First, a little background: the following post is one I was kindly invited to write by Professor Philip Moriarty as a guest post on his blog "Symptoms Of The Universe". The invitation came off the back of a conversation I had in comments on this post here.
If you're interested in reading that conversation (or rather that series of conversations - there were a few threads) my handle there is "ObjectiveReality". This is because Prof Moriarty has a WordPress blog and my Wordpress login is "ObjectiveReality", if he had a Blogger blog like mine, I'd have been "Wolfboy"(1) as I am here.
For a very tl;dr version of the backstory, Philip ended up on a podcast with another Philip (last name Mason) who more usually (at least on the internet) goes by the name of Thunderf00t. If you're not familiar with him, Mason is an atheist YouTuber, a sometime science YouTuber, and a virulent antifeminist.
In the course of this conversation, Mason expressed the view that the lack of women in STEM(2) fields was due to sexual dimorphism. Philip addressed this view at length here, pointing out that the evidence for such a view was not good (to say the least) and invited Mason to comment. After a long period of silence, he asked again and was treated to an astoundingly puerile exchange via email, which he lays out at length here.
To be honest, this is not especially surprising (most denizens of the Manosphere(3) are significantly less intellectually rigorous than they like to claim) but it is a deeply irritating example of the awful way in which these people argue.
A better example (I hope) after the jump...
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Thursday, February 12, 2015
That weird feeling when you nearly agree with Bob McCroskie...
New Zealand's favourite pretend charity* and purveyors of anti-gay propaganda and moral outrage about teenagers potentially having sex, Family First want you to boycott the new movie of 50 Shades Of Grey.
This is because, in the words of FF's Managing director Bob McCroskie:
Bob McCroskie, Family First and their pet (terrible, fake) psychologist Miriam Grossman hate 50 Shades because they're convinced that anything outside the fairly narrow template that they define as a "healthy" relationship** is automatically dangerous and harmful. This means that the BDSM relationship depicted in 50 Shades is inherently damaging and dangerous because a relationship where one of the partners binds, dominates, or causes pain to the other (even if that partner wanted them to and specifically verbally asked them to) is automatically a Very Bad Thing. Here's Miriam Grossman:
So given that I think McCroskie and Grossman are both wrong in their thinking, how come I agree with them that 50 Shades is all kinds of gross and weird? It all comes back to consent again - Christian Grey repeatedly violates Ana's autonomy, and this is passed off as sexy and romantic.
In some ways this is kind of understandable, 50SoG began life as a an erotic Twilight fanfic and thus (I strongly suspect) has its roots in some sort of sex fantasy belonging to E. L. James. The reason this is relevant is because when you're having a sex fantasy in your own head, consent is completely irrelevant. You're playing around with figments of your imagination, who exist only to serve the situation you're creating for yourself. If one of those characters is (to quote an example beloved of anti-feminists) raped, that doesn't then imply that you actually want to be raped, or to rape somebody else.
As long as the fantasies stay inside your head or as short-form standalone erotica***** this isn't really an issue. It becomes problematic when it's applied to characters in a piece of fiction who are presented as having some sort of self-discovery, because the behaviour that leads to the self-discovery is tacitly presented as worthy unless it's explicitly described otherwise. And Christian Grey's behaviour is, from a kink/BDSM point of view, completely terrible.
If you want an overview of the book from a kink perspective, Cliff over at the Pervocracy has an excellent rundown (exercise caution before clicking - the Pervocracy is great but sometimes NSFW and links to some DEFINITELY NSFW places) but the teal deer version is pretty simple: Ana rarely (if ever) has a chance to set the parameters for the situations that Grey puts her in, and has no way out if she's not enjoying herself.
50SoG isn't actually the only offender here - I think it's a wider issue with fiction by people turned on by the idea of BDSM who didn't do their homework. Another good example is the movie Secretary which starts out being about two people drifting into a (mutually enjoyable) BDSM relationship but culminates with an actually-horrible-and-abusive "test" of one partner by the other, which leaves her stuck in a chair sitting in her own urine for three days. Romantic.
If you're genuinely interested in kink or BDSM, there are lots of great resources on the web, and the Pervocracy (linked above) is a pretty good place to start. I humbly submit that this would be a better and healthier use of your time than going to see 50 Shades Of Grey.
EDITED TO ADD:
It's been brought to my attention that Secretary isn't really as good an example as I thought. Lee (the titular secretary) is actually in more control a lot of the time than I gave her credit for. It's obscured a bit because the movie follows the drifty romantic comedy template for characters negotiating romantic or sexual situations (which is its own big bag of problematic nonsense, but waaaaay wider than any single film). Sorry guys.
Also, this post (especially the first couple of paragraphs) is basically a love letter to DoNotLink which you should all be using all the time (assuming you want to link to sketchy places for the purposes of explanation or freakshow appeal). I want to particularly stress this for people who like to link weird stories from the Daily Mail.
_____
*This may be unfair. The Sensible Sentencing Trust might actually be New Zealand's favourite pretend charity.
**They're not specific about this, but a trawl through their respective web presences strongly suggests the parameters are straight married couples having (preferably exclusively) PIV sex. It would be nice if those couples could be white***.
***This sounds like an unnecessary ad hominem but is a strong hunch based on the choice of stock photos throughout the Family First website.
****I'm not 100% certain, but I think this term is favoured because it broadens the parameters of "into non-standard sex stuff" in a way that a term like "BDSM" doesn't - like "queer" does for people whose sexuality doesn't neatly fit into a 2- or 3-state switch model ("straight, gay, or bi").
*****I think people are by in large pretty good a recognising discrete pornographic fantasies as stand-alone things that don't relate to anything else and (importantly) have no bearing on the rest of reality.
This is because, in the words of FF's Managing director Bob McCroskie:
"The premise of the movie is that a woman who is humiliated, abused, controlled, entrapped, coerced, manipulated and tortured is somehow an ‘empowered’ woman. And a man who is possessive, controlling, violent, jealous and coercive is somehow showing ‘true love’. These are foul and dangerous lies. This movie and the book it is based on simply glamorises sexual violence and should be rejected by everyone who is concerned about family and sexual violence."In a bizarre twist of fate, I think Bob McCroskie is very nearly right about this - just deeply deeply wrong the reasoning that got him there.
Bob McCroskie, Family First and their pet (terrible, fake) psychologist Miriam Grossman hate 50 Shades because they're convinced that anything outside the fairly narrow template that they define as a "healthy" relationship** is automatically dangerous and harmful. This means that the BDSM relationship depicted in 50 Shades is inherently damaging and dangerous because a relationship where one of the partners binds, dominates, or causes pain to the other (even if that partner wanted them to and specifically verbally asked them to) is automatically a Very Bad Thing. Here's Miriam Grossman:
"There are vast differences between dark and light, healthy and unhealthy. Fifty Shades of Grey blurs that distinction. It leads your daughter to wonder, what’s healthy in a relationship? What’s sick? There are so many shades of grey…I’m not sure. But with her safety at risk , there’s no room for confusion or doubt. You want your daughter to be one hundred per cent certain: an intimate relationship that includes violence, consensual or not, is emotionally disturbed. It’s sick." (Emphasis mine.)This is pretty clearly nonsense. If you read anything coming out of the kink**** community you'll know that those guys put a huge amount of effort into carefully negotiating consent so that people end up having the experiences they want to have and still stay safe. In fact, a lot of the current conversations people are having about consent at the moment have their roots in discussions that started (as far as I can tell) with online kink communities.
So given that I think McCroskie and Grossman are both wrong in their thinking, how come I agree with them that 50 Shades is all kinds of gross and weird? It all comes back to consent again - Christian Grey repeatedly violates Ana's autonomy, and this is passed off as sexy and romantic.
In some ways this is kind of understandable, 50SoG began life as a an erotic Twilight fanfic and thus (I strongly suspect) has its roots in some sort of sex fantasy belonging to E. L. James. The reason this is relevant is because when you're having a sex fantasy in your own head, consent is completely irrelevant. You're playing around with figments of your imagination, who exist only to serve the situation you're creating for yourself. If one of those characters is (to quote an example beloved of anti-feminists) raped, that doesn't then imply that you actually want to be raped, or to rape somebody else.
As long as the fantasies stay inside your head or as short-form standalone erotica***** this isn't really an issue. It becomes problematic when it's applied to characters in a piece of fiction who are presented as having some sort of self-discovery, because the behaviour that leads to the self-discovery is tacitly presented as worthy unless it's explicitly described otherwise. And Christian Grey's behaviour is, from a kink/BDSM point of view, completely terrible.
If you want an overview of the book from a kink perspective, Cliff over at the Pervocracy has an excellent rundown (exercise caution before clicking - the Pervocracy is great but sometimes NSFW and links to some DEFINITELY NSFW places) but the teal deer version is pretty simple: Ana rarely (if ever) has a chance to set the parameters for the situations that Grey puts her in, and has no way out if she's not enjoying herself.
50SoG isn't actually the only offender here - I think it's a wider issue with fiction by people turned on by the idea of BDSM who didn't do their homework. Another good example is the movie Secretary which starts out being about two people drifting into a (mutually enjoyable) BDSM relationship but culminates with an actually-horrible-and-abusive "test" of one partner by the other, which leaves her stuck in a chair sitting in her own urine for three days. Romantic.
If you're genuinely interested in kink or BDSM, there are lots of great resources on the web, and the Pervocracy (linked above) is a pretty good place to start. I humbly submit that this would be a better and healthier use of your time than going to see 50 Shades Of Grey.
EDITED TO ADD:
It's been brought to my attention that Secretary isn't really as good an example as I thought. Lee (the titular secretary) is actually in more control a lot of the time than I gave her credit for. It's obscured a bit because the movie follows the drifty romantic comedy template for characters negotiating romantic or sexual situations (which is its own big bag of problematic nonsense, but waaaaay wider than any single film). Sorry guys.
Also, this post (especially the first couple of paragraphs) is basically a love letter to DoNotLink which you should all be using all the time (assuming you want to link to sketchy places for the purposes of explanation or freakshow appeal). I want to particularly stress this for people who like to link weird stories from the Daily Mail.
_____
*This may be unfair. The Sensible Sentencing Trust might actually be New Zealand's favourite pretend charity.
**They're not specific about this, but a trawl through their respective web presences strongly suggests the parameters are straight married couples having (preferably exclusively) PIV sex. It would be nice if those couples could be white***.
***This sounds like an unnecessary ad hominem but is a strong hunch based on the choice of stock photos throughout the Family First website.
****I'm not 100% certain, but I think this term is favoured because it broadens the parameters of "into non-standard sex stuff" in a way that a term like "BDSM" doesn't - like "queer" does for people whose sexuality doesn't neatly fit into a 2- or 3-state switch model ("straight, gay, or bi").
*****I think people are by in large pretty good a recognising discrete pornographic fantasies as stand-alone things that don't relate to anything else and (importantly) have no bearing on the rest of reality.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Doin' stuff fer free...
First things first - Love & Pop has my review of Hentai Kamen - it's a Japanese live-action superhero parody (based on a 90's manga) about a high school student who transforms into a "pervert superhero" when he wears used panties on his head. Aside from the obvious, a lot of the humour derives from poking fun at the tropes of "superpowered highschoolers" manga/anime. From that description you can probably already tell if it's your jam or not, but if it is you'll probably enjoy it.
Now read on...
Gawker's Hamilton Nolan (somewhat contemptuously) reports that Lena Dunham's promotional tour in support of her book Not That Kind Of Girl will feature unpaid opening acts, who have applied through her website for the privilege of performing. I am reminded of the related furore when Amanda Palmer tried to do a similar thing - crowdsourcing unpaid musicians to back her up on tour.
Now, as then, I am having kind of a hard time figuring out what the fuss is actually about.
The primary argument put forward in both cases is that these women have heaps of money, and could therefore afford to pay people - the inference being that they're somehow ripping people off, or depriving other (more professional) acts of work. I sort of get that - I play in a covers band and I certainly get cross when people do pub gigs for free, thus devaluing all the other musicians in the area.
But playing to drunken punters in a pub is in no way the same thing as being part of a charity event (which I'd cheerfully do for free) or to being included in an event put on by someone you admire, which is what's happening here (and in the Amanda Palmer example). In both cases, these women sought applications from people who'd be interested in being part of their events, and made it clear from the outset that there wasn't going to be any money involved.
There's an argument that Dunham and Palmer are somehow "abusing" their fame and social status to get stuff for free, but that seems disingenuous to me. The people who applied weren't under any particular pressure to do so, as neither Palmer nor Dunham had any particular power over them that would make the situation abusive.
I guess the thing I'm getting at is that rich and famous people get free goods and services from people who admire them all the time. It seems suspicious to me that the internet chooses to make a fuss about this when it's women with a history of making people (particularly men, particularly white heterosexual men of a particular sociopolitical bent) uncomfortable, asking for things up front from their fans.
Now read on...
Gawker's Hamilton Nolan (somewhat contemptuously) reports that Lena Dunham's promotional tour in support of her book Not That Kind Of Girl will feature unpaid opening acts, who have applied through her website for the privilege of performing. I am reminded of the related furore when Amanda Palmer tried to do a similar thing - crowdsourcing unpaid musicians to back her up on tour.
Now, as then, I am having kind of a hard time figuring out what the fuss is actually about.
The primary argument put forward in both cases is that these women have heaps of money, and could therefore afford to pay people - the inference being that they're somehow ripping people off, or depriving other (more professional) acts of work. I sort of get that - I play in a covers band and I certainly get cross when people do pub gigs for free, thus devaluing all the other musicians in the area.
But playing to drunken punters in a pub is in no way the same thing as being part of a charity event (which I'd cheerfully do for free) or to being included in an event put on by someone you admire, which is what's happening here (and in the Amanda Palmer example). In both cases, these women sought applications from people who'd be interested in being part of their events, and made it clear from the outset that there wasn't going to be any money involved.
There's an argument that Dunham and Palmer are somehow "abusing" their fame and social status to get stuff for free, but that seems disingenuous to me. The people who applied weren't under any particular pressure to do so, as neither Palmer nor Dunham had any particular power over them that would make the situation abusive.
I guess the thing I'm getting at is that rich and famous people get free goods and services from people who admire them all the time. It seems suspicious to me that the internet chooses to make a fuss about this when it's women with a history of making people (particularly men, particularly white heterosexual men of a particular sociopolitical bent) uncomfortable, asking for things up front from their fans.
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