All the “-isms” and Why They Matter.

“The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.”

– Scott Woods

This quote has spent the past several days circulating among my Facebook friends, and it in combination with some internet infighting has made me really want to address the understanding and use of “-isms.” Racism, Sexism, Cissexism, are all examples.

(It’s somewhat unfortunate that the above quote regards racism, because that is the one “-ism” that doesn’t follow the sort of language pattern I want to discuss. But, the description of the term as it is can be applied to most any “-ism.”)

There is an important actual and linguistic difference between individualized and institutionalized marginalization. Individual marginalization has terms like misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, etc. It refers to the ways in which a person or discrete small group of individuals are hateful to another. The “-isms” refer to institutionalized, internalized, ways of thinking and behaving that marginalize others without any conscious intent to do so. Here are some examples:

If a man tells a woman he’s going to rape her because she refused to accept his romantic advances, he’s a misogynist. If a person with no ill will toward women honestly believes women are “just different” and that’s why women are often less successful in science and math, they are being sexist.

If someone calls a trans* person a “trap,” or a “tranny,” they’re being transphobic. The fact that people actually feel the need to legislate the use of “correct” bathrooms because they’re really concerned about how genitalia align with bodily functions, they’re being cissexist. Or, for a more “polite” example, when every fucking interview with a trans* person crashes and burns because the interviewer asks about the interviewee’s genitalia, those interviewers are being cissexist.

Waving a sign that says “God Hates Fags” is homophobic. When a gay couple gets married and everyone legitimately wonders who’s going to wear the dress vs the tux (no matter the gender of the couple), that is heterosexist, though in this case the term more frequently used is heteronormative.

Telling a polyamorous person that she is “cheating” on her husband with her other partner(s) is polyphobic (I’m not 100% sure that’s a word, but it really ought to be). When filling out a medical form regarding sexual history, and there’s only one space for a “primary” or “main” partner, that’s monogamism.

And, as I mentioned at the beginning, racism is more difficult to parse out because there is only one term. If someone calls a black person the n-slur, they’re being racist.The appropriation of the cultural mores of another race because you think it’s fun and will make you cool, is racist. The prosecution of drug charges that results in an overwhelmingly black prison population, is also racist. The differences in behaviors and intentions all just have one word, and frankly throw my whole argument out of whack. But, it wouldn’t be the English language if a few words didn’t follow the rules.

The upshot of all this, as with any of my commentary about marginalized groups, is to check your privilege before you say something. No, you might not be transphobic, you might not be homophobic, you might not be polyphobic or misogynist or a hateful person of any sort. But, the insidious thing about “-isms” is that they can thrive without hate. They can be perpetuated without malice or intention. As Woods states, “It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you.” Whether or not we “like” black people, gay people, women, etc., we still view those who are different from ourselves in particular ways that can very easily become marginalizing.

If you are not a member of the particular marginalized group you’re discussing or interacting with, you’re liable to fall into an “-ism” trap because that’s just the way we’re brought up to think. Woods refers to this trap as a vast ocean we’re floating in, “a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it.” The privileged perspective that gives rise to the many “-isms” is an integrated parts of our lives that we have to consciously and constantly resist in order to truly support those who are not privileged in the same ways we are.

This last bit about “in the same ways we are” is important. A lot of people think they can’t be marginalizing because they are marginalized. Being poly does not make you magically a queer ally, being trans* does not make you immune from racism, etc. Every group carries unique sets of privileges that allow them to marginalize other groups. 

There are already a lot of resources addressing how to deal with privilege and be a true ally, and I don’t think I need to become one more. The simple point I’m trying to make is that a lot of us think that just because we aren’t hateful people means that we automatically do not marginalize others, and that’s simply untrue. Not being hateful is a solid baseline, but to work our way out of the deeply ingrained “-isms” that teach us what is normal and what is other, is an ongoing and difficult process. Though, I would argue, it is a necessary one to be an actualized person and full member of humanity at large.

 

Who Is “Undateable:” How Pop Comedy is Feeding Misogyny

There is a new comedy playing on NBC entitled “Undateable.” The program is based on a book of the same name by Ellen Rakieten and Anne Coyle. I confess, I have not yet watched the show, but the idea that this book – which I have read – could be turned into a TV show, gave me serious pause. The book is a list of traits which, the author assures, will make a man completely undesirable to women. Most of these traits are incredibly shallow and completely arbitrary. To fit oneself to the author’s ideal of manhood would be challenging at best, but more likely personally limiting, stifling personal expression in order to make him ideal mate material. For example: it’s unacceptable to have body piercings or multiple tattoos, but it’s also unacceptable to wear tube socks or fanny packs (don’t be too edgy or too wholesome). It’s unacceptable to go shirtless in public or to go to conventions (don’t be too confident or too nerdy). It’s unacceptable to try to look rich if you aren’t, to wear the wrong hairstyle on your head OR your body, to read on the toilet (no, really), work out too much – or not enough, own the wrong pet (which apparently is anything but a dog), and the list goes on. Frankly, from reading this book I can’t imagine what kind of man IS dateable.

There’s a point to this, let me get there.

This new TV show inspired a lovely (as-always) “article” from Buzzfeed entitled “11 Signs You are Definitely in the Friendzone.” The entire notion of “the friendzone” is one I keep hoping will be abandoned because we’ve all finally figured out that it’s the product of whiny misogynists with a massive sense of entitlement. The problem is, the innate misogyny in the entire cultural notion of “the friendzone” is constantly being softened by articles like this that make it look like a simple experience we can all relate to and smile at together.

The Friendzone is not a simple or a benign concept. There are generally two states of existence labeled as “the friendzone.” First is the one propagated by popular media, the amusing shell we like to pretend misogynists are referring to when they lament being “friendzoned.” This is the simple, common, experience where you have two people in a platonic relationship where one person has unrequited romantic desire for the other. We’ve all been there. Either the person with the crush gets over it and then it’s just friendship, or the person with the crush can’t handle the discomfort and the relationship ends. Pretty simple. By that definition, I’ve been “in the friendzone.” But that’s not some classification I was stuck in because I’m not good enough dating material, or because the other person thought they were too good for me, or anything like that. We were just…friends. That’s it. And this simple go-to definition is all most of the world pictures when we hear those words.

The second definition of the friendzone is the complicated, dangerous, insidious one that is perpetuated by the aforementioned whiny misogynists. It’s where a “nice guy” has a crush on a girl. So he becomes her friend, or at least behaves as such, in the hopes of it leading to a romantic relationship. When it doesn’t, for any reason, he believes he has been cheated, that he has put in the time and effort required for repayment in romance and/or sex. He feels slighted by her lack of interest, and because he’s sure that he’s “nice,” that he’s “the good guy,” he begins to believe that girls only like “assholes.” In his mind, this is obvious, because if he is nice, and she doesn’t like him then clearly she doesn’t like people that are nice.

That idea, that girls only like assholes, can go bad in two ways (yes, I know, I’m branching and branching, but they’ll come back together in the end I promise). The first is that the guy decides to BECOME an asshole. This gives rise to pick-up artists and RedPillers who objectify and assault women because they believe that it’s the best way to get laid. If they don’t take what they want (often in the form of sexual assault) they believe that they’ll never get it. The worst part is, in a literal sense, these strategies work. Because yes, if someone gets a girl drunk, or psychologically manipulates her, he might wind up having sex with her. The fact that this sex is barely consensual at best doesn’t matter. It still counts as a success, and thus the man can tell his buddies “See? I told you women only want assholes. When I was nice I never got laid, but now I do.”

The other end of the spectrum is groups like PUAHate, the forum frequented by Elliot Rodger before his shooting spree. This group seethes against the women who won’t have sex with them. They believe they deserve women’s bodies, and that women are simply awful for not sharing. An article on Jezebel.com described them most aptly:

“PUAHate, as other outlets have discussed, is an offshoot of the Pick Up Artist community populated by men (and, allegedly, women) who believe Pick Up Artistry to be a sham waste of money not because women are more than “targets” and “prey,” but because women are fucking hopeless cunts who can’t be convinced to give nice guys a chance. Women, argue PUAHaters, will only go out with good looking alpha males and would never look twice at anyone who isn’t a musclebound dreamboat with a six-figure income, and most men will never be those things, and so the world is against them and life is unfair.”

If your head works like mine, you’re starting to see the branches come back together. If not, here goes.

PUAHaters, who gave rise to a multiple murderer, believe that women are only interested in a very narrow category of men, an unattainable ideal, that they can never achieve.

The book Undateable, written by women, is describing the exact, very narrow category of manhood that has permission to be with women.

In short: pop culture, you’re not helping.

I’m not blaming this book for misogyny. That would be insane.

What I am saying is that when pop media insist on perpetuating the stereotype that women only desire this very specific, “ideal,” type of man, existing misogynists feel justified in their hatred. When a misogynist has formed his opinion that women will never want him because he wears the wrong clothes, has the wrong hobbies, has the wrong body, or is just plain “too nice,” he needs to be disillusioned, not shown examples showing him that he’s right.

I am not failing to acknowledge that this is comedy. I know this. But comedy needs to take on stereotypes, satirize them, and thereby tear them down. The book Undateable, instead, laughs at the “undateable” men, rather than the prejudicial attitudes that determined these qualities to be negative in the first place. I hoped that the book’s conclusion would at least provide me with some hope. That it would say “yeah, we’re saying these men are undateable, but hey to each their own, it’s really not our place to judge anyone.” That’s not what I got. What I actually got was additional mockery with a splash of self-objectification (“Lose the nasty flavor saver and go pull some ass.” PULL some ASS? Really, ladies? Do you want the man you’re dating to think of you as “some ass” that he’s “pulling?”).

This is here solely to prove that despite my long absence, I am not dead, and this is not a ghost writer.

Again, I am not contending that this sort of material, or the jocular attitude toward the “friendzone,” or any other misguided forms of comedy are the source of the deep misogyny found in PUAHate, the MRA, or The Red Pill. But when misogyny has become as widespread and dangerous as Elliot Rodger has proven it to be, I truly believe it is the responsibility of every media outlet, from the news, to comedy, to this dinky little blog in a corner of the internet, to make itself part of the solution. The ongoing refusal of the aforementioned media to acknowledge the depth of the problem, and therefore to deny responsibility for creating a solution, is what I find deplorable.

No Means No: A Feminist Fantasy.

In the fight against rape culture, many feminists feel we need to work beyond the “no means no” catchphrase toward a more cooperative, positive view of consent, where consent means “yes” instead of just “not no.” I agree with that idea, but I don’t think it’s time to leave behind “no means no,” yet.

Many folks, on an intellectual level, acknowledge that “no means no,” but there are certain parts of our minds that say “well, but maybe it doesn’t this time.” The incredibly sad reason for that is that sometimes that part of the mind is right. There are still people out there who use “no” as a tool for manipulation, for whom “no” is a tease that means “maybe” or means “work harder.” It sucks, but they’re out there. And as long as “no” is used to mean anything other than “I don’t want this to happen, please stop,” we can’t abandon “no means no” for greener, more enlightened pastures.

So, here’s my fantasy. Let’s imagine a scenario, where one person is attempting to use “no” to sexually manipulate their partner. Heck, let’s roleplay it out.

Person A: Hey, do you want to come upstairs?

Person B: (blushing, using engaging body language) No, I don’t know if I should.

Person A: Ok, well, have a good night. (Exits)

Here’s what just happened: person A, the sexual initiator, can tell that person B is being manipulative and deceptive, but has accepted the “no” answer and terminated the encounter. B is probably going to be really annoyed by this. S/he’s going to try to chew out A later, and A is going to say  “but you said no, and I took you at your word.” Thus B will learn not to do that any more.

This is my fantasy, and I say fantasy because I know that for most people instilling a lesson about consent and rape culture is less important than the immediate opportunity for a sexual encounter. But when “no” sometimes really does mean “keep going,” how are we supposed to teach people the universal statement that “no means no?” The lesson becomes disingenuous. So, in addition to teaching people that as the sexual initiators “no means no,” we need to also teach clear communication of consent, and to never use “no” unless you really mean it.

“Nobody Wants To See That!”

“There are some people you just don’t want to see naked.”

This is a phrase I’ve heard bandied about so often that it almost seems like a truism, especially when I hear it from the mouths of people that I value and respect. These are, generally speaking, good open-minded people, and so when they say something that sounds so obvious, the first response I think is “well, yeah.”

Then I thought about it.

And I thought about what it meant. I thought “is this true?” and “is this shaming?” The answers were no, and yes.

The first question: Is this true? For me, no it isn’t. There is not a single body on this planet that I wouldn’t love to see with enough confidence, freedom from fear, and shamelessness to be exposed openly. If every person I saw walking down the street every day was nude without fear of reprisal or violence, without self-consciousness about their sexual appeal, and without the baffling moral notion that to be exposed is to somehow disrespect oneself, I’d be downright thrilled. I would look at each and every body with respect and pleasure, and there is no person on this earth that I would not want to see that way.

The second question is, I think, more important because it applies more to the rest of the world that doesn’t have my desire to liberate naked bodies. “Is this shaming?” Absolutely yes, and I think that’s a question that more of us need to ask ourselves every time we open our mouths. The shaming question goes back to an issue I’ve already tackled, the fact that sexuality and nudity are needlessly conflated, and that a body that is not sexually desirable is considered repugnant. “There are some people you just don’t want to see naked,” translates to, “If a body is not sexually appealing to me, it ought to be covered up.” There are many bodies in this world that are not sexually appealing to me – in fact, I’d venture to say most of them – but I have no right to expect my sexual preferences to control others’ bodies. Nor should those preferences affect the way others feel about their bodies.

So, you know. Think about what you say. Don’t say shaming crap. If you think you might possibly be saying shaming crap, imagine someone was saying it about you. If that hurts your feelings, then it’s shaming. Don’t say it.

How to be Your Favorite Barista’s Favorite Customer

Yeah, I know, this has nothing to do with feminism, polyamory, queer culture, or anything deep and intellectually hip. But, I think it’s the sort of thing a lot of people might enjoy a free primer on, especially if you’re that person that thinks the barista is cute but has no idea how to chat him/her up.

There are a lot of great bloggers out there who have written a lot of great pieces on how not to be a douchebag in a restaurant or coffee shop. And those offer a fantastic baseline. But if you want to be the customer that the staff goes “Where’s so-and-so, I haven’t seen him/her in awhile?” (and says it with regret rather than celebration), there aren’t a ton of guides for it. So I’m writing one.

1: Tip Generously.

Yes, this seems incredibly obvious, but I’d also like to point out that everyone’s idea of “generously” is different. You don’t have to break the bank and drop a $5 tip every time you buy a $4 latte. But do it the first time. If you really want to, do it again once every month or two, but that first $5 bill in the jar is guaranteed to get the employee’s attention. Afterward, tip with paper money, every time. The people who think that only their change goes in the jar often leave $.08 tips on their $3.92 lattes, and those people suck. The ones that always put paper in the jar, we see you and we love you.

Note: this obviously also applies to the write-in credit card tips.

2: Speak Kindly

No, I don’t wear this to work every day. Yes, I did actually work in it.

Sometimes, things go wrong. Maybe it’s like an hour before our weekly delivery comes in and we’re out of all the things. That sucks. You’ve been denied the almond milk for your latte, the bacon for your breakfast sandwich, and we have no chocolate chip scones so you’re stuck with a blueberry muffin. These things are frustrating.

Here’s the thing. Chances are good that we’re just as frustrated as you are. My life runs most smoothly when a customer rattles of a list of things they want, and all I have to say is “I’ll bring it right out to you.” So, when you’re in a situation where you’re not getting what you want, think for a minute if the problem is likely to be the barista’s fault. If it isn’t don’t give him/her a hard time about it. It won’t make your bacon magically appear, and it will make the barista hate you forever. Seriously, one bad-mouthing and the staff WILL hate you FOREVER.

Additionally, I’m very happy to make whatever weird concoction you want to drink/eat, and am able and willing to work off-menu for you. But if you act like that’s something you’re entitled to, rather than a favor I’m gladly giving, I won’t want to do it any more. So, be kind.

And, you know what? Sometimes you’ve had a bad day. I get that. Sometimes I’ve had a bad day too, but I’m still kind to my customers because I’m obligated to be. You don’t have that obligation, but if you bring your bad day to my counter, I’ll remember you, and not fondly. If I didn’t cause your bad day, don’t take it out on me. The customer who always smiles back at me when I smile at him/her, that’s the one I love.

3: Jog My Memory

I really really want to remember the name and favorite beverage of every customer that enters my shop more than once a week. I don’t. And if I don’t remember what you order, it’s not because I don’t like you. It’s because there are many regulars, who all want different things, and especially if you like something complicated it takes me awhile to store it in the memory banks.

With that in mind, if I say “what can I get for you?” please don’t say “my usual.” If I remembered your “usual,” I wouldn’t be asking that question. I’d be saying something like “so, your usual mocha?” Instead, try “my usual ____(fill in the item).” That way, I will not only get a reminder of what you want, I’ll associate it in my head as what you will typically want in the future.

Pro tip: If you never tell me your name, I won’t know it. If you want me to remember you better, introduce yourself. If you’re shy, run a tab. I’ll have to write down your name and remember it until you close your tab. Next time I see you, it might stick.

4: Remember my Name

This rule doesn’t apply across the board, because addressing me by name comes with a little bit of protocol. There have been several people in my shop that are friends-of-friends, who come up and address me by name like we know each other, but I don’t know who they are. This puts me in the awkward position of saying “oh, hey, you, yeah, hi there you, how are you?” with no clue who you are. So, going back to my pro tip, introduce yourself. And after that, it’s totally encouraged to remember my name.

So! We have learned some rules, now let’s have some role-play (I know, getting kinky). Let’s say it’s your second or third time in the shop, and you introduced yourself on your first visit.

Me: Hey, (your name), how’s it going?

You: Hi (my name), I’m pretty good.

Me: Great, what can I get for you?

You: I’ll take my usual breakfast sandwich, and medium latte with skim.

Me: Oh, I’m really sorry, we just ran out of the wheat bagels you like – can we put your sandwich on a plain bagel instead?

You: Actually, I think I’ll try it on wheat toast today.

Me: We can totally do that. Your total is $9.69.

You: (hands me money, puts a couple of singles in the tip jar)

Ta-da, you were a model customer just now. And here’s another pro tip: if you work to be the customer the staff remembers and likes, you’ll get unexpected perks, I swear it. It might be an extra piece of bacon on your sandwich, it might be a little more generous side of chips, or it might be “hey I just came up with an awesome idea for a milkshake, you wanna try it?”

I love my job, and I love (most of) my regular customers. And going to a place where the staff is happy to see you, is never a bad thing.

Prom: Slut-Shaming and Teen Sexuality

I am asking for trouble. I am begging for the internet world at large to hate on me. Am I this much of a masochist? Am I really going to go here?

Yeah, yeah I am. I’m a 25-year-old with no children, about to write a post about parenting teenagers.

The only excuse I can offer is that I was a teenager myself less than a decade ago. Please don’t kill me.

Recently I read this article regarding high school prom dress codes, and the accusation that they are “slut-shaming” female attendees through tight restrictions on acceptable female apparel in an attempt to avoid creating a “distraction.”

This is a deeply complex issue, and being not a parent I can’t even hope to cover every aspect of what’s happening here. But I will try to break it down into as many cogent pieces as possible.

First, let’s look at the motivation behind restrictive dress codes for female students. For anyone who has never read a school dress code, “distraction” is public school code for “boners.” The goal of these rules – which usually include provisions for length of skirts/shorts, exposure of bellies and cleavage, and general skin coverage –  is to prevent teenage girls from looking too sexually provocative and giving boys boners. That reasoning in itself is problematic because of its assumption that an exposed body is inherently sexual, a concern I have posted on at length already. Girls are being taught that to expose their body is to provoke sexual responses. If A, then B, no mitigating factors. Even the people militating against the dress-codes as “slut-shaming” are buying into this argument, because if an exposed body is not sexual, then there is no slut to shame, just a girl in shorts.

The exposure of the body is not necessarily sexual, but it certainly can be. Working from a position where girls are specifically wearing revealing clothing to look sexy, we can see a lot of reasons why they might be prevented from doing so:

1) Adults don’t believe teenage girls are capable of understanding and controlling their own sexual availability. If a girl looks like she wants sex, that might mean that she does. Obviously she’s too young to make informed sexual opinions, so if we make it LOOK like she’s not interested in being sexually provocative, then she will no longer BE interested. This argument is clearly fallacious. If you put a girl in a nun’s habit, it won’t actually change her sexual interests, it will just create a false front.

This particular issue is complicated by the fact that many teenage girls aren’t actually interested in being sexually provocative out of any sense of desire, but merely because that’s what girls are “supposed to” look like. Female teen sexuality is deeply damaged by the fact that many girls feel the need to exude sexual desirability, but without sexual desire of their own that goes with it. In this regard, I absolutely understand the impulse to control what she wears, so that she can be forgiven for not putting on a sexual facade she may not want in the first place. However, that’s something to have a conversation with a girl about, instead of simply legislating her wardrobe. If she feels uncomfortable among her peers because of sexual expectations, discuss them and work to change the expectations.

2) Adults don’t believe teenage boys are capable of controlling their own sexual impulses. We have a wealth of news stories about teen boys sexually assaulting girls, and the classic knee-jerk response is to try to make girls less sexually interesting to boys so that boys will stop doing awful things to them. The trouble with this is that we’re placing the onus on the girls – as usual – to control boys’ impulses, instead of teaching boys to control those impulses. Instead of teaching young people about consent, we’re trying to shut off their urges by concealing temptation. That’s simply not going to happen – and, worse, we’re punishing girls for supposedly creating these urges if they don’t properly conceal themselves.

3) Adults are uncomfortable viewing teenage girls as sexually desirable. A high school girl is, physically, pretty much an adult. She may grow another inch or two, she may gain half a cup size in college, but her body is a grown-up body. How I feel about her emotional or sexual maturity is a question for another insanely long post, but because of their physical maturity, adult authority figures become uncomfortable seeing sexually appealing teenage girls. They are unavailable due to the difference in social stratum, but stir desire nonetheless. That’s a little scary for a lot of people. (I’m not talking here about parents. I’m talking about teachers, administrators, chaperones.)

4) If a teenage girl dresses in a sexually provocative manner, adults believe that she is sexually active and that is “icky.” This one is more about the parents than the other authority figures. Many parents want to live under the illusion that their teenagers are not having sex. Most people start their sexual lives as teenagers, so this is very much an illusion. But it’s much easier to maintain the illusion that my (hypothetical) daughter is not having sex if she does not look sexy.

In the end, I’ll say that teen sex is incredibly problematic. I don’t think that sexually objectifying dress codes fix anything. If a girl shows up to prom in an outfit that causes concern among the adults, maybe ask her about it instead of sending her home. If the problem is that we’re worried whether teens are having safe, joyful, consensual sex lives, the issue is not her dress, it’s why she’s wearing it. If, as I suspect, the issue is not that we’re concerned about teenagers having healthy sex lives but are, rather, attempting to prevent teenagers from having sex lives at all, well then stop it. Just stop it. Restrictive dress-codes are about as effective at controlling teen sexuality as abstinence-only education: which is to say, not at all.

One last thing, and I promise it will be brief: a lot of folks have commented on the gender disparity between explanations of “appropriate” prom attire. I don’t know what kind of proms these people were going to, but all the ones I’ve seen the guys wear approximately one thing: a tux. It comes in colors, vest or no vest, bowtie or straight tie, but it’s all the damn same. It just is. The difference in rules isn’t sexist, it’s a fact of men’s formalwear. Whether or not the difference between men’s and women’s formalwear is inherently sexist is a question for not right now.

The Objectification Spectrum, and Where Flattering Meets Rude

This is obviously not my first post about objectification, consent to be gazed upon, or the concept of respect regarding sexual gazing. These are pet subjects for me, but I don’t want to re-cover ground I’ve already trod upon. However, I had a recent experience that made me question when and how one can and should give consent to being physically objectified, and the responsibility of the gazer in such situations.

Right, so that was incredibly vague. Here’s what happened:

A few weeks ago I went to a private BDSM play party, wherein I was generally comfortable and among friends, but the party was sufficiently well-attended I certainly didn’t know everyone. I was naked save for a piece of body jewelry, and received a lot of friendly comments toward my recently finished tattoo. At one point in the evening, a couple of men were standing behind me, one commenting on my tattoo, the other commenting on my body, making jokes to the effect of “oh, she has a tattoo? I didn’t notice.” They couldn’t have been more than a foot away, and I heard every word they said.

I was extremely uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable not because they were enjoying looking at my body, but because by commenting on it while so close to me, they either completely forgot that I was a person who was capable of hearing them, or they didn’t care. This I did not appreciate. I confess to being shy, and therefore generally unhappy with being spoken to by strangers, but at that close range I would much rather be spoken to than spoken about. I felt that my personhood was somehow being taken from me by being so freely commented upon without any nod to my living presence near them.

So, the next question in my mind was, what would have been the right way for that scenario to unfold? I suppose ideally, these men would have introduced themselves, and then shared their opinions with me, rather than simply near me. Second best would be to keep their comments to themselves until I was out of earshot, because while it’s generally considered rude to talk about other people, at least by avoiding being overheard they would be acknowledging that I am a person who can hear.

The other – much more complicated – question is, where on the spectrum does some kind of spoken communication need to happen to constitute consent? I’ve said before that I believe to make something visible is consent for it to be seen. To be looked at does not require explicit consent. Obviously, any thoughts that go along with looking also don’t. I can fantasize about whomever I want, whenever I want. Look at any part of me that you can see without touching – that’s fair game. Think your free personal thoughts about what you see, as innocuous or lewd as they may be.

But what comes next? To give consent of any kind involves some kind of spoken interaction, so it seems like speaking to someone should be a free action (to steal a term from RPG’s). On the other hand, street harassment often takes the form of words and is certainly not okay. I absolutely love this comic I found on the subject:

Comic by Barry Deutsch – click through to read.

I’m constantly thinking about where lines are drawn, and the distinction here between what is a compliment and what is harassment gave me a lot of food for thought. It’s (mostly) not the words that make the difference. If a person at the aforementioned party approached me, made eye contact, and said “I think you have an incredibly hot ass,” I would not be threatened. I might be a little awkward, but I’d be flattered. It might even “make my day.” But when someone calls those words out to me on the street, it makes me very nervous.

The easy answer is that the line is about motivation, but since we can’t know someone else’s motives, it’s not a workable solution. I don’t know if the person talking to me wants to pick me up, assault me, or just offer me a compliment in passing. I can’t know, in either circumstance.

I really wanted a big “ta-da!” to close this out, but I’m honestly stymied. I can tell you with certainty that verbally expressing sexual desire toward a woman is not inherently harassment, but I can’t tell you exactly what is. Especially because there’s also a realm in between acceptable and unacceptable, and that is “rude.” What the men at the party did to me was rude. It was not harassment, but it wasn’t ok either. It was rude, which is somewhere between the two.

While I may not have a pretty bow to wrap this up in, I will say this line of thinking is making me realize how difficult it can be for men to honestly express their sexual desires toward women. If I was a good person who was often in fear of being labeled a predator, I’d err dramatically on the side of caution, and would thereby probably not have any sex ever. The lines are blurry, and as a woman I’m generally viewed as less threatening and therefore less likely to accidentally find myself on the wrong side of the line. As a woman, that line is interesting to contemplate. If I were a man, it would terrify me.

No Means No, Even When You’re Famous – or – Seriously Guys, Leave Jon Hamm’s Penis Alone

Love this show. Love it.

I am a proud and happy consumer of pop culture. I love television and popular music. While I’ve mentioned that my critical eye is hyper-active when I consume my pop-culture, consume it I do, sometimes voraciously. However, I admit that I am, generally speaking, not interested in the meta-pop-culture that is celebrities’ personal lives. While I love Mad Men, for instance, I could care less what kind of sandwiches Christina Hendricks ate last month, or who January Jones is having sex with, or how Vincent Kartheiser is styling his hair these days – off the set, that is.

But, when I came across this article entitled “Giant-Dicked Jon Hamm Really Wishes All Of You Would Stop Talking About His Giant Dick,” well, how could I resist that? It used the word dick twice in the headline alone – I’m obviously going to be interested. It turns out that Jon Hamm, the actor who portrays Don Draper on the aforementioned Mad Men, has been garnering a great deal of attention among the celebrity “news” media because of the visible bulge he creates in his pants.

Taken from the “Jon Hamm’s Wang” tumblr.

And when I say “a great deal,” what I mean is that the article linked above is actually the second one on the subject by Uproxx, the first being called “Jon Hamm’s Penis Has Become a Disruptive Force on the Set of Mad Men.” (It’s a little scary to me how they phrased that, as if he was molesting his co-stars or something, rather than just looking more bulgy than his director would prefer.) Additionally, The Daily Beast referred to him as having a penis that is “Too Big For Clothing,” and, as if all the standard media attention is not enough, there’s also an entire tumblr dedicated to Jon Hamm’s penis. Seriously, I couldn’t make this up. A quick Google search revealed pages and pages of additional articles on the subject, as well as a long list of photos, many of which circled or highlighted the notorious bulge.

All of the attention Mr Hamm has been receiving, primarily in the form of tongue-in-cheek jokes about “Hamm’s ham,” has become rather too much for him, and he vented about it a bit to Rolling Stone magazine, saying that “it is a little rude. It just speaks to a broader freedom that people feel like they have – a prurience.” He adds, “They’re called ‘privates’ for a reason. I’m wearing pants, for fuck’s sake. Lay off. I mean, it’s not like I’m a fucking lead miner. There are harder jobs in the world. But when people feel the freedom to create Tumblr accounts about my cock, I feel like that wasn’t part of the deal.”

Jon Hamm’s Rolling Stone cover

So, he’s telling us a lot of things here. First off, he is preemptively fighting the inevitable attack from we-the-non-famous-people, specifically that he lives a life of privilege in the spotlight and therefore can expect certain levels of gossip and exposure beyond that of the average private citizen, and that he views his privilege as paid for with that loss of privacy. That’s very big of you, Jon. I frankly disagree, but at this point despair of the possibility of ever rectifying the situation, so far gone are we in our love of celebrity. However, the more important thing he’s doing is telling the world that he feels uncomfortable about the way he’s being objectified, and that he doesn’t consent to it. He right out says, “lay off.” He tells Rolling Stone that being publicly hypersexualized without his consent isn’t a freedom that he thinks people ought to be taking, that it “wasn’t part of the deal” that comes with being famous. And he’s right. It is rude.

My opinion on the sexual objectification of another person’s body is the same as my opinion on any other sexual act. Its acceptability reaches only as far as consent. To be visible is to consent to be seen, but that’s it. If Jon Hamm is wearing tight pants, and you can see a bulge in them, you’re allowed to look. You’re even allowed to fantasize about it if you want. Rub one out, have a lovely time. But it doesn’t mean that he’s consented to this kind of public commentary based entirely around his genitalia. And in a free-speech-loving culture, yes, we do have every legal right to talk about it, to post paparazzi photos, and make jokes. These things aren’t illegal, but they are unkind, and they do create an environment where we believe it’s not only acceptable, but fun, to dehumanize celebrities.

So, annoyed with the disrespect being lavished upon his humanity, Hamm spoke out honestly and frankly with Rolling Stone magazine. Good for you, I say. But I seem to be the only one that said that. Uproxx, in the first article I linked to, had a totally different take on the situation. From word one, they mock Hamm for his affrontedness. No, really, I mean literally word one. “Seriously,” they lead off, before diving into a litany of sarcasm and mock empathy, calling his complaints to Rolling Stone “bitching,” and referring to him as “pissy.” They threaten his popularity, telling him that he’s “pushing it” by attempting to withhold consent to be made into a sexual object, and that “there are few things less endearing.”

The parallels here to victim-blaming are so stark they hurt my eyes when I read this article. How many times have women been sexually harassed and told to “take it as a compliment?” How many “prudes” and “ice queens” are there out there whose worst offense was being hurt when someone made an insensitive comment about their bodies? Now a man who, in his own words, wants his privates to stay private, is being decried as “pissy,” and is being threatened with social isolation if he doesn’t agree to play along with his own objectification. He’s being told, in essence, to “take it as a compliment.” Uproxx snarks “is there a worst lot in life than that of the handsome, famous celebrity with a giant penis, especially when the whole world knows about said handsome, famous celebrity’s giant penis?” The implication of course being that Hamm should be flattered by all the attention his cock is attracting. The world is looking at his huge penis, obviously that’s a good thing! And if Hamm relished in and encouraged the attention, then yes it would be a good thing. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want it, and so that means the right thing to do is let it go.

“I’m a Social Farter” – Another Example of the Shock-And-Awe Anti-Smoking Approach

This is what I walked past at GenCon 2012, looking every bit like another video game demo, complete with line of eager participants.

Anti-smoking campaigns are notorious for being filled with little white lies, misleading tactics and outright misdirection to sell you their ideology. Anyone who’s a BFN (big fucking nerd) like myself and goes to conventions has seen the god-awful Flavor Monsters booth sponsored by Truth, where visitors enter a high-budget booth and are told that if they demo this fun new game they get a free tshirt. No commitment or investment required. Once you give them your email address and “play” through this “game,” however, you realize that the “flavor monsters” are the eeeevil flavors that eeeevil tobacco corporations are placing in their products to fool poor unsuspecting Americans into consuming their eeeevil products. Thanks, Truth, for the bait-and-switch, and for once again reminding us that you think Americans are too stupid to decide for themselves whether or not they want to give themselves cancer. I personally was pretty annoyed when flavored cigarettes got outlawed, and I’m pretty sure that the cigar-smokers and dippers out there would be equally annoyed if flavors were outlawed there are well.

That’s not what I am posting about right now, though. The video that caught my attention today is less about the bait-and-switch and more about using charisma and humor to cover up bad logic. The ad is by a California anti-smoking campaign and features a woman who identifies herself as a “Social Farter.” She isn’t really a farter, she says, she only farts when she’s out with friends, when she’s drinking, or sometimes to break the ice and meet a guy. It’s an analogy, you see. The payoff, of the ad is the tagline “Social smoking is as ridiculous as social farting.” Oh, that’s so clever! You exclaim. Well, no, no it’s not. The problem is that farting and smoking aren’t analogous at all. One is a bodily function that frankly you must perform at some point or else you will experience pretty significant physical pain, and is socially unacceptable in public venues, much like many other bodily functions. The other is a mood-altering recreational drug that is acceptable to consume in many public venues. And it is, in fact, more pleasant to consume in combination with alcohol and socialization because of the aforementioned mood-altering characteristics. But we’re all supposed to be both amused and vaguely horrified at this woman farting in social settings in order to produce in the audience a similar feeling toward social smoking. The analogy doesn’t actually stand on its own, but if the creators can convince their audience of a connection, then the audience will view social smoking as equally ludicrous, and equally distasteful, as social farting. Fortunately, unlike Pavlov and his bell, the human mind is complicated enough that if you put two things next to one another we do not automatically decide they are related. No, social farting is not analogous to social smoking. Sorry, you’re just plain wrong, and being intentionally wrong to manipulate my thinking is even worse.

Public Service Announcement

I’m taking a brief hiatus from my usual feminist ranting and polyamorous ramblings to talk about two very important trans men in my life.

My coworkers and I have formed a tight-knit family. We call the shop owners Mom and Dad, (or “Ma” and “Pops” on occasion), and we’re all brothers and sisters. Two of my brothers are wonderful men currently in the process of transition.

The first, my little brother Dylan, has been taking testosterone for almost a year, and has raised about $4000 toward his top surgery. We’re continuing to work hard to raise funds for him. His indiegogo campaign ended last month, but I’m still trying to support him in his efforts, as the surgery and recovery are a large financial burden to bear. He’s a little over half-way to his $7000 goal, so we’re hoping to put him on a plane to a fabulous surgeon soon.

The other, my Irish-twin brother Eliot, is just starting down this road. He started testosterone supplements last month, and just started up an indiegogo campaign for his own top surgery. We’re hoping in another month or so that idiots will quit calling him “ma’am,” once he grows some stubble and his voice drops.

For a lot of trans-men, having to look in the mirror every day and see a man, but then see a pair of breasts, is a heavy psychological strain. I’ve known men who wouldn’t even remove their binders to have sex, because their breasts made them that uncomfortable. Top surgery can seem superficial, but it is a huge step toward allowing these men to look in the mirror and see a reflection of the men they really are.

So, help my brothers out.

You can donate for Eliot here.

Dylan’s indiegogo campaign has ended, but if you want to send a donation, you can email me at starontheswingset@gmail.com and I’ll get you some details.