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.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Have You Shamed A Slut Today? (Rape Edition)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Chicks I Really, Really Like: Doogie Howser Edition
Totally stolen from Jezebel, here is the story of Alia Sabur, THE WORLD'S YOUNGEST PROFESSOR.
(At 18 years old, she's broken the record set in 1717 by some 19-year-old bewigged dude.)There's really nothing about this that isn't perfect. Dr. Sabur has her PhD in math--so much for girls sucking at that--and she teaches the subject at Southern University at New Orleans, which she chose because she wanted to help people still recovering from Katrina. As her résumé shows, she has six different publications to her name, and her teaching philosophy takes into account "students with non-traditional backgrounds" and posits that, being close in age to most of her students, she "can understand better what they might find interesting, or difficult." Also, as the Today clip shows, she reads Jezebel!
Alia, you are inspiring and awesome. The next time you come back to your hometown of NYC, look me up and I will totally sneak you into a bar.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Chicks I Like
(Cuz why not, right?)
As an avid reader of Jezebel, I have of late fallen totally in love with Editor Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan.
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.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Some People Are Like This, and Other People Are Like This!
Jezebel linked to a stupid article in the London Times about how US women are well-groomed and British women are busted. He describes things like waxing, tanning, and teeth whitening as "obligatory beauty maintenance," and essentially says that we're superficial bitches who tell our friends they're fat--yknow, in a good way! Blah blah etc, he is stupid and sexist and basing his concept of America strictly on L.A. This we know. I didn't even read the whole article because who gives a fuck.
However, I thought I'd share with you my OWN sweeping cultural generalizations. Having lived the better part of a year in London,* I determined that Londoners (at least) have a healthier attitude towards sexuality, in particular female sexuality. Furthermore, the guys have less stringent beauty standards. Now, it's been suggested to me that "Susan B.'s London is not everybody's London," but you're just as likely to spot a couple where the guy's more attractive as the other way around**. The women in their sitcoms are hot, but look like actual people. Bah, I saw the first episode of the pitiful American version of Coupling, which I'm told was almost word-for-word the same as the first episode of the awesome British original, and the guy who was supposed to be kind of dopey and not great with women was of course played by a chubby balding guy, even though the plot concerns him and a super-hot woman. In the British version, that character isn't much more or less attractive than his buddies-- they show his dorkiness, and this will shock you, through the WRITING AND ACTING.
Also, you can buy vibrators in Luten airport.
The author of the lame article talks about liking British girls, going to college in LA, then coming back and wondering what happened to the pretty. My guess? The girls didn't change, he just developed a taste for silicone and fake tans. As for me, at least once a week it occurs to me that if I actually wanted to be, yknow HAPPY in this life, I would move to London and marry some nice indie rocker who likes to dance***.
*OMG almost a year! I'm like a native, and totes qualified to comment on the culture! For reals.
**[Insert boasts about my pulling guys way hotter than me.]
***And start a meaningful theatre career, since theatre there actually matters, but that's a tangent.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Another Round in Life's Ongoing "Horrible or Hilarious?" Game
"Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship? Show that you support the "culture of life" by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans. Also available in a 'Brown' model."
Via Jezebel.
[Miss Poppy.]
Monday, November 26, 2007
So True Who Cares If It's Original
Jezebel just posted on "the streak"--dry spells followed by sex sprees. This has been the story of the last three years of my life. I was celibate for almost TWO YEARS (the first year by choice, the second one less so). And then came the infamous "Party Night Trifecta"--a hook-up Saturday, Friday, and Saturday again, three different guys* in three 'consecutive' nights. And of course, the rain began to pour--old F Friends suddenly called, cute strangers appeared in bars, Irish rock climbing instructors knocked on my hotel door at 2 am**. More than 1/3 of my 'number' can be attributed to the last 7 months--which is not the most flagrant streak ever, but is for sure statistically significant.
This had no cause that I can figure out: this was a full seven months after moving back to NYC, three after Roommate Katey proclaimed 2007 the "Year of Susan B.***", I think before I got that gym membership (or at least at the very beginning), and not proximate to any change in medications, therapy, government regime, or the relationship statuses of friends.
Okay, I suppose the answer is, in fact obvious: once I broke the seal, I remembered how (and why) to get back on that horse again. That first hook-up after a long walk through the desert can seriously whet your thirst. Spark-to-tinder, chink-in-the-dam, etc etc other clichés. After a certain point, who cares? I try to enjoy the ride.
*Though the first one was just making out in a friend's kitchen. On Purim! We may have knocked a pan off the wall (sorry Jake!).
**Ah, the rhetorical device. If only it had in fact been multiple rock climbing instructors.
***Sounds better if you know my real name†.
†Which you all do cuz who else reads this?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
Stop the Presses!
I was in the middle of a totally different post (below) when I came across this on Jezebel:
*Hate.
Friday, November 2, 2007
But what IS this "Third Wave" of which you speak??
What made me broach this topic? A post on Jezebel, my favorite source to steal from, about the 35th anniversary of Ms. magazine and why they can't bring themselves to care. A quote:
I basically agree with them, though I do fear that many of today's feminists choose the personal OVER the political, and that we need both pizazz AND activism. But anyway, it reminded me of a Nerve* article I read awhile back that gave a good explanation of third wave feminism. I link you to the beginning of the article, but the stuff about what the third wave means to the author (Ada Calhoun) is on the second page. Here's a particularly nice quote:
Third Wave women, as I know them, are financially independent. They're happy alone, or they're looking to create families with partners rather than providers. They are politically active, voting, signing petitions, contacting their representatives and being conscious consumers and respectful employers and employees. They enjoy sex, especially thanks to the enthusiastic presence of feminist porn companies, anthologies like Gynomite, sex-toy stores like Good Vibrations and Babeland. They are represented in the media by reasonable, funny feminist writers like Jennifer Baumgardner, Rebecca Traister and Lynn Harris; on TV by Tina Fey and Samantha Bee. Third Wave women are women from all over who have an innate sense of their own value and potential...They are self-aware, adventurous and live supportive lives with men and with each other.
Some people argue that what we're going through now is not actually a new wave--more like Second Wave 2.0. I think there's truth to that, but it's not the whole story. This new wave has broadened itself, and our causes extend to race (Second Wave was notoriously white, to the point that some black feminists had a different name for themselves--Womanists), sexuality (hurray for LGBTQ!), and the notion that there are many ways to be a feminist. There are still core issues upon which the movement rests--there is no feminism without contraception, and housewifery is still a tricky issue--but the guiding forces are freedom and collaboration.
There are plenty of cliches I can throw out there. We today don't think of bras as tools of oppression but as sources of physical comfort (especially us well-endowed girls--ouch!) and expressions of sexuality. We don't have to choose between marriage and identity, and we can find men who share our beliefs and are allies as well as friends and lovers.
Perhaps all of this is obvious, but it's good to lay a groundwork. So, what do you guys think? What does the third wave mean to you, and what parts are confusing/unclear? What differences do you see between these recent waves, and what experiences do you have explaining feminism/having it explained to you?
*My other beloved source of theft.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
More on the F Word
Jezebel reports on a new study finding that feminism helps heterosexual relationships, feminists have better sex lives, feminists date more and more seriously, etc etc. This is all awesome. The reason I'm telling you this in the context of Jezebel is that they have a weird little mini-debate in which two of their editors--one a "feminist" and one "not"--talk about how feminists have it better. A quote from the self-described non-feminist:
WTF does this mean? That only feminists care about how they look--and that all of them do, because looking hot is what feminism's about? This makes no sense. I don't get it. It makes me sad when people cook up these weird definitions of feminism.
Probably she is just trying to twist her life to fit into what the post is trying to say. Like, "we need a non-feminist...hmm...I don't listen to Bikini Kill or hate frat boys so I guess I count...and I guess I could have a better love life? Because of, uh, stuff! Yeah, that's it, stuff."
Weird, Jezebel. Weird. And you guys are normally so great!
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