Have You Shamed A Slut Today? (Rape Edition)

I don't know how many of you are Jezebel fans, but you may have heard that Moe Tkacik and Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan, two Jezebel editors, were recently interviewed by Lizz Winstead as an installment of "Thinking and Drinking." This is a weekly event in which Winstead interviews media figures she likes and, I suppose, people drink. It's supposed to be serio-comedic, I gather, but this particular evening did NOT go well. Read Winstead's account here, Slut Machine's account here, and Jezebel's attempt to handle the fallout here. There's also a full video--I haven't watched it, some say the clips Winstead put on the Huffington Post are edited to put Moe and Tracie in the worst light.

Anyway, here's what I'm pissed off about*.

The whole rape discussion started because Winstead said, "But in an age where you're focusing on sexual freedom, I mean, there's just not, it's not always safe...to just have a free, 100% total sexual life." When Moe and Tracie start to sort out exactly what she means, Winstead barks, "You could get raped," in a maternalistic tone suggesting, to me, that she is already disappointed in them. So here's my question:

How does having lots of sex make it more likely you'll get raped?

Leaving the house makes it more likely, that's true, and I suppose people tend to do that when on the prowl. My understanding is that rapists are not, in general, looking for women who want to have sex, so are the slutty ones at bars really more likely to get roofied than the ones looking to go home alone? Or is being at the bar the crime? Some statistics from RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): of the 73% of rapists that are known to the victim, almost half (35%) are "intimates" or family members--more than just "friends or acquaintances." "Friends and acquaintances" is itself a blanket term, obviously, and I suppose would include the random guys at bars or whoever else Winstead thinks is doing the raping. But if there are in fact any friends in that demographic, and not just acquaintances, Winstead's prejudice starts to fall apart.

I genuinely just don't understand why people think you're most likely to be raped by someone you actually want to have sex with. Is that even what Winstead is thinking about? She spends so much time on the attack against drunk-ass Tracie and Moe that I'm not entirely sure what her question even meant. These rapes that happen BECAUSE of pursuing a sex life--where are they happening? I don't understand the mathematics of this.




*For the record: I think Moe is the worst writer on Jezebel, and have been losing my affection for Tracie for some time now. I agree that most of what they said was stupid and at times offensive but they're getting PLENTY of heat for that on other sites so that's not my focus here.

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As an avid reader of Jezebel, I have of late fallen totally in love with Editor Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan.

(Pictured here with Dr. Ruth, whom she accosted at a Cosi.)

Yes, she posts under the name "Slut Machine," and yes, she is awesome. After I'd already started to fall, I finally realized that in the stupid "Jezebel Moe says she's not a feminist" thing, Slut Machine was the official feminist. Which is when I was like, "Oh, not only is she awesome for slutty reasons, but also for theory reasons." But whatever, back to the slutty stuff.

I've only just recently started reading her own blog, One D At A Time. (It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize what the D stood for.) First of all, I'm totally jealous of the fact that she talks about her sex life the way I wish I could. I was of course jealous of the sex she was having, and I like that she dated the founder of Burning Angels because a Burning Angels performer once spent an evening at a club telling me and my hot indie rocker guy friend that I was gorgeous and should be on the site*. But then just now I read an old entry in which it is revealed that she has lived the goddamn FANTASY OF MY LIFE, namely fucking two hot British guys at once. Sure, her encounter didn't actually go that well, but the fact that she made it happen thoroughly makes her my idol.

That being said, why is it that all the cool sluts do coke? I will never in my life do coke, for various reasons, and I'm wondering if that's what's required to attain the status of ladies such as Slut Machine and Lisa Carver. Does Rev. Jen Miller do drugs? I don't know, that might be worth finding out. (Um, why would that be worth finding out?)

Anyway, I hope you guys come to love Slut Machine as much as I do, if you don't already. Wow, that was a lot of internal links!

*This actually caused me to buy a short-term membership to the site, and then I saw on her blog that she supported Bush and I lost my taste for it.

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