http://blog.shrub.com Because we care about stuff Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:56:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2010-04-07_809 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2010-04-07_809#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:14:32 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/?p=809 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2010-04-07_809/feed 10 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2007-08-04_639 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2007-08-04_639#comments Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:40:32 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2007-08-04_639 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2007-08-04_639/feed 13 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-05-23_246 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-05-23_246#comments Tue, 23 May 2006 08:41:12 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-05-23_246 So, there's some discussion going on about a site called Superheroine's Demise. What, do you ask, is this site? Well, it's a pornography site that focuses exclusively on the violence and humiliation of female super heroes. Honestly, although I define as sex-positive, my kneejerk reaction to this site was, "Ugh, yet more misogynistic porn. Just what the world needs." And after several hours to think about it, I still can't shake that feeling. Maybe part of it is because I have issues with pornography, period. I'm not flatly against it, but I have yet to find porn that isn't in some way problematic. Maybe, also, because I feel like I should be uncritical of this because humilation play is a valid fetish. But, you know what? I'm not uncritical of anything. So, fuck that. I don't like this site because I think it's misogyny dressed up in a super heroine fetish, and this post is going to be discussing why I feel that way.]]> http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-05-23_246/feed 14 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-01-29_132 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-01-29_132#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2006 08:40:18 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-01-29_132 rant on sex-positive feminism. I don't know who she's reading, but categorizing all of us as (basically) patriarchy-apologists is as bad as if I decided to label all radical feminists as transphobes based on commenters like funnie. I don't have a chance to reply to her post on her blog, as she only allows blogger members to comment, but it probably would have been a case of Attack of the 50-line Comment anyway. What I got from her post is that, in a nutshell, Andrea believes that (all?) sex-positive feminists:

1. Dismiss the potential harm of porn.
2. Perpetuate the 'myth' of rape fantasies because it's what men want to hear.
3. Believe that radical feminists, or any non-'sex-positive' feminists, are anti-sex.
4. Use the label to be a constant reminder that they like sex.
5. Are defined solely by their one label as 'sex-positive'.
6. Must, by nature, be seeking a 'compromise' with male sexual entitelment.

Please, Andrea, don't speak for me; you have neither the knowledge, nor the right. Engage with the argument, engage with the issues, but do not label us all by what you have seen in your limited research. That is no better than the kind of stereotyping all feminsits get from anti/non-feminists. Like the feminist movement as a whole, sex-positive feminists are not one trick ponies. We have different takes, and different interpretations, on pornography and sexuality. Taking the main points from Andrea's post that I outlined above, I will present a different, but most assuredly sex-positive, take on that branch of feminism.]]> http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-01-29_132/feed 54 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-12-04_79 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-12-04_79#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:24:06 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/?p=79 行殺! Spirits ("Line-Kill Spirits"): the game itself or the response to it. Let's start with the game itself. It seems like a typical cutesy all-girl fighting game. The art style employed is one that is generally associated with pre-adolescence – it tends to be used in children’s manga and lolita porn. I’d put the girls at middle school at the latest, personally. Still, that sort of thing isn’t unusual; I’ve known plenty of fighting games that employ those marketing tactics.

What is unusual, however, is an added game element: picture taking. Not just any kind of picture taking, however, panty shot pictures. As anyone who has watched anime knows, there is a seemingly cultural fixation in Japan on women’s underwear. In particular, men and boys lifting up unwilling women’s skirts to look at their underwear. I can’t speak for how common it is in real life (not being a Japanese woman, nor living in Japan), but I do know that harassment is a part of women’s daily life there. One example of this is the women-only trains that companies began to run because of the unnervingly high instance of sexual assault (groping, mostly, but I’ve heard stories about men using women’s asses for masturbation aids).

To add fuel to the fire, it is not creepy old men taking these pictures (which would be bad enough), but the other girls themselves doing it. Showing women participating in their own objectification (ala. Levy’s “raunch culture”, girly kissing culture, etc) only serves to normalize the behaviour. After all, if the girls are willing to do it then it must be okay, right? While I wouldn’t think that anyone would confuse LKS with reality, having the girls do it to each other rather than a man doing it to a girl undoubtedly helps the players to rationalize the game as “harmless fun”. ]]> http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-12-04_79/feed 0 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-09-30_56 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-09-30_56#comments Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:19:13 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/?p=56 I have yet to see any retailer or manufacturer be subjected to this level of scrutiny - to the extent that a well meaning person such as yourself demands that NOW boycott their products. Well, just for Anika I have created a new category called "Companies Behaving Badly". I wanted to call it "Bad Company!" in tribute of a site my mom used to run, but I decided that it sounded too much like a dichotomy that left no room for a mixture of good and bad. So, in honour of my new category, I've decided to plough headlong into a critique of another company, Suicide Girls (SG).]]> http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-09-30_56/feed 14 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-09-21_50 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-09-21_50#comments Thu, 22 Sep 2005 03:17:38 +0000 tekanji http://blog.shrub.com/?p=50 http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-09-21_50/feed 10