Wednesday, February 17, 2010

"Violation is a synonym for intercourse" DOES NOT MEAN "all sex is rape"!

 
This message is being brought to you by anti-feminists across the Internet.
[image is from here
"As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media." -- bell hooks
"Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating." -- Andrea Dworkin
"Since the abatement of censorship, masculine hostility (psychological or physical) in specifically sexual contexts has become far more apparent. Yet as masculine hostility has been fairly continuous, one deals here probably less with a matter of increase than with a new frankness in expressing hostility in specifically sexual contexts. It is a matter of release and freedom to express what was once forbidden expression outside of pornography or other "underground" productions, such as those of De Sade. As one recalls both the euphemism and the idealism of descriptions of coitus in the Romantic poets (Keats's Eve of St. Agnes), or the Victorian novelists (Hardy, for example) and contrasts it with Miller or William Burroughs, one has an idea of how contemporary literature has absorbed not only the truthful explicitness of pornography, but its anti-social character as well. Since this tendency to hurt or insult has been given free expression, it has become far easier to assess sexual antagonism in the male." -- Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, 1968
In the late 1960s, Kate Millett identified something, in society and in literature, that was rampantly manifest at the time she observed it: male aggression took especially sexual forms, often against females. Force is fetishised.

Her observation was refuted by many men, even while she had analysed the books of  well-read and established "great" male writers. Men fumed that she dared to say out loud something that many already intimately knew, but had no language for: that sex and gender are profoundly political, even more than they were or are "natural" as that term is popularly (mis)understood. It was like announcing "water is wet" or "fire is hot". She was telling a basic, fundamental social (not natural) truth about men in a patriarchal, rapist society that het men knew but didn't want known.

It was and, forty-plus years later, still is het men who aggress sexually against women, calling it "sex". To this day, "fucking" and "sex" are synonymous to many people. From Most heterosexual people I know use the term "sex", when describing an activity between people, to mean "vaginal/penile intercourse" and nothing else. Everything else has its own name: blowjob, eating out, handjob, jerking off. But "sex", to this day, is a synonym for the act in which a part of a man's body is placed, somehow, within a woman's genitals.

Maybe, just maybe we can weed out some of the online antifeminist bozo-block's misinformation campaign's most malicious mendacity.

Ranking in the top ten lies antifeminists tattle online, is that Andrea Dworkin (and/or Catharine A. MacKinnon--with her first name almost always misspelled), said that "all sex is rape" or "all intercourse is rape". Neither of them ever said it or wrote it, and if you want a non-feminist source of verification that neither feminist said it, go to snopes.com, *here* and read the page called "rape seeded" about this internet and off-line printed myth/lie/misinformation campaign. MacKinnon has, in one of her more recent books, in a footnote, traced this misinformation back to a few sources, all of which were anti-radical feminist.

But the lie remains because it serves antifeminist/propatriarchal/propornographer/propimp interests to keep it going and going and going, like an Energizer Bunny on a sports drink, double latte, and speed.

One might reasonably ask, where in Intercourse, by Dworkin, does it say "all sex is rape" or "all intercourse is rape"? Answer: Nowhere. (But surely she's said it, somewhere, at some time, in some book she wrote once about something? Nope. Not at all. Not ever.) What Andrea Dworkin DOES say is that, in English, "violation", socially, is a synonym for intercourse. If you're familiar either with pornography, romance novels, soap operas, or something called "dominant society", you'd know this is ubiquitously and indubitably the case, and is not at all a controversial or contested observation, on the part of Andrea Dworkin. It's as controversial as saying "war kills people" or "pollution is unhealthy". Yes, there are defenders of both war and pollution, and, in fact, those people are in charge of Western civilisation. So too are the men who define sex as fucking and fucking as the violation, penetration, and occupation of a woman by a man. They are called, here, corporate pimps, pornographers, husbands, preachers, and politicians.

Steering clear of pornography, I'll alert those still in massive denial about this matter of socially synonymous semantics with romance novel-speak for "intercourse involving a man's penis and a woman's vagina". Sex, as fucking, as violation, is often called "penetration". Here is a very partial portion of a VERY long list for ALL the heterosexist expressions, phallocentric phrases, antifeminist axioms, endemically misogynistic euphemisms, and plain old dirty terms for "that act", aka "the fuck" found in a collection of romance novels:
  • as he took her
  • buried himself to the hilt
  • burying himself all the way
  • claimed her
  • cry of pleasure
  • driving into her
  • drove his manhood
  • drove into her
  • drove up into her
  • embedding himself deeply
  • entered her with a driving thrust
  • filled her completely
  • filled her in one swift motion
  • filled her to the hilt
  • ground his molten member into her
  • he took her
  • imbedded himself
  • impaled her
  • impaling her on his straining shaft
  • moved hard into her
  • plunged his manhood
  • plunged inside her
  • plunged into her
  • plunging hotness penetrated
  • possess the lily
  • powerful fullness entered and filled her
  • probed her
  • pulling her down
  • pushed into her
  • sharp penetration
  • speared her
  • surrendered
  • thrust himself into her
  • thrust his hardness into her softness
  • thrust of his manhood
  • wanting became reality
That last one... I had to keep it in the abridged list, because it's so fucking hilarious. As for the others above, we can note how, again and again, dominant society reinforces the idea that both "woman" and "man" = their genitals. The heterosexual woman and man's genitals are one and the same--the penis isn't just an extension of the man who fucks, but it IS the man who fucks. The fucking makes the man, as long as the fuckee is female or feminine. And she doesn't have a vagina and vulva as her genitals; instead, when that area of her body is penetrated, "she" is penetrated. He took her, means his penis entered her vagina. He speared her means his penis entered her vagina. This act of "love-making", in these very popular books, requires force against a person: taking her, pulling her down, pushing, plunging, impaling, sharp penetration, thrust, and surrender.

I know this will shock some of the most ardent "anti-MacDworkinites" but Andrea Dworkin didn't make society. For all the power anti-feminist men project onto her, she was never so powerful as to be able to create the world we live in. She was able to name aspects of it, however. And she did this without regard to whether it made men look "good". But she noted that men, in a dualistically and hierarchically gendered society, means "good", and womanhood means "bad". So men are good, by definition, and women are bad, by definition. This partially explains why it is that het men who visually violate women who have been pimped and raped and displayed by their pimps, think they are looking at "pictures of naked women". They are not.

They are looking at pictures or are watching videos of women who are portrayed as bad, with their sexuality and their genitals also being "bad", in need of punishment, abuse, subordination, submission, death. Andrea Dworkin didn't create the pornography industry, she wrote about it. Pimps created all that material that portray women as wh*res, as sinful, as evil, as a tease, as deserving of all forms of degradation and violence. The only irony, and it is a bitter one, is that since women are, definitionally, "bad", one wonders why men have to make her pay for it over and over and over again. For what else can she be? And what will she be after all that degradation and violence: "good"?

Well, according to dominant society, her being tamed and tethered to him is "good". In our terribly romantic heterosexist society, her father gives her to hre husband. If he's a gentle-man, he asks her father for permission to marry her. How sweet, right? She never quite gets to stand alone, does she? This is the real world of patriarchal imperatives and practices. This is "life". And Kate Millett and Andrea Dworkin, among many other women, had the audacity to challenge those imperatives and call for an end to those practices which subordinate women and define her, her sexuality, and her genitals as "bad"--in need of punishment, subduing, subordination to him and his other "him"--his penis.

As Dworkin notes in her writings, pornography takes all that romantic Disney-esque racist, rapist CRAP to far more overtly misogynistic and racist places. I'll leave it to the reader, who I trust has been around the patriachal block, to seek out verification, using Google, if necessary, of the degrees to which corporate pimps will go to keep this propaganda (called "porn" in popular vernacular) in the censored and withered Western imagination. As Dworkin noted, it is pornographers who are the censors, not the feminists who oppose them with their not-so-well-funded speech. Pornographers make many billions of dollars a year and can afford a bevy of attorneys to make sure their "speech rights" are not abridged in any way. That their speech means women's silence was noted by Dworkin and is ignored, generally.

Her work is both ignored and distorted, by anti-feminists who want to kill feminism so their their white economically privileged dickdoms may stay institutionally erect, looming large, in charge.

With great thanks to feministx, I am glad to be able to post this clarification of misogynist men's incessant internet lie about "what Andrea Dworkin said" that anti-feminists have been blabbering on about endlessly, as if they've ever read a book by Dworkin. What follows is all hers--a post she just did on this subject:

The Science of Heteronormative Sex

I commented on Sophia's blog in response to a criticism of a feminist. Commenters subsequently implied a mocking derision of an author who is dear to me, Andrea Dworkin.

Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercourse_(book)) Dworkin describes her assessment of heterosexual intercourse as it is generally performed and perceived.
Intercourse is a particular reality for women as an inferior class; and it has, in it, as part of it, violation of boundaries, taking over, occupation, destruction of privacy, all of which are construed to be normal and also fundamental to continuing human existence.

Intercourse is often said to argue that "all heterosexual sex is rape", based on the line from the book that says "violation is a synonym for intercourse.
"
And the mocking ensues- Oh Andrea! What a loony. Heteronormative sex degrading? Comparable to an occupation? Only something the most vile of extremists would say such a thing!

Pah. If you don't think heteronormative sex is degrading for a woman, there are some possible explanations for your puerile and impaired understanding of sexual relations:

Reason A: You are a virgin. You don't know anything about sex.
Reason B: You either aren't very reflective or you aren't good at coming to reasonable conclusions upon reflection.
Reason C: You are stoopid.

First, we should make sure to develop a careful understanding of the meaning of the word, degraded.

degrading: de⋅grade [di-greyd or, for 3, dee-greyd] Show IPA verb, -grad⋅ed, -grad⋅ing.
–verb (used with object)
1. to lower in dignity or estimation; bring into contempt: He felt they were degrading him by making him report to the supervisor.
2. to lower in character or quality; debase.
3. to reduce (someone) to a lower rank, degree, etc.; deprive of office, rank, status, or title, esp. as a punishment: degraded from director to assistant director.
4. to reduce in amount, strength, intensity, etc.
5. Physical Geography. to wear down by erosion, as hills. Compare aggrade.
6. Chemistry. to break down (a compound, esp. an organic hydrocarbon).

–verb (used without object) 7. to become degraded; weaken or worsen; deteriorate.
8. Chemistry. (esp. of an organic hydrocarbon compound) to break down or decompose.

To empirically verify the degrading nature of heteronormative sex, I propose an experiment which is at least as empirically valid as other online studies performed in the Roissysphere.

If you are a hetero male, I want you to follow these instructions closely.

1) Get on your knees with your legs slightly spread.
2) Position yourself so that your head is closer to the ground than your ass. Arch your back.
3) Remain in this position for a few minutes.

Ok, you complied? Let's review the nature of this experience.

Question (1) Pick the word that most closely describes how you felt in that position.

a) powerful
b) callipygean (s'how I always feel anyways)
c) ulotrichous
d) degraded

That was step one. For step two of the experiment, you probably have to use your imagination. Return yourself to the position required for question 1 (remember to keep your head to the ground and your butt raised high), and now close your eyes and envision the following scenario. An entity of a categorically different physical form with twice your muscle weight is going to repeatedly jam a six inch foreign object into to a cavity in the middle of your body. Imagine this vividly for several minutes.

Ok, back up? Now again let's review how this made you feel for question 2.

a) noble
b) ninja-like
c) jumentous
d) degraded

Imagine that the above scenario is regularly expected of you. Note that the larger entity involved in the thought experiment in question 2 is practiced at lying, bribery, coercion and emotional manipulation and enjoys using such methods to convince you to engage in the scenario described in question 2. You are also well informed of the historical fact that the identical predecessors of said larger entity often resorted to brute force and totalitarian oppression in order to coerce your physical category into continuously tolerating the scenario described in question 2. Additionally, these larger entities colluded together to maintain such oppression for thousands of years. This information makes you feel:

a) gymnophoria
b) skoptic (hint: this is the right answer)
c) moo cow
d) degraded

Post answers in the comments section. Notice that a number of words used in the very definition of the word degraded also directly apply to the description of the position described in question 1 (lower, reduced in rank etc).

On Blaming Oneself and Taking Responsibility for Sexual Violence: When it Is, and Is Not, Appropriate

[image is from here]

Everything before the thee asterisks [*     *     *] is from here at current.com/BBC News. Everything after the three stars is by me.  -- Julian
It is depressing that people are still quick to blame the victim of rape rather than placing the responsibility where it actually belongs - squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator
Kate Allen
Amnesty International



Page last updated at 14:04 GMT, Monday, 15 February 2010
Women say some rape victims should take blame - survey



Rape victim in specialist clinic (posed by model)
The survey found there was some reluctance to report being raped
A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened, a survey suggests.

Almost three quarters of the women who believed this said if a victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.

One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker's house for a drink.

The survey of more than 1,000 people in London marked the 10th anniversary of the Haven service for rape victims.

More than half of those of both sexes questioned said there were some circumstances when a rape victim should accept responsibility for an attack.

Less forgiving
The study found that women were less forgiving of the victim than men.

Of the women who believed some victims should take responsibility, 71% thought a person should accept responsibility when getting into bed with someone, compared with 57% of men.

Elizabeth Harrison from Haven said there was never an excuse for forcing a woman to do something she did not want to.

"Clearly, women are in a position where they need to take responsibility for themselves - but whatever you wear and whatever you do does not give somebody else the right to rape you.

"It's important people take the time to actually look at what they are doing and make sure the person they are with is actually wanting to go ahead with what they are proposing."

The survey also found more than one in 10 people were unsure whether they would report being raped to the police, and 2% said they would definitely not do so.

The main reasons were being too embarrassed or ashamed (55%), wanting to forget it had happened (41%) and not wanting to go to court (38%).

Meanwhile, the survey suggested that many people are relaxed about their safety. Almost half of people have walked home via side streets on their own.

One in five has been so drunk they have lost their memory, while one in five has got into a taxi without checking whether it is licensed.

Hardening attitudes
When asked about their own experiences, more than a third of those polled said they had been in a situation where they could have been made to have sex against their will.

Women are more likely to have been in this situation - 40% compared to 20%.

And one in five adults had been in a situation where they were made to have sex when they did not want to. This had happened to more women (23%) than men (20%).


The online survey, titled Wake Up To Rape, polled 1,061 people aged 18 to 50, comprising 712 women and 349 men.

An Amnesty International report five years ago found that a significant minority of British people laid the blame for rape at victims themselves.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw says this latest study suggests attitudes may have hardened. And the findings may help explain why juries are reluctant to convict in some rape trials.

Amnesty International's UK director Kate Allen said the new findings were "alarming but sadly not surprising".
"It is depressing that, nearly half a decade later, people are still quick to blame the victim of rape rather than placing the responsibility where it actually belongs - squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator," she said.

"The government has announced that it will develop an 'integrated strategy' to tackle violence against women and these findings are another reminder of how urgent this is and how proper training, support and resourcing will be vital in making it a reality."

The Home Office said it had introduced a number of measures to the service provided to rape victims, including new police and prosecutors' guidance, monitoring of services and funding for support for rape victims.

A spokeswoman said: "The government is determined to ensure that every victim has immediate access to the services and support they need so that more victims have the confidence to come forward and report these crimes and we can bring the perpetrators to justice."
*          *          *

When I was sexually assaulted by a white het man in his thirties when I was twelve, I blamed myself for several reasons.
1. The perp didn't take responsibility for the assault, or the harm done to me, or the damage, or the hurt, or the violation. He acted as though he was fully entitled to do what he did, which meant to me, that I was not entitled at all to say no or to fight him off.

2. I didn't fight him off or say no. I was too terrified to speak.

3. It was caused me less anxiety and post-traumatic terror, temporarily, to me to blame myself than to blame him. To blame him would have required me to be angry at him, and anger at him felt dangerous to me. It felt dangerous for me to even know what I felt about him and about what he did to me. I didn't even have language for the horror of what happened. So I buried the whole assault, emotionally, for years, never speaking of it to anyone. To blame myself meant I could imagine I had power and control in a situation in which I had neither. Self-blame = lack of vulnerability to perpetration, in my mind which had been shaped by living in a society in which perps never take responsibility for what they/we do, and instead force the victims to "prove it". Why don't the perps just admit it?

I have admitted what I've done that was harmful to other people, and have made amends with all of them. It's possible to do, if the one's you've hurt are open to hearing from you at all. And they may not be, for many good reasons. My first question to those I once harmed was "Would it be helpful to you in any way for us to discuss what I did to you?" This alerts the person harmed to the fact that I'm not about the blame them for my behavior. Everyone I've asked this to has said "Yes" and has appreciated me initiating an emotional process of me being responsible for everything I did, with that question. 

I've had to have that conversation twice. I would say that I was a perpetrator twice. When I have described in detail what happened, what I did, and what the dynamics and context was, most men don't consider it abusive of me at all, among both het and gay men. Some women don't either, but every feminist I've talked to about those two incidents "get it" about why consent wasn't meaningful and my actions caused harm.

In neither case was the scenario overtly forceful. In court, both situations would be called "consensual" and would not be called sexual abuse, but I knew that due to many factors, consent wasn't all that meaningful. In both cases I was an older male who had some sexual contact with a younger male. In neither case was the male underage (under seventeen) at the time of the contact. One male was seventeen, and one was nineteen. I was ten years older with the seventeen year-old, and more than twice the age of the nineteen year-old. 

I made an effort to speak with both men about what I did, and when either tried to put some of the blame on themselves, with statements like "I initiated part of that" or "I feel like I used you too", I explained why I didn't think that was a reason for me not being fully responsible for what happened, and they got to disagree, but they did come to see that I was fully responsible. It was meaningful to them not just that "I was sorry" or that "I regretted it occurring". What was especially meaningful to each person I'd perpetrated was that I didn't let them take the blame, or initiate the conversation being unclear about who did what to whom. It was also helpful that I welcomed them to express any feelings they had, including anger, at me, to me, whenever they wished to and that I told them they were fully entitled to be angry with me for manipulating situations to allow sex to occur. In neither case was I the sole initiator of the sexual behavior. But in both cases I choreographed the opportunities for that sexual behavior to occur--behavior that was abusive on my part because consent was not meaningful. More simply put, if someone cannot, at any moment, say "no" to what is happening in a sexual encounter, then a "yes" given or implied earlier on is not an indicator of meaningful consent being present at the time of abuse or assault.

Assuming for the moment a two-person scenario, which was the case in both situations in which I was abusive to others, I think the following is important to note. For me, to me, consent is only meaningful if both people are fully aware of all of what is about to occur, or is in the perpetrator's mind to do before it happens, and he shares that, those intentions, those wishes, before any sexual activity occurs, but NOT in a way that is coercive, or intended to make sure it happens. It is also important that all consequences be discussed before sexual activity ensues, no matter who initiates it. Consent also requires equal political agency and capacity to say no, or to otherwise indicate a wish to not proceed or to stop. Consent also requires the person with more political power, social status, and institutional entitlements to make sure the person being sexually engaged is not dissociated, is fully present, is willfully engaging in the behavior and is welcoming of it. And I did many of those things, and still abuse occurred. This is one of many reasons I believe most men are sexual abusers. Because most sex men initiate or choreograph or "make happen" doesn't do all of the above.

When the perpetrator doesn't take full responsibility, or worse, blames the one harmed, then it is yet another form of abuse against that person by the abuser.

MutherFuckerForLies, aka "MotherForTruth" on how the raped are responsible for being raped

 
[image of anti-rape poster by men's anti-rape group is from here]

I encourage anyone who is anti-rape to visit this website and respond to this piece of writing in need of feminist analysis, titled:

Concern over 'Women say some rape victims should take blame' survey

Below is a comment posted to that "discussion". And below that is my reply, calling out that pro-rape het-man. Please add your comments.


MotherForTruth

  • It is not ok to rape someone.
    But what is considered a rape? It is not so simple. Our emotions interfere to see clearly and we tend to react to the word “rape” picturing a bad guy taking advantage of this poor innocent girl.
    In my opinion it is not what she is wearing or how she talks it's the intent of attracting sexual advances. I hear first-hand stories all the time.

    Picture this party; heavy drinking, sex games, stripping, dancing with sexual intent where a female turns her back towards the male and shaking her body against him. Now all heavily drunk the two have sex. The next morning she regrets the whole thing. Was she raped? She wants to put the blame on him because it's easier for her to be a victim then facing the circumstances of her actions.

    In this scenario I believe there was a consensual sex not rape. But all too often such circumstances resulting in women claim rape. We now have laws allowing prosecution of men having sex with intoxicated woman and the law is blind on one eye by ignoring that the man was also intoxicated. Resulting in men in prison and registered sex offender for life while she can go on to another party.
    Rape charges like these take away from real victims of rape who do need to come forward and get help.

    Well known radical feminists view on rape is as followed, it's up to each of us to follow these beliefs or not.

    " all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent"(Catherine MacKinnon in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies, p. 129.)

    "All men are rapists and that's all they are"(Marilyn French Author, "The Women's Room”, and advisor to Al Gore's Presidential Campaign)

    "All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."(Catherine MacKinnon)

    "Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."(Catherine Comins, Vassar College Assistant Dean of Student Life in Time, June 3, 1991, p. 52.)

julianreal
responding to
  • MotherForTruth:"In my opinion it is not what she is wearing or how she talks it's the intent of attracting sexual advances."

    Rape is not AT ALL about the intentions of those who are raped, but ENTIRELY ABOUT the effect of the rapers on those they violate and harm.

    "Picture this party; heavy drinking, sex games, stripping, dancing with sexual intent where a female turns her back towards the male and shaking her body against him. Now all heavily drunk the two have sex. The next morning she regrets the whole thing. Was she raped? She wants to put the blame on him because it's easier for her to be a victim then facing the circumstances of her actions."

    Get this:
    As Andrea Dworkin once famously said about date-rape victims:
    the punishment for getting drunk with a frat boy and taking him to your room should be a hangover, not rape.


    "In this scenario I believe there was a consensual sex not rape. But all too often such circumstances resulting in women claim rape. We now have laws allowing prosecution of men having sex with intoxicated woman and the law is blind on one eye by ignoring that the man was also intoxicated."

    In your fake scenario, you get to believe whatever you want. And so what? If a drunk driver hits another drunk driver, does that means there was no accident? And if drunk driver A kills drunk driver B, is B not dead because they also were drunk?

    If I start to have sex because I want to, and then stop, and say I want to and he doesn't respect it, then guess what? That's rape. See here for more:


    http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-...

    By your logic no harm is can be done if two people are drunk. Well that lets all rapists know how to get away with it, doesn't it? Just get the woman [and yourself, the rapist] drunk. (Hmmm. And how many frat boys and guys out at a bar do exactly that?)

    "Resulting in men in prison and registered sex offender for life while she can go on to another party."

    Not likely. Most rapes aren't reported and most reported rapes don't result in a conviction. Even a woman with a knife at her neck who was raped will have a hard time proving it. Because people like you will say she intended to have sex. He won't be harmed at all, but she will be called a "wh*re" and a "sl*t" and be told she now deserves to be raped, and she'll be threatened and probably raped by some jerks who are pissed because she "falsely" accused a man who DID date raped her. And he's not even likely to see jail time! So get a clue, please, about how rape prosecution really works... for men who rape, not for women who are raped.

    "Rape charges like these take away from real victims of rape who do need to come forward and get help."

    Comments like yours take away from believing any woman who is date raped.


    "Well known radical feminists view on rape is as followed, it's up to each of us to follow these beliefs or not."

    You're statements that follow are "false accusations" (lies) that are typically passed around the internet without any fact-checking. They were never said by Catharine MacKinnon, whose misspelled name you copied and pasted without correcting. (Hint: That's how you know she didn't say it: the misogynist misquoter can't even spell the name right!)

    " all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent"(Catherine MacKinnon in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies, p. 129.)

    That's not one of CathArine A. MacKinnon's books, first of all. And she never said it. Ever. Or wrote it down. Try and find it in one of her books or speeches: you won't.

    "All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."(Catherine MacKinnon)

    That's not a comment ever made by MacKinnon either. Your credibility as a commenter--and you are a man, not a woman at all, by the way--is busted.


    Check this out for some truth-telling about what MacKinnon did and didn't say and write, and please note how to spell her name, so the next time you copy and paste lies here, you can at least correct that inaccuracy, while you seek to promote the rest:

    http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mackinnon.asp


    Guess what? You lied. Now how many people have you harmed by doing so?

Sexual Disorientation and the Problem of Eracism: Which Wins Olympic Gold: Misogyny, Racism, or Homophobia?






[image of U.S. white male figure skater Evan Lysacek is from here]






[image of U.S. white male figure skater Johnny Weir is from here]

Click on the following heading for the link to the original site.

Tanith Belbin, Johnny Weir Share Room in Olympic Village

U.S. figure skater Evan Lysacek can't be a happy camper.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer,  Lysacek's ex-girlfriend Tanith Belbin -- an ice dancer -- and his nemesis Johnny Weir are sharing a room in Vancouver's Olympic Village.

A housing problem forced Belbin to choose between sharing a room with Weir or Lysacek.  
Belbin's choice was obvious.

"Johnny and Evan were both in the same boat. It was just the three of us, and there was one room with two single bedrooms," Belbin told the newspaper. "If you take Johnny and myself and Evan and do the math, the only logical answer was me and Johnny."

But Weir's decorating skills have made him the perfect roommate.

"There are aromatic candles, and he had Audrey Hepburn posters and motivational quotes on the wall," Belbin said.

After Tuesday's short program of the men's figure skating competition, Lysacek is in second place, while Weir stands sixth. The free skate is scheduled for Thursday.

The Olympic ice-dance finals take place next Monday, Feb. 22. Both should be well-rested for the competition.
*     *     *


Get it? The assumption is that Johnny is gay, and that since a (presumably) heterosexual man is sleeping alone, and this presumably gay man is sleeping with Tanith, both boys will sleep well due to not having any sex. As if Evan having a room to himself precludes him from having a guest. And as if Tanith ahd Johnny are only ever going to be "just friends". And as if Tanith and Johnny sharing a room automatically pisses off Evan. (Why would it? Seems to me Evan would be a far less gay camper--I mean happy camper--if Johnny or Tanith were Evan's roommate, under the personal and athletic circumstances.)

There are so many assumptions about the rigidity of sexuality, and one of those assumptions, the most oppressive, is that heterosexuality is inevitable and natural. I'm not disputing that hethood is a norm, but being lesbian and gay is currently also normal in the West, just not as common. Left-handedness is normal, but less common than right-handedness. That doesn't make being a lefty abnormal. Because if the assumption is that things that appear less frequently in society are "abnormal" then whiteness and manhood would be abnormal, relative to the entire global human population. 

But back to happy camping. Forty years into what is considered by white gay male historians to be the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement--when mostly white gay men and gay male drag queens just said no to being harassed and arrested for being in a gay bar in NYC, heterosexism is still rampant, virulent, and unrelenting. (Misogyny and racism too.) 

The pressure to be publicly quiet about being lesbian and gay is required, to varying degrees, wherever I am in the West. Among white conservatives, homosexuality is incorrectly perceived as "morally wrong and unnatural" white liberals incorrectly perceive it as "entirely natural--just like heterosexuality". In my view, there's nothing natural about one's sexual identity and being lesbian and gay is, by definition, NOT like being heterosexual. Identity, after all, is social and cultural, meaning that any identity is infused with political meaning and value). That progressives seek the end to unequal valuing and treatment of people with differing identities doesn't make the case that identity is asocial.

I find that from white conservatism to white liberalism, the general view is that heterosexuality is, when homopboic push comes to lesbophobic shove, more natural than any other orientation. But white progressives, in my experience, value queerness uber all, with the meaning of queerness being about as elusive as Johnny's answers to questions about his sexual orientation. This is curious to me, as progressivism tends to be deeply white het male supremacist, in a deeply unrecognised and therefore unowned way. Upon closer inspection, the political mandates of contemporary queerness are often antifeminist and, with bitter irony, antilesbian.


But never mind the L word; you won't be hearing about any lesbians at the Olympics. And the references to anyone being gay are veiled--there's code among the sportscasters commenting about Johnny Weir. He's "controversial" or "notorious", as if tabloid news-making white male hetheads (think David Letterman and John Edwards) aren't either of those things. 

Only coded lingo will be spoken because the athletes themselves face fierce pressure, most especially from potential corporate sponsors who won't touch them with a ten foot vaulting pole if they are absolutely "out". It's also not polite, apparently, to remark on television that someone is lesbian or gay. When k.d. lang performed at the Opening Ceremony, there was no public celebration of her as a lesbian artist. But if the artist is heterosexual, we are likely to hear TMI about her or his romantic proclivities--think John Mayer--especially so close to Valentine's Day. Heterosexuality is publicly displayed and gushes like a punctured jugular around this time of year, and perhaps that's one reason why the color of "the holiday" is red.


What follows is an excerpt from a rather fucked up interview by Oursport with Johnny Weir. It is from *here*. Outsport appears to me to be a white middle class gay male focused sports website.

OS: You once wrote on your Web site that, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” I don’t know you, but I’ve followed your career for several years. I saw Pop Star on Ice. I know lots of straight guys, and I’ve never seen any of them do the things I’ve seen you do . And it seems to me that you haven’t just shown us the cover of the Johnny Weir book, you’ve shown us several chapters. You’ve shown us the 10-page glossy photo insert. From everything you’ve shown us over, can’t we at least discern whether Barnes & Noble would put the book in the gay & lesbian section?
Johnny: My hope is that Barnes & Noble will put it in the best-seller section.

OS: How many sequins are too many?

Johnny: What kind of question is that? There are never too many.

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Amidst Johnny's candor on book sections and costume accessories, come the other questions just around the bend, so to speak, about who he fucks. Evan Lysacek has been paired romantically with the presumed flagrantly heterosexual Ice Dancing champion, Tanith Belbin, who has won many competitions with her skating (but not romantic) partner, Ben Agosto. Tanith and Evan are, apparently, ex-romantic partners. I'm not sure when they broke up but they were allegedly together for a while. 

In a curious twist of fate that would be well-suited to a Shakespearean comedy or a Greek drama, Tanith's current Olympic Athlete's Village roommate during the Vancouver Games is... Johnny Weir. He had a choice as to whether to room with her or Evan, and as he and Evan are arch competitors, he went with Tanith. That, and Johnny and Tanith have known each other forever, and feel very comfortable rooming together. She had decisions to make as well: she could have roomed with two other woman athletes, but wouldn't have had her own bedroom. With Johnny, they each get separate rooms and some shared living space as well. So she welcomed him to be her only roommate. They get along famously as the media has reported, noting how he perfumed the rooms before she arrived because they smelled of wet dog prior to his aromatic and artistic redecorating. 

What follows next is a twist on the usual homophobic CRAP. And I applaud it. I found it *here*.

Are Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek gay?

I know it angers and enrages many Republicans when such a question is asked. But it seems strange that George Bush paraded his lover constantly on the campaign trail in 2000 and 2004. And now McCain is doing the same thing with his opposite sex lover Cindy.

Why do straights publicly flaunt their sexual orientation and even display their sex partners in public when it has absolutely nothing to do with their job? Yet the minute a gay person is discussed, we are told to shut up because it is such a private and intimate personal issue. We are told by heterosexual militants that "who cares" and "their private life is nobody's business.". Yet strangely when the tables are turned, straights consider their domestic partners to be the most important person in their lives. Dubya said in 2004 that his decistion to marry his bedroom partner Laura, was the most important of his life. WTF?
  • 1 year ago

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In the case of Johnny Weir, what proof do you have? Liberace insisted that he was straight. Should we accept his word as proof? Republicans don't like a person labelled as gay and demand to know what proof you have.

We all know that many many men involved in figure skating are not only actively homosexual, but unrepentant about it also. Why is it considered an insult to assume that a man involved in figure skating is gay? Couldn't it be considered a compliment?
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Next we have another related matter. Race. It seems Winter sports are associated strongly with being Caucasian. And there is talk among white people that the Winter Games are white, and the Summer Games are, well, less white (meaning Black). But let's consider, for a moment, that race is only Black and white. Let's consider that there are, for example, Indigenous people, whose culture gets exploited in the Opening Ceremony to entertain a largely non-Indigenous audience, and that there are also East Asian people, who are not white and are not Black.

We find Southeast Asian (Filipino) and East Asian (Japanese and Korean) heritage just among the men's short track speed skating teams. Here is the results of one race (that's competition, not ethnicity):

Men's 1500 m Records

Final Ranking

Final Rank Helmet No Country Name Best Time
1 243 Korea LEE Jung-Su 2:10.949
2 256 United States OHNO Apolo Anton 2:11.072
3 252 United States CELSKI J.R. 2:12.460 

This is what the medalists look like:

Not a one of them are socially raced white. So the next time you hear someone remark about the lack of people of color in the Winter Games, please remind them that people of Asian descent are of color.

A point being made here in this post is that perceptions are sometimes deceiving, and deceptions are sometimes required if one seeks profitable levels of achieving.