Friday, July 2, 2010

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Presenting: Misogynist Men's Dating Advice Columnist and Self-Promoting Sexist Author Alan Roger Currie

Image is from here.

 While the pic isn't large, the ego more than makes up for it. 

Saturday 3 July 2010 UPDATE: this post has been somewhat revised, with more analysis and a video added at the end.

What follows is one of the most sexist pieces of shit advice and relationship counseling I've ever heard. My comments, this time, are not in bold, but are in brackets. His writing is in bold. I believe his enormously misogynistic ego demands it, because his bigotry towards women is so damned BOLD. I interrupt it constantly. I know, it's annoying. But I maintain his writing left alone is even MORE annoying... and downright dangerous, because this man gives advice to other straight men about how to behave with women, in and out of relationship, and he's one profoundly sexist man, and what makes him moreso is that he doesn't think he is.

He came into my view by engaging in a totally misogynistic way with a wonderful woman I know from Facebook who was tired of calling him out; she'd done it effectively. He just wasn't going to listen to her because she's a woman. This dude is solidly in the "doesn't get it" category. And, unfortunately, he wrote the an awful book (well, four actually--two published offline and two eBooks) on how not to "get it". I'm not going to link to them. For obvious reasons. I do quote him several times from his first one, though, below.

From *here*.

July 1, 2:50 PM
Hollywood Men's Dating Advice Examiner


The problems between men and women are not that complex
by Alan Roger Currie


If you are an active user of the popular social networking site, Facebook, [I am increasingly active, yes, due to all the rampant misogyny spewing from men's fingertips] you might have noticed a change in men and women's status updates. [Isn't a "status update" about social-political ranking and structural position? In what universe are MEN'S statuses in need of significant "updating"? Wouldn't it be sufficient for men to write, every morning or evening: "Yup. We're still in charge! We're still viewed--especially amongst ourselves--as the supreme sex! We're still socially dominant in the gender hierarchy! We're still battering women and putting them in the hospital with broken facial bones. We're still lying about loving women in order to get them into bed. We're still cheating behind women's backs. We're still manipulative, coercive, and controlling. We still practice being degrading and domineering to women, daily, morning and evening." Aside from that, what's to update?] I first joined Facebook in July of 2006 (that's right ... I've been on Facebook now for just under four years!), and initially, the vast majority of status updates said things like, "Just got my hair done!" [Is that one your own?] "I can't believe the Redskins lost to the Cowboys ... again!" "My baby is finally walking!!" [You mean "after I punched by baby out and knocked her to the floor for looking at another man when we went out to a restaurant?] and so on and so on. Nice, cute, lighthearted fare. ["The Redskins lost to the Cowboys ... again" is hardly "nice, cute, lighthearted fare", Alan. It's pro-genocidal dominant cultural sports-talk among men who aren't Indigenous who don't give a fuck that the genocide continues to this day. I'm just saying: NOT nice. NOT cute. NOT lighthearted. Naming a team "the Redskins"??? WTF? Why aren't YOU protesting that racist shit? Why aren't ALL men who talk about U.S. football?]

My, how things have changed. Now it seems, half of the men and women on Facebook are pseudo-psychologists, [Is this about you?] all offering either their own unique principles and personal philosophies for how to gain wealth, career success and individual happiness, or regurgitating the most well-known uplifting comments and truisms of other more popular and credible self-improvement gurus. [Such as yourself?] What is even more interesting is many of the discussion threads that center on the growing animosity [Growing? As in thousands of years of bloody, rapist, murderous patriarchal atrocity against women globally?] and chasm between members of the two genders (particularly in the African-American community). [The two "opposite" genders? More on this later.]


The vast majority of women blame men for the current state of affairs between men and women. [Women "blame" men for "the current state of affairs between men and women"? Are you a patriarchy-denier? Do you understand men are waging war against women's psyches and bodies? Do you comprehend the danger men are, in reality, to women? Do you get how men terrorise women? And you're tossing around a term like "blame", as if men don't "blame" women, Alan? As if men don't blame women for women being battered and raped, with such misogynist CRAP as "she was asking for it!" What social world are you living in? "Women blame men"?! What, pray tell, do you think men do? Never hold biased and sexist views of what women do, ignoring and discounting what it is men have done for centuries that women are surviving? You get that U.S. dominant culture is one which is discriminatory and deadly for women, due to men's violence and bigotry, right? And that white men's ways of dominating ALL women has been the model for all men, right? You've seen Byron Hurt's "Beyond Beats and Rhymes", I hope. And I hope you've noted where he courageously and honestly calls out men on perpetuating ridiculous and dangerous ideas, attitudes, and practices behavior against women, and against men stigmatised as "too feminine"? White terroristic/dominating masculinity has been and still is modeled for men of all races in this country by white men's media. You aren't helping anyone by refusing to name that and challenge it.

What are your credentials for making that claim, anyway? Are you a gender rights activist? A social service agency support provider? A sociologist, of the accomplishment and caliber of Patricia Hill Collins. Wait. I'm going to look you up and see. Hold on...

Okay: you majored in Economics and minored in Theater and Drama. Got it. No degree in sociology, psychology, gender studies, or social work. While I don't think a degree makes someone an expert in anything necessarily, I did want to note what you say about yourself on your "Mode One" website. But you're just talking about what you are happening to notice on Facebook. Okay.] Men defend themselves by pointing out the numerous flaws and shortcomings they perceive in the 21st Century woman's behavior. [You get how sexist this is, already, right? How utterly biased you are in your misogynist perception of the dynamics on Facebook? How it doesn't even occur to you to see what women are doing as a response to men's aggression? No, you don't. You don't see, comment on, or own the very prevalent reality of men's aggression AT ALL. ALL you initially see--the starting point of your observations--are women blaming men and those poor, vulnerable men needing to defend themselves as best the unfairly judged men can. Uh-huh. Your political alliance has been made crystal clear. Got it. It's NOT with women; your reality doesn't even recognise men's violence to women as being a problem at all.] Some criticisms and complaints hurled at members of the opposite gender are valid to one degree or another, while others just make for entertaining and controversial conjecture. [So you're painting this portrait, so far, of some kind of more-or-less level playing field where men and women do some bad things, in words, to one another. You'd just as soon ignore the patriarchal foundations and forces that impact women every day. Why is that? Whose interests are served by you ignoring that reality, Alan? Might acknowledging THAT from the start reduce your book sales? Just wondering on whose backs your book-sales are built. How do I know you're an author? Because you don't any waste time telling us, that's how...]

Since I am the author of four books (two paperbacks and two additional eBooks) that relate to interpersonal communication habits between men and women, I will now offer my own assessment of "what is wrong" between men and women today: [Hold on. Gender, as you define it as only "women" and "men" exists socially as a social hierarchy, right? So stating what's going on "between" women and men is already taking the focus off of that politically enforced hierarchy which devalues women and overvalues men, which shows gross and violent contempt for anyone who is seen as "feminine" and glorifies and praises all who are "masculine"--unless they are women, of course, because women, according to dominant society--and you--are only supposed to exist on the Earth "for men", not for themselves, or for each other. So masculine women get no mention from you. Whose interests are served by you doing that? I'd say heterosexist straight men's interests, who want to figure out any number of ways to have access to "sexxxy hot" women if and whenever they want it, visually, physically, emotionally, and sexually. And when heterosexual men's "right to access" is called into question, heterosexual men often behave very badly, meaning, in misogynistic and violent ways. So why aren't you discussing that reality? Why do you leap over that rather significant fact and pretend all that's going on is "between" women and men. Also, why aren't you calling out men for being sexist and misogynist about women when guys are only with other men? Isn't that your job, as "a man"? To hold other men accountable to the sexist, degrading, insulting, violating and violent things heterosexual men do that men blame on women for instigating, causing, and compelling from men?

Let's find out a bit more about those two paperbacks and two additional eBooks. Book one: 1999 and 2006, title: Mode One. Typical pop-psych heterosexist book on advice for "men"--heterosexual men--who want to indulge and not give up their male supremacist entitlement to approach women, as if women can't approach men. As if men HAVE TO approach women AT ALL. Why do men have to approach women, Alan? Why don't you counsel men to stop being predators? To stop invading women's spaces, publicly and privately? To stop approaching women because men want to? When will you privilege and prioritise the safety, welfare, and well-being of women over that of men, in a society in which heterosexual men's sexual harassment, stalking, and date rape of all women is endemic--not of women harassing, stalking, and raping heterosexual men? You are encouraging the practice of women being invaded by men socially. Why? You don't question heterosexual men's right (a politically enforced and socially embedded entitlement) to approach women, why? You speak about "women" as if the term means "heterosexual women" and "men" as if it only means "heterosexual men". Do you get how biased and oppressive that is towards SGL, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender women and men? And, do you care?

From your first book, this:
"How many times have you observed a guy who was frequently criticized, in one way or another, by a reasonably large percentage of the women who were acquainted with him, but that guy was never at a lack for romantic and sexual companionship?"

Why don't you state that the man is a misogynist? Why don't you state that the primary reason heterosexual women are with misogynists is because the men DIDN'T introduce themselves by saying this, "Hi. I'm a woman-hater. I believe women deserve to be raped and battered in some situations. Want to go out with me?" Why don't you talk about all the ways heterosexual men withhold precisely the information about their lives that the women need to make sound decisions in even deciding to get to know him in the first place? Why don't you encourage women to find out from other people whether or not the man is a misogynist before engaging with him at all? Why do you call a "large percentage" reasonable, but not the women themselves? Aren't women themselves "reasonable"? Why do you repeatedly reinforce this idea that women are the critics of men, as if men are victimized by this? Why don't you highlight the ways heterosexual men criticize women, for no good reasons at all? Because men are sexist and feel entitled to blame women for everything under the sun?

You go on to describe the "good guy" who never gets the dates, the romantic connections, and the sex. Then you go on to say this, without telling the reader anything at all about the ways you've behaved like a sexist jerk: "For better or for worse, I've have had the interesting perspective of experiencing BOTH sides of that social coin." In what ways was it "for worse", Alan? For whom was it worse? Women, or you?

Throughout your work to minimize or are evasive about what you and other heterosexual men do that is harmful and hurtful, manipulative and mandated by patriarchal societies for so-called "straight" men to do. What's "interesting" about you noting how you've been a sexist jerk? Or, are you saying you've never, ever been one?

You go on: "The former situation was never a problem, but the latter situation was always frustrating to me." Do you see how self-absorbed that comment is? The former situation wasn't a problem FOR YOU. How about for the women you may have screwed over? Is that not relevant to the content of your book? Is how you've negatively impacted women's humanity beyond the parameters of your advice and counsel? The "latter situation was always frustrating TO ME." That says it all, Alan. Were you a good friend to women? Did they appreciate it? Does that matter at all to you? Or are men who extend themselves spiritually and emotionally to meet women's needs only ever "not being real men"? Is this really "all about you" and other men's feelings, needs, desires, and objectives? It sure appears that way to me, based on how you write and what you say.

You go on to describe how when you were "egotistically indifferent" that worked out better FOR YOU than being overly concerned about being a nice guy. You go on to imply that being "egotisticially indifferent" to the feelings of a woman is the REAL state of you being yourself, not being especially concerned about how she is feeling. Do you get how damned arrogant and misogynistic that is? Who is served by men being self-centered and aloof? Women or men? Once again, you cast your lot with the needs of men, and throw women under the bus. Why don't you analyze what it is about dominant manhood that teaches men that their default mode ought to be self-centered and aloof not "concerned about women"? Maybe because you were an Economics major and Theater and Drama minor, and you seem pre-occupied with what men can purchase or otherwise obtain from women--without concern for them as human beings. You focus on how men can cut the best deal with the least personal losses--men's losses, not women's. You describe how men ought to "act" to get into women's pants. I am suspect of you making money from promoting yourself as an expert in something when you are so defensive when feminist women bring entirely legitimate, valid critiques to you of your work, your egotistical behavior, and your male supremacist attitude and indifferent behavior.

You go on, rather obnoxiously and heterosexistly to say this: "I truly believe that deep down, all men want to consistently exhibit what I would categorize as 'Mode One behavior.'" I get how that's the whole pop-hook for your book sales, and so you've got to promote IT rather than promoting being humane, non-patriarchal, anti-sexist allies to women in their struggles for freedom from any and all forms of male dominance. I wish you'd promote being honest throughout your books about men's sexism and misogyny as much as you promote your books' sound bites.

Why do you assume it is men's obligation to put forth their wants and needs of women, of people who are socialised to meet the needs and fulfill the wishes of men, rather than to ask women what their frustrations are with men? Why don't you, as a social critic and spokesperson for heterosexual men, teach men to care more about women's humanity than men's sexist desires? Why do you assume men have "true" desires that aren't influenced and shaped by pornography, music videos, and the sexism and misogyny that is rampant among straight male peer groups? Why don't you ask men to interrogate what their desires are, and who sold them to men? Why don't you critique capitalism's sexism and misogyny, and note how it sells men a bunch of lies both about women and about men? You systematically privilege a concern about men's fears of being "criticized, disliked, rejected, and/or ignored" over teaching men to keep in check the many ways men criticise, dislike, reject, and/or ignore women including women's very legitimate fears of being assaulted and raped by men. Why is that? Whose interests are being served by you doing that? Men's or women's?

Your sexism is unbounded and unchecked, Alan. You write: "In the same way a physical bully uses his size and fighting skills, and  mean-spirited supervisor uses their power and job status, many manipulative women use their beauty, their sex appeal, and popularity with other men to 'egotistically punk you.'" Really? What makes you skip past the many manipulative men who use their beauty, their sex appeal, and popularity with other women to "egotistically punk" women? Why not mention THAT reality? What is this obsession of yours with both highlighting, in a grossly sexist way, women-as-manipulators while portraying men-as-victims of women's manipulations? Do straight men manipulate women or don't they? I mean AT LEAST AS MUCH as women "manipulate" men? What is battery? What is date rape? Don't both require manipulation by men, Alan? Again, off your radar, conveniently, to keep the Misogynist Brotherhood going strong. I'm done quoting you from your book, for now. Back to your article:

1) Both men and women are guilty of expressing too many invalid generalizations and stereotypes.

[But only men use this to maintain power and control, dominance and supremacy over and against women.]


Comment: Anytime you start your criticism of the opposite sex by saying, "All men ..." or "All women ...," 99% chance, you are about to declare some perceived flaw that is inaccurate. [Yet you do this in the very next sentence.] It can be said that all men have a penis and that all women have a vagina. Beyond that, there is not too much factual or valid that you can say about "all" members of the opposite sex. [You know in some societies there are more than two genders, right? In some there are three, and in one I'm aware of there are eleven. Oh, but you're irresponsibly coming from an unowned dominant culturally biased Western viewpoint. You are invisibilising and invalidating the realities of transgender people, and some intersex people--who are African American. Do you care about that and about them? I realise this interrupts your biased and bigoted understanding of social reality.

And what is "opposite" about women and men? Their institutionalised placement in the patriarchal social hierarchy? No. According to you it is their bodies. Both have organs, blood, flesh, and hair--both genders, in fact, have hair on their legs, under their arms, and on their faces, right? So what's so "opposite" about that? What's "opposite" about some labial tissue being fused--in many males, and unfused in many females? What's "opposite" about some males and females having a lot of breast tissue and fat and some females and males not having a lot of breast tissue and fat? What's "opposite" about many men having enlarged clitorises with a urethra running through it, and many women having a clitoris, of varying sizes, with a urethra underneath it? How is that an opposition, Alan? Why aren't those sexed differences, that also exist among males and among females? (Amount of body hair, size of genitals, amount of breast tissue, etc.?) Why don't you acknowledge that, and why do you insist on perpetuating a lie of "sex" being a biological opposition and distinct binary? Does it make you uncomforable to realise your scrotum is fused labial tissue? That your penis is a somewhat enlarged clitoris with a urethra in it? Because, that's what those parts of your anatomy are.]


To say, "Many men ..." is okay. "The vast majority of women ..." is close to saying "all," but you're still free from invalid generalizations. "A good number of men and women ..." is acceptable. As much as you can, stay away from comments like "All men do this ..." and "All women do that ..."

[So, to be clear, not all men have penises, and not all women have vaginas, naturally.]

2) Most of the problems (and pleasure!) between men and women begin and end with sex

[That's not what I hear from women. I hear most of women's PAIN and trauma, if speaking about gender alone, begins and ends with how heterosexually active men act out what those men call "sex". Most of women's problems with men come from men believing they are dominators and disrespecters of women. That's both independent of and too often entangled with what you consider to be "sex".]

Comment: Identify just about any argument or debate related to dating and relationships, and inevitably, it has something to do with sex (before, during or after). How many arguments and heated debates do you see on Facebook or other social networking sites and discussion forums / message boards related to how men and women cannot get along with each other in a business, professional environment and/or within the context of a platonic friendship? A handful maybe, but not too many.

Bullshit, Alan. That's total CRAP. Women write often about a whole range of experiences with men, but you only want to FOCUS on the ones about heterosexual sexual behavior because that's what YOU'RE interested in. This is the problem, Alan. You won't even recognise, let alone legitimise and maturely and responsibly deal with, women's OTHER arguments and debates. (And I've got proof. Let me know if you want me to publish it here.)

Inevitably, the vast majority of the criticisms, complaints, disappointments and bitterness expressed by members of each gender are usually the result of a sexual relationship gone bad, or in some cases, the frustration of not being able to gain the opportunity to have sex with someone that you really, really wanted to.

Bullshit. Who are you pretending to be speaking for? Yourself? Why do you keep ignoring the fact that women are often upset and angry with men for being liars, oppressors, and obnoxiously disrespectful of women generally and individual women specifically?



Primary Scenario: Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have sex with girl. Girl wants to have sex with boy too. They end up having sex (either short-term or long-term, monogamously or non-monogamously), and the sex is good. They both smile after each orgasm.

Wrong. Primary Scenario: what women feel and want doesn't matter to MANY (not all) straight men. Het man wants to fuck a woman he sees and is attracted to, because he sees her, is attracted to her, and immediately feels entitled to gain access to her, to approach her, and to try and get into her pants. Regardless of what she wants. If this weren't a primary scenario, why is there so much date rape with straight men as the rapists? Where are her wants and needs in THAT primary scenario? "They end up having sex"? What are the power dynamics in how that actually occurs? Who initiates what? Usually? Does he shove his penis at and in her? Or does she CHOOSE to envelop it, without him using ANY force at all? Do "most men" in your experience, use "force" to "enter" women's bodies? And does it occur to men that they don't need to in order to have penetrative genital sex? Do most men you know even know how to have sex that isn't focused on their own dicks and their own orgasms?



Where is the problem? Where is the basis for an argument? I cannot identify a problem until I add a few new "wrinkles" into this basic scenario.

I'm not surprised at all, Alan. Because you're a patriarchy-denier, a date rape-denier, and you won't deal at all with gender as a hierarchy with "men on top", with men dominating women socially and politically. And you refuse to acknowledge the rampant misogyny that is there among and between men, homosocially, that is bragged about among men, in stories of their "conquests". You know what I'm referring to, right?

Modified Scenario #1: Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have sex with girl, but only for two weeks or less. Boy lies to girl and tells her that he wants to have sex with her indefinitely. When girl gets dumped for Boy's new short-term sex partner, girl feels angry and bitter. Boy gains the new nickname of "jerk," "a**hole," and "dog."

Problem identified? Boy is a liar. Boy doesn't have the cojones to come clean on his desire for short-term, non-monogamous sexual companionship. It is not good to mislead women like this. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” is a phrase that should be memorized by all single heterosexual men (yes, I said "all').

Men don't need testicles to tell the truth, Alan. Their nuts don't think, carry ethical standards, and are not the source of their courage or lack thereof. "It's not good to mislead women like this." Now that's telling 'em! I hope they recover from that verbal thrashing. Why don't you call men out on the fact that lying through their teeth  to obtain sex is part of rapist culture? Why do you wish to minimise this by using terminology like "It's not good to mislead women like this?") Why don't you tell me to stop it, including to stop raping women? Isn't that your ethical obligation as a man who cares about relationships "between" the sexes? Is "It's not good" really the best you can do?

Let's see if there's a sexist double standard operating here in the rest of your article, wherein you understand men's behaviors significantly differently than you understand women's, as if women's are generally bad or malintentioned, and men's are good and sincere.


Modified Scenario #2: Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have long-term monogamous sex with girl, but wants to know about her sexual history with other men. Girl lies about her past number of sex partners and gives Boy the impression that she has been a "good girl" (i.e., has avoided promiscuous behavior). Boy eventually finds out that girl has done her share of "sleeping around" and loses interest. Boy calls girl a "ho" and girl calls boy "judgmental."

Why in scenario one doesn't SHE want to know how many women HE'S had sex with? Is it just normal and cool that the straight guy fucks around a lot? Are you one of those misogynistic pro-evolutionary psychology and sociobiology guys who think this is "natural"?

Already we have a sexist double standard. Does she assume he's been a "good boy" before she has sex with him? Would you say it would be appropriate for her to think he's been a "good boy" because she didn't learn that he'd had a lot of sexual partners? Is that what being a "good boy" means?

In scenario one, HE lies to be able to fuck her. In scenario two she lies because he's a sexist jerk who will misjudge and/or condemn her in misogynist ways because she's (hopefully) enjoyed sex with several or many men. And she also knows, from experience, that het men gossip among each other and spread all kinds of disgusting lies and misinformation, based on their sexist/misogynistic conceptions of what women are and what women are for. From grade school to partnership and after. She is virtually always judged DIFFERENTLY AND WORSE for having a lot of sex than he is. As if she is somehow "the opposite" of him, when it comes to her value when being sexual. Why does her withholding information, misleading him, or lying, about something he's not even entitled to know lead him to conclude ANYTHING about her moral character? (What does men's compulsive lying--those who do it; not all men, but many--tell us about their moral character?) Why does he think being very sexual--having an extensive sexually active history--is a signifier of her being "good" or "bad"? Why does she even get referred to as "promiscuous" when HE doesn't? Why is that, Alan? She's done "her share" of sleeping around? Isn't it the view of many straight men that ANY sexual "sleeping around" is beyond "her share"? How much is his fair share of sleeping around? One dozen women? Five dozen women? How many is her fair share? You're the former student of economics; you tell me.

Why does HE lose interest in HER because she's had her "share" of sleeping around? So she also should lose interest too, right, if she finds out he's been a promiscuous slut? Or don't straight men get stigmatised that way inside patriarchal societies? Answer: only women and gay men get stigmatised that way. Why is that, Alan? What does a woman outside any system of prostitution having a lot of sex have to do with women who are being pimped and procured by men who think of women as their possessions and as sexxx-things? Why is any woman called a "ho"? What men are called "ho's"? Are you a ho? Are your straight male friends? No woman is a ho, Alan. Get over your sexist/misogynist training, okay? Because you ARE a role model, after all. You ARE an author of books filled with relationship advice for men, right? In your own made-up hypothetical examples, her character is grossly maligned, while his behavior is judged. You can't even write up a couple of short stories without dragging in your own misogynist views and attitudes about women who are sexually active.



Problem identified? Girl is disingenuous and sexually duplicitous. She wants the public image and reputation of a woman who is perceived as innocent, wholesome, and sexually conservative and/or prudish, but she wants to experience the lustful and erotic pleasures that comes from enjoying the companionship of multiple sex partners.

No, you misogynist. What she might very well want is to never have her actions be filtered through your lenses crafted from your patriarchally induced madonna/whore complex and obsession. What women I know want is to not be seen as EITHER by the likes of YOU and other STRAIGHT MEN who refuse to treat and see women not as "opposite to men" but as "equal to men". She's not "sexually duplicitous". She's sexually ACTIVE. Get it? She lies to avoid his sexist condescension and misogynist insults. Why can't you understand that? Because you don't get much about patriarchal society and what it enforces about men and women, do you? Some "expert". You are good at "drama" though.

What makes you think women get "erotic pleasures" from being with any man, necessarily? Has it occurred to you that some women sleep around because they're looking for just one man who can satisfy them sexually and their need to be treated with regard and respect, after being with misogynist men like you, who are often sexually selfish and self-centered, by the way, and not necessarily at all interested in her erotic pleasure--but instead only see her as the source of men's own? Women get "erotic pleasure" a whole lot less that straight men do! (Read The Hite Reports of Female and Male Sexuality, to learn more. I'd hope you've already done that, since you're wanting to present as an expert on all of this.)

But what heterosexually active women get way too often from promiscuous straight men is HPV, herpes, and HIV. And the women who got it, unless never sexually active with men--got it from sexually active men--who aren't necessarily only sexual with women. And some women get those illnesses and diseases from being raped by diseased, infected, infectious and very normal men.

That happens so much because men, far too often, are lying pricks when it comes to being honest about YOUR sexual histories, including whether or not you've passed around STDs and STIs. Or you guys insist on not using a condom, because you don't like how it feels to be responsible and respectful of her health and well-being. It's not as "hot" that way, right? Or you "forgot" to bring one. Or you expect her to take care of herself, because we know you and other straight men sure as hell aren't going to. (And then you have the audacity to blame HER for getting pregnant, if she does, as if YOU had nothing to do with it! And to whine on endlessly about having to pay child support.)



If any boy desires to date a girl long-term, he has the right to know the decision-making character of the girl he desires to date, and possibly marry. In the long-run, coming clean is always better than hiding the truth. This applies to both genders.

Not according to you it doesn't. Nice try and covering your sexist ass, though. You never state ANYWHERE that SHE has the right to know the decision-making character of the boy she desires to date, and possibly marry. Why is that? In the long run men "coming clean" is always better than hiding the truth. If you believed it applied to BOTH genders (pretending again there are only two), then you'd state it both ways. You don't.



Modified Scenario #3: Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have sex with girl, but secretly loves to also have sex with other boys in addition to girls. Girl can't handle this.


Problem identified? Boy is on the down-low (i.e., bisexual). Once again, reference my “Hell hath no fury” quote. Spreading STDs, and HIV/AIDS in particular, is no joke. You gotta come clean about your sexuality and sexual past.

Your misogyny is really astoundingly blatant. I'd think or hope you'd be embarrassed, as a "relationship expert" to show such gross bigotry about women. But too many straight men have no shame; you're too busy shaming women and gay men, exactly as you do right here. Why does he secretly have sex with men? Not because of HER, Alan. Because STRAIGHT MEN will beat the shit out of him or kill him if they knew. THAT'S why. He doesn't tell HER because he wants sex with men and wants to have access to her too. He lies to her for the same reasons non-bisexual men lie to heterosexually active women. Because he feels entitled to do exactly what he wants to do and not be accountable to ANY woman. Let's get honest, okay?  


Modified Scenario #4: Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have sex with girl, but girl is not really attracted to boy. Instead of rejecting his interests though, girl first finds out if boy has job connections and/or makes an above-average amount of money. If Boy does, Girl pretends to have romantic and sexual interest in Boy indefinitely in order to be in a position to receive financial favors. When Girl finally gets bored with him and his favors, she then dumps him. Boy is hurt and feels 'used' and manipulated.


Problem identified? Girl used her looks, feminine charms and sex appeal to gain financial and employment favors. Boys call these girls "users" and "gold diggers." Boys can exhibit their own brand of "fury" and "vindictive wrath," so girls ... be careful.

I actually know far more straight men who do the exact thing you describe, Alan--to women, including their mothers. Why don't you speak about all the men that leech off of women financially? Why don't you discuss a scenario where the man is a lazy misogynist who would prefer to be with any woman who will pay his bills and play with his balls than be honest with her about his lack of sexual respect for her? "Boy" uses his looks, his masculine charms and sex appeal to gain financial and unemployment favors. What are "girls" allowed to call THOSE "boys", Alan? What's the appropriate term, in your opinion?

Boys "can" exhibit their own brand of "fury" and "vindictive wrath"? You make it sound like the original brand is women's? (Eve's, maybe?) Why is that? You speak of women being furious and wrathful, but you note that it's something men "can" do. Like women are gold diggers, users, hos, while men "can" be... what? Batterers? Rapists? Disease-spreading scumbags? What is it men "can" be? Some men ARE those things, Alan. Rape and battery of women by straight men, are endemic, you know? Why don't you EVER say so? Whose interests are served by the extremely sexist way you tell your stories? Women's or men's? Answer: men's.

You make it sounds like women naturally are negative things, but men, sometimes, under certain as yet unidentified circumstances (hint: she's to blame), "can" be. You see the difference, right? Again, under what circumstances can straight men be "hos" and "users" and "gold diggers" and wrathful and furious, Alan? You know any straight men who've been sent to the hospital with a fractured skull and broken bones in his face due to "a woman's fury"? And how many women do you know who've been terrorised and battered by men, compared to men, by women?


Hell hath no fury like a STRAIGHT MAN ignored or rejected by a woman who knows better than to keep in contact with a misogynist jerk. Women are more likely to be killed by an abusive man after leaving him. Why is that, Alan? Would it have anything at all to do with wrath an fury? Or, in your misogynist mind, is he only a "victim", and a wounded soul in emotional pain? If you ever want to know what wounding and pain feels like, get battered weekly or daily by a man who says "I love you more than anything. I don't know what I'd do without you!". (Often enough, he knows what he'd do: he'd stalk her down and murder her.) These aren't "straw men", Alan. They're like a brick... house. I've known a few. Have you?


Modified Scenario #5: Boy meets girl. Boy wants to have sex with girl. Boy expresses an interest in only casual sex, but girl wants more long-term sex. Just as Boy is about to leave Girl alone, he finds out Girl is pregnant with his baby. All of the sudden, Boy goes AWOL.


Problem identified? Boy never wanted to create a family with girl. He just wanted a good time sexually. But boy was irresponsible and lustful, and failed to wear a condom (and/or the girl lied and said she was taking birth control pills when she wasn't). Now, boy will have to pay child support until that baby is eighteen years of age. All of this new (and unwanted) fatherly responsibility for a pleasurable orgasm.

He "finds out" she's pregnant? Does he know how HE impregnates a woman? Who pleaded to have sex "just once" without a condom? Her or him? Boy goes missing all right. He's an immature "boy" who shouldn't be putting his dick near anyone if he's not prepared to be a responsible father, meaning a primary parent--if he "never wanted to create a family with girl", as you put it. She didn't have gun to his head, forcing him to have sex with her, did she? She didn't force him to ejaculate did she? He could have, you know, used some of that "agency" you seem to want to deny all men and he could have said "No." Why don't you tell straight men that THEY are fully and completely responsible for ANY child they father? And tell that to adolescent and teenage boys too, while you're at it. "Now boy will have to pay child support." Poor baby! But the truth of the matter is he won't. He'll go AWOL like you say, and she'll rarely be able to track his immature, irresponsible ass down anywhere. And she'll work two or three jobs while raising "their" child. And that child will never know the "boy" who is his father. That's how it usually goes down, doesn't it? That's how it goes down in my family. The women who the MAN impregnated have to work damn hard in EVERY way to get a man to be moderately responsible in ANY way.



I could go on and on by adding new "wrinkles" and dysfunctional factors to the original premise, and I'm sure you could too. Bottom line, when you deviate from my original basic premise, this is where the vast majority of problems between men and women begin. Write down some of your own deviations from the original scenario to identify common problems you have observed between men and women.

Alan, you ought to have no business giving any relationship or sex advice to any man or woman. You're advice is sexist and messed up in so many ways. I could add more wrinkles to how it is, but I think I've outlined plenty thus far.


3) Know what you want, don't settle for less, and don't try to change or improve anyone else

And women know not to try, because men "can" be so damned stubborn about becoming responsible, emotionally mature, and truthful about themselves, and respectful and accountable to women.



Comment: I find in my conversations with members of both genders that most men and women really do not know what they want in a companion. They know they want some sort of physical, romantic and sexual companionship, but they fail to be decisive on what specific characteristics and attributes they want in a potential romantic and/or sexual companion.

The women I know are quite clear about what they're looking for, they've either settled for the best of the worst, or have just given up on finding it: a respectful man who has integrity, humor, intelligence, a sense of responsibility for himself and those he loves, a man who takes care of his appearance, who is attractive, and is good in bed, meaning, mostly, NOT SELFISH. Now what part of that is so hard for you "boys" to do?



Before my brother met his now wife, he wrote down as many attributes and characteristics that he wanted in a wife on a piece of paper. When he met a woman who possessed the most qualities similar to his list of desired traits, he dated her, proposed to her, and married her. I think all men and women need to follow this idea.

Frequently, as you do above, you refer to men as THE agents of action, the ones who go after what they want. Are you aware of how sexist it is of you to assume men are hunters and women are the prey? (More evolutionary psychological bullshit.) And, are you aware of how misogynist it is for men to BE hunters (stalkers) and to mistreat women as PREY (who they parasitically feed off of and kill)? And, you describe how your own brother met a woman who possessed the most attributes and characteristics on his list of desired traits? She filled out enough of his checklist, did she? She matched up well to "his score card"? She passed his test? How utterly caring of him. How noble. How humane. While you pay some lip service to it, do you REALLY support women having a checklist for men, a test, a scorecard? And do you support women checking off their list and choosing "the one" who best fills out her predetermined criteria? You get how you speak about his wife as a computer, right? Like he knows what he wants to buy, and just has to go to the right store and find the one with all the right components? Economics major, huh?


Next to lies and general ineffective communication related to sex, the second primary factor that creates animosity between men and women is when a man or woman attempts to date someone that is simply not a good match for them. Rather than leaving this person alone and moving on to a more desirable companion, you instead try to 'change' your current partner into the romantic companion you would ideally like them to be. If that man or woman wants something from you, they will "play the role" of your ideal companion for a while. Then, at some point, their true self will be revealed. And you will feel like you wasted a lot of valuable time (and money).

Sometimes men stalk a woan, "rather than leaving this person alone". Sometimes men possess women. Sometimes men terrorise and prevent women from being outside of their view or control. Sometimes men can't "let go" and so when she leaves him, they kill her. You know that, right? I know women who were killed by their ex-boyfriends because the guys preferred murdering the women rather than "leaving this person alone". Why don't you discuss the men who murder women, Alan? Whose interests are serving by you ignoring this horrific reality? Women's, or men's?

(Not ha-ha) Funny, though: I've never once heard of a woman murdering an ex- for leaving her. Isn't that peculiar, Alan? Patriarchal training and male supremacist attitudes that women exist for men wouldn't have a role in that, would it?



Quick recap:


- Don't offer broad generalizations about men and/or women's behavior;
- Express your true sexual desires, interests and intentions in an upfront, straightforwardly honest manner;
- Know what you want in a romantic companion before you even think about engaging in a committed relationship with them.

Quicker recap:
- you are one hell of a misogynist, sexist man who appears to be totally and willfully oblivious to that fact.



I can't wait to read a Facebook status report that says, "I used to have problems with women until I read Alan Roger Currie's Examiner.com article. Now, I am problem-free!!"

I'd feel very sorry for anyone who would write that to you. I'd think they really need to expand their reading list. And I'd recommend they start with Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, and Pearl Cleage. And stop reading the biased and bigoted nonsense you promote as expertise.

What an egomaniac you are. Really. Isn't it kind of embarrassing to you? I guess if you're an "egotistically indifferent" sort of guy, not so much.



More than likely though, some bitter person will write, "Alan Roger Currie ... another pseudo-psychologist offering dating advice. *smh* "

Nope. I'm writing "Alan Roger Currie ... another ignorant, self-centered straight man giving terribly sexist, misogynistic advice to other straight men, and, scarily, also to straight women." And I'm not bitter. I don't date straight men. Thank gawd.



Okay. As you were . . . .

So now you're a military officer? You might want to adjust the size of your ego to "just under the size of God" setting.


In case anyone thinks I'm misrepresenting Alan Roger Currie, listen to him in his own words, including his oh-so-respectful "impressions" of (stereo)typical straight women. Note how men are only bitter because of what women do to men, not because patriarchal society and its media, religions, and misogynist peer groups inculcate into men the idea that women exist to meet men's every damn need, and if all women don't bow down to him, he's bitter about it. Misogyny doesn't come from how women behave. It comes from men's fucked up expectations that women ought to exist FOR them. Make THAT clear, Alan. Please start teaching the truth about men and male supremacist society, for women's sake, not only for men's. Because women give up lifetimes to men who are assholes. And you're only expressly concerned about men losing "ten minutes, twenty minutes, a half hour" to a woman who ends up not being interested in him. You counsel him to only "waste" one or two minutes when getting to know a woman. Is straight men's time really THAT precious, Alan? What about women's time, energy, and lives?

You get the politics of encouraging men to only be "strong", not "weak" or "timid"? Vulnerability and receptivity in men IS attractive to women I know, but you never mention this, instead framing up such qualities in men only in negative terms. Men's problem, for women I know, isn't that they are "timid" or "weak". It's that they are predatory and overpowering.

Are you afraid of being vulnerable, because you equate it with being "weak"? That's more of your misogyny and heterosexism showing. Stop promoting your patriarchal pretenses and sexist hypocrisies, wherein women are manipulative and materialistic. Because it's dudes, not women, who I see having orgasms over getting that new car, playing their newest video game, and accessing that new strip club. And stop the misogynist "impressions" of women. And, if you can ever gain enough self-actualisation, please stop performing your "self-assured, cocky straight man" drag. I don't buy it for one second: I believe you're heterosexual and cocky, but not that you're self-assured. You come across to me and women I know as so damned inauthentic, and obnoxious as hell, like a self-promoting sales-man, which is exactly what you are in the video below. Stop writing, stop talking, and start listening, to feminist women who are calling you out. Only after that, you might just grow your humanity sufficiently to be able to give useful, fair, and justice-based advice to others.

See below, readers, for Alan the Sexist Sales-Man:



Boycott Mel Gibson: A Supremely White Het Male Supremacist P.R.I.C.K.: details HERE on what he said THIS time...

Mel Gibson, the already established anti-Semite and sexist bigot, has expanded and deepened his commitment to being a WHM supremacist in life. This time he makes it clear he holds deep and displayable contempt for non-white people and for women generally, presenting himself verbally as a terroristic racist rapist. This is no surprise to me, but years ago many, many white men argued with me about whether or not he was a P.R.I.C.K. So, while not a surprise to me, it is still disgusting and detestable. And he should be forbidden from ever making a film again. Time to stay home, Mel, and not raise or have access to your children, you fascistic misogynistic fuckhead who thinks it's just fine to use the n and c words.

All that follows is from *here*.

Report: Mel Gibson’s New Racist Rant Against Oksana—Shocking Talk of Rape, House Burning

Mel Gibson, Oksana Grigorieva Kevin Winter/ Getty Images
 
Think Mel Gibson's last rant was ugly? He may have topped himself.

In 2006, the actor famously unleashed an anti-Semitic tirade during his DUI arrest a few years ago. Now the Lethal Weapon star may be in even more trouble after allegedly being taped while using the N-word and spewing a lot of other horrible things.

"You're an embarrassment to me. You look like a f--king pig in heat and if you get raped by a pack of n---ers it will be your fault," Gibson is heard on tape, according to RadarOnline.

Gibson's rep declined to comment on the latest rant, which reportedly comes courtesy of a recording made by baby mama Oksana Grigorieva during an ugly argument at the height of the couple's breakup and custody fight.

If we were Mel's camp, we'd be keeping our mouths shut, too.

Per the website, the star also called Oksana a "whore" and a "c--t," among other unsavory put-downs.

"How dare you act like such a bitch when I have been so f--king nice," he is quoted at one point.

"I am going to come and burn the f--king house down...but you will blow me first," goes another quote.

The not-so-veiled threats are in addition to a slew of inflammatory emails the 54-year-old Gibson supposedly sent that the 40-year-old Russian musician has held on to, presumably for safe keeping in the event she needs them in a court of law.

The Oscar winner is locked in a nasty court battle with Grigorieva, the mother of his nine-month-old daughter, over financial and custody arrangements in the wake of their separation back in April. Oksana has reportedly taken out a restraining order against him after she claimed he got "extremely violent" and punched her twice in the face. Gibson's lawyer described this exchange as a "loud argument."

Gibson, as everyone remembers, made headlines for his notorious drunken outburst in which he yelled at Malibu's Finest after he was busted for driving under the influence in 2006, saying, "F--king Jews...Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Gibson's reputation and career took a major hit, especially in the wake of allegations of anti-Semitism in his 2004 blockbuster The Passion of the Christ. But after keeping a low profile and issuing several public apologies, people in Hollywood seemed to forgive and forget.

But if this latest outburst is true, will they be able to forgive him again?
 
(Originally published July 1, 2010, at 1:35 p.m. PT)

How did Tinseltown deal with Mel's shenanigans the first time around? Find out here.

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Interrogating Radical Queer Identity and Practice


WHAT DO

[image is from here]

[image is from here]

What follows is a collection of questions and interrogations. I welcome your respectful input.

[15 October 2010 note: I have, since writing this, come out as intergender after questioning whether or not I might be transgender. See the "About Me" info in the top right of this blog for more on that.]

I've grown up hearing terms like homosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and more recently queer and transgender used to describe a population of people impacted negatively by heteropatriarchy. I'd add to that people who identify and are genderqueer, gender non-conforming (GNC) , same gender loving (SGL), Two Spirit, and intersex.

What we have in common is often misunderstood and misrepresented in the dominant media. We don't, overall, have our own media, except in relatively small, marginal ways. When Queer or LGBTIQ people are presented on network television, we are usually class-privileged and white, and do not seek to overturn the Western heteropatriarchal apple cart, that may have registered the first thud when Adam took a bite of and then dropped the apple plucked, bitten, and handed to him by Eve. (Apparently, he's held a grudge against her, not apples, ever since. He also hasn't made peaceful, anti-patriarchal use of "knowledge".)

I have been engaged in intensive and extensive conversation with a few people in my community, and have arrived at a few conclusions, to be shared here.

How we decide who we are, what we'll call ourselves, and with whom we identify is a complex process, partly or largely imposed by oppressive dominant society, which, for example, will stigmatise as inferior anyone who is not appropriately masculine and manly and male in combination. All women, all trans people, all gay men, all intersex people, to name a few groups, are marginalised and oppressed in systems which determine that manhood is "something socially material and stable" rather than an idea enforced and reinforced with violence, coercion, peer pressure, and institutional normalisation and naturalisation.

The core challenge, for me, is to expose, challenge, and organise against the naturalisation and normalisation of anything resembling "natural patriarchal manhood". One non-mainstream group that is not part of my people, are the heterosexual men, usually white and class-privileged, who gather and wander into the woods together homosocially to reclaim their inner natural masculinity. They may beat drums, or howl, or be shirtless. Many of them have beards. Most if not all are of European descent. Such men appropriate incorrectly imagined Indigenous practices and pretend that being in the woods offers up an opportunity to "be a man" that walking down a city street does not. It may well be the case that howling and beating on a drum with beard and without shirt on Broadway and 32nd Street in Manhattan will be regarded differently than in the a forested section of upstate New York.

Another group of socially dominant malemen is those who fight or speak out for "rights" to do what men have historically done: discriminate against women, control women, and deny women rights and autonomy. They are termed MRAs, or Men's Rights Activists, but I regard them as enforcers of Men's Wrongs.

Another group of dominant malemen is the pimps and procurers, slavers and traffickers of women and other people. These people take pride, pleasure, and profit in treating women the way men have historically mistreated women--as things for men to sexually use and abuse as possessions, rented and bought, traded and sold, raped and killed.

When I consider being a queer male, I want to imagine males who stand in opposition to those and many other dominant malemen. Who oppose what they stand for, who oppose what they do, and who promote ways of being that do not reinforce heteropatriarchal normalised atrocities and naturalised harm.

Once upon a time, queer males were male-bodied people who were opposed to heteropatriarchal ways of being malemen. Now being a queer male tells me little about what their political grounding is, what their values are, and what their social visions look like.

Increasingly, I find that "queerness" is without a politic and a plan. I don't wish for there to be "one". I wish for there to be many. And I wish for the many to all exist in opposition to the status quo, to normative heteropatriarchy, to white het male supremacy, and to the economic and social systems that help maintain and bolster those philosophical and political realities.

In times of crisis, I find, there can be a tendency to clutch more tightly to the institutions and values and ways of being that are strangling the life out of Life on Earth.

I was discussing with a friend this idea, which I've been hearing about for a while. What if people who were out of pay-work, who were socially able to do so, met and organised an alternative largely money-less bartering economy, whereby goods and services would be made and exchanged according to need, especially, and possibly also some wants? What if 100,000 people out of work in a city organised this alternative economy which would provide basic social services, emotional and community support, spiritual guidance and counsel, and engage in political vision and resistance?

At this stage in civilisation, I don't foresee a form of "civilisation" that isn't in the business of committing genocide, gynocide, and ecocide. That said, how might queer people organise and support one another no longer supporting the systems and institutions that will destroy all of us, in time, harming the oppressed most of all?

I long for an identity and practice that doesn't locate me in terms of my relationship to a penis and what is or isn't done with it. I long for an identity and practice that locates me in resistance to patriarchal forces, coercion, and pressures to conform and deform myself into something that will kill others ruthlessly without consciousness and knowledge, or with awareness and callousness.

Does my "queerness" stand against white supremacy, male supremacy, heterosexism, and capitalism? Does it recognise and responsibly act within "civilisation" in ways that attempt to organise greater objection and rejection of it?

While I have been gay-identified for approximately 25 years--please don't send anniversary gifts, being "gay" doesn't indicate much about what my spiritual, sexual, affectional, emotional, mental, intellectual beliefs, passions, and practices are.

What it ought to tell you is one thing primarily: I am not a heterosexual maleman and don't "enjoy" or "exploit" the privileges and entitlements of het malemen. But it doesn't say whether or not I wish to. That's a problem, to me.

I toss around ideas: being anti-patriarchal gender systems is true enough, but also defines me in terms of a negative not something affirmative.

As I occupy a space that falls within the bounds of transgender identity, I don't experience myself transitioning in my lifetime, because there is nothing socially existent for me to transition towards. I expect to live my life dissatisfied and dissociated, to varying degrees. Am I transgender? Probably. But what I'm wanting to transition from is someone who is lives in an oppressively gendered civilisation to someone who isn't.

In this way, my identity isn't "personal" only. It is necessarily both social and political. It is not primarily subjective, but is rather collectivist and visionary, defining practices, ways of being alive that do not encourage, endorse, or enable contemporary brutal, bigoted society.

I used to live in a community that had this sense of what "identity" was: it registered where one was located by dominant forces, and stated a position in relation to that. A position that was not in support of the status quo. That community was flawed, as communities tend to be. It was white-centric, euro-centric, anglo-centric, classist, racist, and ableist. It didn't necessarily see "civilisation" as a problem, but rather only some forms of it. But it was solidly against heterosexism and patriarchy. Clearly, definitively, unambiguously. This didn't mean we didn't participate in heteropatriarchy; it meant we didn't promote it, defend it, or protect it--or identify with those levels of participation. We didn't construct ideas of self that felt threatened by critique and challenge to heteropatriarchy, we welcomed the critique and challenge.

Since that time I've found individuals who are committed to living in a way that is anti-racist, against the dominance of whiteness, opposed to unsustainable living, who are against civilisation that requires genocide, gynocide, and ecocide to exist. But individuals sharing a few beliefs and practices isn't sufficient to radically transform society.

Contemporary "queer" politics do not speak to me. An agenda of allowing privileged queer people to marry does little to pull up and expose the roots of heteropatriarchy, especially when it reinforces capitalist coupling. And promoting polyamory, while counter-cultural, isn't a threat to the status quo.

There are other questions for me about queer identity: how does it assist the struggle people are waging worldwide for access and proximity to free drinkable water and unpolluted land? How does it assist people in nations occupied by Western military forces? How does it stand in relation to Indigenous struggles for sovereignty? How does it support women fighting systems of prostitution and procurement? How does it support intersex people being unharmed by surgeons? How does it support queer people not being manipulated and exploited by the psychiatric-medical industrial complex? How does it support the end of rape on Earth?

The queer communities I've seen lately fetishise without critique militarism, master-slave dynamics, and ideas and practices of oppressive gender expression as "transgressive" and even "radical". To look at what constitutes "transgression" and "radical queerness" is to find no action threatening or even resistant to capitalist racist heteropatriarchy, as far as I can tell. I know there are some white-majority and white-dominant groups that term themselves radical and queer that proclaim to be in opposition to things like racism, heterosexism, and misogyny, but I don't see evidence of the practice, only the statement, the wish to do so. That, to me, is liberalism, not radicalism. Liberalism is the practice of making promises that will cannot be kept because the philosophy doesn't have a practice to achieve the realisation of vision proposed. That the vision isn't envisioned centrally and predominantly by the most oppressed, marginalised, least privileged people is one of the problems. People with privilege will, in my experience, inevitably envision worlds where those privileges are somehow protected and maintained. As I see it, white people are not capable of producing a world without white supremacy, and men are not capable of producing a world without patriarchy. The same for Western capitalists. The same for proponents of modern or post-modern, industrial or post-industrial civilisation.

So I'm not supportive of white queer "transgression" as queer social practice because I don't witness it being anti-kyriarchical, and instead, I see it being pro-kyriarchical. So to me, it's not "queer".

To be pro-pornography is to be about as unradical as being pro-pollution. I get that we all will pollute, or leave a carbon footprint, but that doesn't mean I have to construct my sexual life around doing so, does it? And, even if my sexual life is bound to it, that doesn't mean I have to promote those aspects of my sexuality as "liberating" and "radical".

Audre Lorde wrote an essay that pointed us in a direction, that opened up radically different ways to conceptualise, embody, and experience the Erotic. Her work has been ignored or opposed by every white queer class-privileged person I know. Why?