VAWA 2011 that would extend services and protections to marginalized groups like undocumented women, gay women, and transwomen. That’s a lotta women. Nevertheless, Republican Senator pod-people are fully prepared to endure the suffering of those women, as well as to throw under the bus the straight, white American victims of abuse. Anything to get their jacknut constituents to vote for’em again.

These dipshit misogynist godbags hate dykes and undocumented women so much that the faintest suggestion of exhibiting human decency toward them causes their limbic systems to secrete holy water. And as you know, holy water on the brain is a very serious condition. It nearly always portends that a bunch of women and kids, especially brown women and kids, are about to get the short end of some pointy, honky dude stick.

_____________________
* Here, for your blaming convenience, are the usual suspects, so you can drop’em a line. The Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans: Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Michael S. Lee (R-Utah), Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma

A tip of the manure-stained John Deere trucker cap to @AmandaMarcotte

63 comments

Feb 08 2012

Pissed off cancer patient holds forth

Categories:

Crazy sexy cancer

by Twisty

I hate to post a vid and run, but duty calls me away from my desk. I invite you to behold Linda, whose eloquent and moving Komen takedown had me literally clapping — with both hands — by the end. What she describes is precisely my own experience, by the way, with the exception of the supportive husband, and the fact that it was even worse than she says. I have those same goddam scars!

For more “what cancer is” photos here at IBTP, including a blamer’s actual surgery and a fun post-op pic of my second mastectomy, click here.

Via Jezebel, with thanks to Stellatex

54 comments

Feb 07 2012

PBS: Profiles in sexiness

Categories:

Femininity, Movies and TV

by Twisty

Longtime readers are aware that hot flashes at 2 AM often oblige spinster aunts to engage in feverish channel-flipping. Last night, in the grip this plague, I encountered on PBS a riveting episode of “American Experience,” which series documentarizes and dramatizes the lives of iconic figures in American history. The subject of last night’s re-run was that Gay Nineties sweetheart of the Wild West, sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

The talking heads interviewed for “American Experience” were unanimous: Annie Oakley was awesome because even though she performed — shooting cigars out of people’s mouths and splitting playing cards in half at 30 paces — covered head to toe in buckskin, she was still one sexay laday!

Annie Oakley managed to combine both demureness and voluptuousness in her costume… She never showed any skin. Her ankles were never bare. But her costumes were form-fitting. She wore leggings under short skirts, so people could see the shape of her legs as she ran out into the arena… She was, in that sense, appealing to the best instincts in the men in her audience, men who were attracted to her sexuality while still not having to feel guilty about being attracted, because at the same time she was ladylike and she was demure… ” –[Paul Fees, American Experience website (originally misattributed to Joy Kasson, oops)]

It’s a good thing “American Experience” is on the case, guarding against the chance that sweaty midnight spinster aunts might accidentally think of Annie Oakley in terms other than that of dudely boners.

45 comments

Feb 07 2012

BeeDeeEssEm insiders have unpopular revelation

Categories:

Rape Culture, Sexploitation

by Twisty

I hope you’re sitting down, because I am about to reveal the shock of a lifetime.

Abuse is rampant in the BDSM ‘community’.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is BDSM “activist and sex worker” Kitty Stryker:

“When I start to think of the number of times I have been cajoled, pressured, or forced into sex that I did not want when I came into ‘the BDSM community’, I can’t actually count them,” Stryker wrote in Good Vibrations’ magazine. “As I reflected on the number of times I’ve … been pressured into a situation where saying ‘no’ was either not respected or not an option, or said that I did not want a certain kind of toy used on me which was then used, I’m kind of horrified.”

According to Stryker, ignoring safe words, torturing women submissives with “toys,” and raping them is de rigueur around the dungeon, but nobody in the scene will admit it or cop to it. When a member of the ‘community’ does speak out, she is ignored or accused of being a whiner. Or of being drunk. A cloak of secrecy envelops our enlightened fetishists, which fetishists, I might add, are constantly defending their corny lifestyle as liberating, empowerful, and awesome.

You know it always works out super great for women in environments that are enveloped by cloaks of secrecy.

So, as is revealed in the afore-linked article, a couple of BDSM activist ladies are trying to get the word out about the abuse. But uh-oh. Surprise. They are being met with resistance from upholders of the BDSM status quo. One of these grumpy gusses suggests that women who get themselves assaulted are basically asking for it. She avers that the activists’ position has “some of the flavor of the kind of victimhood that we see from some second wave feminists.” And I hate to have to tell you, she doesn’t consider “second wave feminist” a compliment!

The scene is at least tacitly acknowledged by its adherents to be inherently dangerous, spawning a victim-blaming protocol of safeguards reminiscent of those rape-avoidance email forwards. Cautions one avid participant:

A bottom/sub MUST investigate who they are seeking to play with. They MUST insist that their safe words are honored. They should, when playing with someone new or unfamiliar, have someone they trust be present to look out for their safety. A bottom/sub should never play with someone the first time in a private location (someone’s home, hotel, etc.). If public play spaces are not available, try to set an arrangement where there will be someone to look after their best interests.

As in, “Yo, dude, I insist that you not rape me when I say the safe word.” Telling a rapist not to rape me, now why didn’t I think of that? That always works!

Since time began, the argument here on Savage Death Island has been that the fetishization of oppression culture is pretty profoundly antifeminist. Arguments from BDSM fans about its awesomeness have always had the whiff of denial and delusion about them. The notion that the BDSM community is a kinky little oasis of trust and respect in a world that in every other respect is governed by misogynist patriarchal mores has never rung true. Of course men rape women in the BDSM scene, because men rape women, period. You don’t have to be a world-class spinster aunt specializing in No. 1 Science Information to conclude that enactment of abuse scenarios for sexual gratification is unlikely to result in an abuse-free outcome. Or to recognize all the usual trappings of rape culture, from victim-silencing to ineffectual rape-prevention advice to circling the wagons to protect the abusers. Far from “pushing the boundaries” and being “transgressive,” BDSM is nothing but the same tired old status quo in a corny rubber slave mask.

And it’s stupid.

[Note: Using the acronym "BDSM" in your comment will send it straight to moderation; that's just how the spamulator works.]

Thanks Matty

190 comments

Feb 03 2012

Komen caves

Categories:

Announcements

by Twisty

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.” — Komen press release

Crap, now they’ll be forgiven and everyone will go back to pinkness and plucky survivorship and mistaking shopping for philanthropy and looking the other way on the whole carcinogenic corporate partners thing.

UPDATE: Komen has in fact used the old Fake Cave Gambit, which I would have realized if I’d spent two more minutes thinking about that press release. Check this out.

Thanks @janeenlee.

49 comments

Feb 02 2012

Women aren’t funny

Categories:

Art is my LIFE, Men Hate You

by Twisty

Based on a true story.

252 comments

Feb 02 2012

Komen sucks, Part 47

Categories:

Crazy sexy cancer, The megatheocorporatocracy

by Twisty

Nothing could heartwarm the spinster aunt–cum–plucky breast cancer survivor more than to see the vile Komen Foundation getting raked over the coals and scrutinized and vilified in the mainstream. It’s about fucking time.

So it is fair to ask: Just what are the scientific and medical standards to which the Susan G. Komen Foundation adheres, if any? Why would a breast cancer organization hire staff and elect board members that misrepresent science and facts?  Can you trust them to give you sound information about breast cancer?  And can you trust them with investing your money in the best possible efforts to end breast cancer? — Jodi Jackson, RH Reality Check.

The answer:

No. Duh.

If you missed it, the story so far:

1. Komen withdraws $600,000 in funding from Planned Parenthood, citing a policy that prohibits Komen’s support of any organization that is the subject of an investigation (Planned Parenthood is currently being harassed by House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who has launched a politically-motivated, trumped-up “inquiry” into whether PP has used federal funds for abortion services).

2. Komen’s Senior Vice President for Policy turns out to be ultraconservative antifeminist Georgia gubernatorial washout Karen Handel, who thinks shocked Planned Parenthood supporters should “cry me a river” (click the thumbnail for a screencap of the offending retweet via @JessicaValenti). Handel is an anti-choice right-winger of the first water. In her gubernatorial campaign she pledged to “eliminate” grants to Planned Parenthood.

3. Outcry is substantial. I just wish it went a little deeper.

Deeper than what, you ask? Well, right now the principle criticism of Komen is that Planned Parenthood used the Komen cash to administer breast cancer screenings, about 170,000 in all, to mostly low-income and marginalized women. Now, nobody is against breast cancer screenings for the poor. But once an indigent or uninsured woman gets the free mammogram, and it comes up positive, what then? Who is going to pay for her treatment? Cute teddy bears? Volunterrorists in pink baseball caps? Consumer philanthropists eating “Crunch for the Cure” junk food? “Early detection” doesn’t mean shit if the early detectee is just left flapping in the breeze.

Listen everyone, Komen doesn’t prevent cancer, and Komen doesn’t pay for breast cancer treatment. It “raises awareness” through “early detection” and funds “research” focused on pharmaceutical cures for cancers that many of Komen’s corporate sponsors might likely have a hand in causing in the first place. Of the 11 Austin-area Komen grant recipients, for example, only one, WINGS, lists “comprehensive no-cost breast cancer treatment” in its list of services. The other 10 focus almost exclusively on diagnostics, “education,” and “patient navigation” (“patient navigation”? What the heck is that, they throw indigent patients in a boat and make’m row for the cure?).

I hasten to point out that WINGS received only $218,000 from Komen-Austin in 2011. That might sound like a lot, and it is, but in terms of cancer treatment it’s a drop in the bucket (for example, my own little foray into the cutthroat world of breast cancer patienthood has cost well over $100,000 so far. Although I have insurance, about $50,000 of that amount was out-of-pocket for designer drugs and genetic testing that insurance wouldn’t cover). So, out of all the women in the Austin area who have breast cancer — a lot, since 1 out of 7 women get it at some point — there’s only enough Komen loot to pay for the treatment of — I’ll be generous — 2.5 of them. And that’s if WINGS doesn’t spend any money on anything else, and that’s if the women go to San Antonio for their free treatment, because WINGS has no affiliation with any health care providers in Austin.

In other words, Komen doesn’t give a shit about poor women, so the hell with those who look to Planned Parenthood for a free breast exam.* With politics clearly a greater priority than women’s health, it’s no surprise that Komen is, quoth Jackson, “allied with those who misrepresent medical and public health evidence, including about causes of breast cancer.”

Nefarious Komen VP Karen Handel is not alone in her misogynist agenda. Board member Jane Abraham is also affiliated with some very nasty groups. You know those crisis pregnancy centers where lying liar godbags lie to pregnant ladies about abortions causing breast cancer and other spurious shit? Jane Abraham is, like, the queen of those things. Meanwhile, says Jackson,

you don’t see too many folks working with the Komen Foundation who are out there pounding the pavement on, say, the possible links between environmental toxins and breast cancer, causal links between which make the corporate partners of Komen very, very nervous.

Komen is the most visible brand in the whole cancer industrial complex. It disguises itself as some big altruistic community effort for women’s health, but it’s really just another conservative, honky organization with a misogynist political agenda. A marketing juggernaut instrumental in raking in piles of cash for and cleansing the tarnished images of its evil corporate sponsors, Komen has successfully brainwashed millions to believe that the “problem” of women’s health can be solved by licking yogurt lids.

_________________
* In fact, the whole Komen-driven breast cancer “movement” is centered around middle-class white women. Drop by any pinkathon on race day if you need corroboration.

46 comments

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