Category: Sex, sexuality, and sexual politics

Female Villains Can't Win

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NWN 2 Villains
NWN2 Villains

The lineup for the villains in the next Never Winter Nights game has gotten some press over at Joystiq. Despite neither of the female villains being the “evil hot babe[s] we’ve grown accustomed to in the role playing genre”, the contrast between their stances and that of the male villain are striking.

He’s hunched slightly, in a way that looks like he’s going to charge you; a very active stance, and not one that draws attention to either his sexual organs or his musculature (the former being the trope for “powerful” women and the latter being the trope for “powerful” men). Described by Joystiq’s Alan Rose as “a frenzied berserker”, this “bald dude” seems to typify the Brute; he’s not exactly a high class villain, but even so he’s only one of many types of villain archetypes that one can choose from.

Which brings me to the next villain in the lineup; the “blue chick”. In terms of body type, if you took away the blue skin, changed her head, and upped her breast size a cup, she could almost be the twin of the other female villain. Of course, the one-size-fits-all female body type isn’t an issue confined to NWN (or even video games), and I gotta give the company points for the differences that are there.

In some ways, the blue villain isn’t the ideal of beauty: most notably, she has an odd-shaped head. But, looking at her posturing and her outfit there is definitely an element of sexuality that isn’t there with the Brute. While, with her sword raised high there’s no doubt that there’s an element to power in the blue villain’s posture, she’s shown in a 3/4 pose that causes the lines of her arms form a V that emphasises her chest. Costume wise, though I’m not sure what’s skin and what’s fabric, she appears to be wearing a chainmail loincloth and a halter top that is open to cleavage.

Finally, we have the last villain. Though her face is the recipient of Rose’s criticism (“Seriously, if you take away the flotation devices, we’ve got some serious androgyny going on here.”), I rather like that her face is less feminine than the blue villain’s. No, it’s not because I hate attractiveness, but rather because it seems to be one step in the direction of portraying many different types of women.

That said, she, too, is sexualized for all of her supposed androgyny. Her hands-on-hips position is, again, one of power (in this case its’ the power of defiance), but it also emphasizes her hips in a way that makes it clear that she’s supposed to be read as feminine. Her costume, with the focal point being her cleavage, does the same.

Honestly, I feel bad for the female villains out there — not only do they have to contend with the sexist digs if they don’t fit the “hot villain babe” category, but they still can’t seem to get away from sexualization even when it seems that their characters aren’t there to be sexualized! Come on, video game companies, won’t somebody think of the villains?

Men Stereotyping Women [Red-blooded American Sexist, Part 2]

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For those just tuning in, this is Part 2 of my series on a small blurb that Joseph Lisner wrote for Wizard’s “How to Draw” series (found here [JPG]).

In Part 1 I discussed how Lisner relies on stereotypes of masculinity to create a “boy’s club” environment meant to set his presumably male readership at ease. In Part 2 I will be focusing on the ways that he constructs femininity and in the process Others and objectifies women.

I. Women: The Othering

This “femaleness” is a mysterious thing, and everyone defines it in their own terms. Anyone attracted to the female must ask themselves, “What turns me on? What about the opposite sex hits me like lightning and instantly shatters my self control?”

This is, basically, how the blurb begins. We have an immediate setting up as men as “default” (“everyone”, “anyone attracted to women” meaning any men attacted to women because of the use of “opposite sex”) and the women as “Other” (“the femaleness”, setting up women/femininity as “a mysterious thing”, “the female”).

Late to the party, Lisner says that, “I am–of course–writing this from the point of view of a heterosexual male.” No shit! I thought you were a lesbian woman by the way that you used inclusive language to refer only to men, and how you used language to turn women into nothing but objects. Wow, glad you cleared the air on that one.

He then goes on to address us “female artists” (an acknowledgement of our existence, how gracious of him) only to tell us that he can’t explain himself (“Please don’t ask me about the masculine/feminine mystery.”). He then goes back to addressing his target audience (male artists) and talking about what American men must find attractive. The only other time in the article that he acknowledges women is when he says, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am a guy, a red-blooded American guy.”

II. American Femininity

If Lisner wanted to win the award for most masculine stereotypes in a short blurb, he also wanted to firmly establish some of the more pervasive female stereotypes as well. Most notably he addresses (or, rather, fails to address) the Beauty Myth, adds a “catfight’ story for some titilation, and finishes with the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” line.

Ignoring The Beauty Myth

There are certain cliches of beauty–basic elements that no one really argues about.

Oh really? It doesn’t even make sense as an argument, seeing as directly preceding the quote, Lisner says this: “Don’t ask me why ‘tall and skinny’ is sexy to some folks and grotesque to others.” Maybe if Lisner spent less time thinking about these issues, he wouldn’t write such obviously contradictory crap.

It may be a shock, but beauty is not an absolute. It’s a mixture of personal preference and societal standards. Standards, I should point out, that are reinforced as innate by the blurb that Lisner has written.

Catfight!

Many is the time I have been out with a girlfriend and some female would walk by and totally blow my mind. My girlfriend would notice my reaction and say, “God, what a face–she’s so ugly!”

No discussion of femininity would be complete without showing women blaming other women for men’s bad behaviour. In this hypothetical situation, Lisner’s girlfriend was feeling insecure because of his behaviour and so, of course, the only appropriate reaction is to insult the other woman who has comitted no crime except to have crossed the path of a misogynist creep.

Does Lisner react with, “Gee, I’m sorry honey, we’re out on a date and it was rude of me to leer at other women”? Hah, yeah, right. He pulls the “boys will be boys” excuse and says that his typical reaction is to say, “Yeah, but did you see her [tits/ass/legs]!” So, not only does he agree with his hypothetical girlfriend that the girl he checked out was ugly, but he further dehumanizes the poor woman by reducing her to a nice pair of T or A.

The truly horrible part of this scenario, however, is that many women would react that way. We’re trained — partly through growing up with stories such as Lisner gives — to see that as the appropriate reaction. After all, we’re told, all men are pigs anyway, so why should we be surprised when they show it? The other woman is the easy target — the whore, the hussy, she’s not as pretty as us anyway! But what’s the result? The man who created the problem gets off scott free, our self esteem hasn’t been pulled up, and the woman has not only been objectified by Mr. Misogynist, but also verbally torn down by us because it’s easier to attack her than to question our own relationship.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

All I can say is that men and women see the world differently.

Yeah, it’s a thing called privilege, something that you seem to have in spades, Mr. Lisner. Although, to be fair, it’s not really men and women who see the world differently, but rather those with unchecked privilege and those without it.

III. Conclusion

Men stereotyping men, men stereotyping women… the only thing left is to see how his language serves to reinforce this “Men as people”/”Women as Other” dichotomy that he has set up. That’s the subject of my next post, and, believe me, it ain’t pretty.

Men Stereotyping Men [Red-blooded American Sexist, Part 1]

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Disembodied Womanparts, Yay!
What kind of man misogynist are you?

Right now the comics blogsphere is abuzz with criticisms of Wizard Magazine’s latest disaster: their How to Draw series. Well, perhaps not latest, as it seems that there have been complaints about this series for a while now.

Following a trail of links, I came across a 2005 post by LJ user Rat Creature. Which lead me to a link about the “Triple Threat” — which, contrary to what it sounds like, is not a wrestling move. The triple threat, of course, references the three ways (boobs, butt, legs) in red-blooded American guys objectify view women! The blurb that I will be tearing apart can be found here (JPG). For reference, the person writing it is Joseph Lisner, known for drawing Dawn.

I’ve actually split this analysis into three sections, the first of which will deal with the way that Lisner constructs American masculinity.

I. Introduction: Red-blooded American Masculinity

I’m somewhat surprised that Linser managed to pack in so many negative stereotypes about men into such a small space. I know I’ve said this before, but articles like these make me realize how stupid it is to call feminists man-haters — those who buy wholesale into the Western construction of masculinity do far more in the way of painting men negatively than feminists ever could. Anyway, let’s see what tropes he has brought out this time.

II. Men as Beasts

What about the opposite sex hits me like lightning and instantly shatters my self control?

This trope is used everywhere from journal articles about rape (the good old “boys will be boys” defense) to abstinence only education (“you gotta hold on to your virginity, girls, because those men are beasts who would take it without a second thought!”). One reason I think this one is used and abused by men is because it acts as a “get out of responsibility free” card — “I can’t be held accountable for my behaviour, Your Honor, after all I’m a man and she’s a woman!” kind of deal. Men lose their self control around women and become these sexual beasts who can only think of the woman sexually and, sometimes, will go to any length to get what they want.

But, really, what does that say about men? That y’all are, deep down inside, horrible people? That you have no more control over yourselves than a baby does over its bladder? Is this really a view of manhood that’s worth perpetuating?

III. Men as Buffoons

To any female artists out there reading this, if you’re looking for some cosmic insight the best I can say is “good luck.” Please don’t ask me about the feminine/masculine mystery… I’m just as lost as the next guy–I’m only following my nose.

This one is somewhat less insidious than the “Men as Beasts” trope, but is similarly used to abdicate responsibility for bad behaviour (see the Ellison incident). You can see this in other areas, too, such as domestic product commercials that feature men — you know those ones where the man is responsible for cleaning up, or cooking dinner, or whatever and he botches it so badly that you wonder how he got through life without accidently killing himself from sheer stupidity.

Though presented in a comical fashion, the underlying message here is that men are just large children. As I mentioned above, this can be played to men’s advantage in certain situations, but overall I’d say that most men recognize this stereotype as insulting. Too bad Lisner isn’t one of those men.

IV. Men as Simple

In America, men usually like to keep it simple and break down their preferences into three basic groups.

A variation of the “Men as Buffoons” trope, this one is about simplicity. Sometimes this is “men are simple minded” and sometimes it’s “men like things simple,” though in the above instance I’d argue it’s a bit of both. I’m not exactly sure what benefit this trope gives to men, but I’ve seen it used often in a way that presents men as wanting to avoid having to think, which implies that they don’t have high intelligence.

V. Men as Pigs

Yeah, yeah, yeah men are such pigs (smart men never argue this one).

Which brings us to the last stereotype that I could find in the article: men revel in their own misogyny. This one is, in some ways, a combination of the “Men as Beasts” and the “Men as Buffons” tropes. It has that “men are naturally beastly,” element of the former while throwing in that bit of “aren’t I a naughty little boy?” inherent in the latter to act as a deflection of any criticism that could be lobbed at them for misogynistic behaviour. In terms of negative stereotypes — well, the last time I checked, men don’t exactly like being labelled women haters, and even if this on the surface deflects such criticism, I just can’t see it as a good thing to pretend that men naturally hate women.

V. Conclusion

Lisner did not invent these constructs, but that he so naturally employs them in order to form a sort of “buddy-buddy” relationship with the (presumably male) reader is rather disturbing. The tropes that he employs are harmful to both women and men, and serve to reinforce this strange dichotomy where men are on the one hand portrayed as the rational, logical gender and on the other hand portrayed as beastly children who have no self control.

Blog Highlight: Marketing to Women Online

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Sorry I haven’t been posting. I actually have a few in mind, but it’s the end of semester crunch right now so I’ve been immersing myself in Japanese.

A small study done by University of Florida professors recently was highlighted by MSNBC because of an award it won. Although the study itself is not proof of anything on its own, it seems to have opened up the debate on the assumptions of marketing and will hopefully bring to light other research done on this matter.

To this end, I’d like to highlight a new to me blog called Marketing to Women Online. Holly has written a piece called Do Women Respond to Sexual Ads? where she says:

We’ve certainly seen how different genders react differently to advertising messages. What women want and are attracted to can be different from what men want and are attracted to. This is not true in every case, but depending on the subject matter, the differences can be striking.

Sex is one such subject matter. I’ve written before about studies on how men and women react differently to sex in advertising.

Now there is another study with similar results. Do fashion magazine ads that ooze with pictures of sexy seductive women work? Especially magazines ads aimed almost 100% at women?

Via The Hathor Legacy (another great blog new to the blogroll).

Feminist SF Carnival: 4th Edition

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Welcome to the Fourth Edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans! We’ve got quite a collection here this time, a whole host of topics organized by medium: Comic Books and Novels, Film and Television, and (my favourite) Video Games!

Comic Books and Novels

Feminist Superheroes
Transexual Fury: Summer Camp Special!

Starting this edition off with a bang are two posts talking about comic books in general. First, reappropriate‘s Jenn entertains us with her post, Meme: the Comic Book version.

Peachblossom of A Libertine‘s post, Feminist Superhero Books, talks about how the issue of feminism in comic books was tackled in the book, Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superheroes, by Lillian s. Robinson.

This one is a bit old, but it’s too good to leave unremarked on. Elkins of Notes from the Tundra examines the very real problem of girl on girl hostility in fandom and the world at large with her post Paranoia in Online Fandom: CMC, Girls’ Aggression, and Overanalyzing the Texts.

My assumption about this paranoia and the behavior that it engenders always used to be that it was simply a side-effect of the nature of CMC itself. The other week, however, while I was at the beach, I read a book someone had recommended to me on the subject of girls’ particular modes of aggression–Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, by Rachel Simmons–and it was really shocking to me just how well many of the things that this book described were things that I strongly associate with online fandom dynamics. That in turn has made me wonder to what extent much of the “paranoiac” behavior that I’ve been seeing in on-line fandom might be an artifact not only of CMC, but also of the predominantly female demographics of the fandom circles in which I’ve travelled.

Ampersand of Alas, a Blog connects this phenomenon to the feminist blogsphere at large in his post, How Girls Express Aggression and Online Fandom Dynamics.

In another instance of relating comics and feminism (this time with a superhero twist), this one Charlie Anders of othermag comments on a talented artist who is using comics as a medium to explore the anti-trans policy of Michfest, a popular women’s festival. The post, Superheroines team up to fight the real enemy, is worth a read, but don’t forget to check out the comic itself as well. It should be noted, however, that since the publishing of the comic, the festival that is alluded to has changed its policy and is now inclusive of all women.

Can I be like you when I grow up?Moving away from independent comics and into the world of The Big Two, Kalinara of Pretty, Fizzy Paradise says that she can’t find it in her heart to hate someone who brought such a touching moment of female solidarity in Darn You Geoff Johns.

In the wake of both the wedding between the X-Men’s Storm and Black Panther, as well as the Black Panel at Comic Con, it’s no surprise that bloggers are still talking about issues surrounding gender and race in comics. Starting us off is Ragnell of Written World and her post, It’s still bothering me…, where she writes about her disappointment in the way that the more popular Storm has taken a back seat to Black Panther. She continues her analysis of this issue over at Newsarama by discussing the implications of the cover art in her post, Amateur Art Appreciation: The Groom

Tackling the issue head on in her livejournal, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, spiralsheep discusses sexism towards black women in comics in her post, In which our heroine asks, “What would T’Challa do?” , she has this to say:

But when a writer takes an achievement, a genuine victory, away from one character and gives it to another then there’d better be a good reason, when a writer takes away a female character’s self-determination and gives it to the men around her there’d better be a good reason, and when a writer turns a black victim of white crime into a black perpetrator of crime against a white person then there’d better be a !%@%! good reason.

The eponymous blogger Tlönista has written, Rebels from the waist down, a post on the portrayal of women in her favourite dystopian novels:

It gets scary-depressing when you read the feminist blogs and take in a piece on Joe Francis one day and teen virginity pledges the next and realize that the pressures on women in 1984 and Brave New World still exist simultaneously here, so that resisting one is giving into the other.

And what better way to end a section on comic books than with everybody’s favourite hero? Yes, that’s right, Planet Karen has a very special strip about Mars.

Film and Television

Fembots and the men who love them
Fembots (and the men who love them)

Over at Real Men Are Not, Luke dissects an essay on “Fembots” in his post, We’ll Pick You Up: Fembots and the Idiot at Enterprise [eta – broken link removed].

I don’t care if you say that fembots are some male-created extension in science of an already patriarchal culture but don’t tell me that that’s really the “perfect male fantasy”? Talk about something original and actually news-worthy.

Superwomen, not Fembots, are the subject of Ide Cyan’s post over at Feminist SF – The Blog!. In My Super Ex-Girlfriend [Caution! Spoilers in link.] she explores the movie of the same name from a feminist perspective.

The use of oversensitivity to sexual harrassment in the workplace as a running joke is particularly odious and tiresome. In the mouth of the protagonist’s Black, female boss, it adds to the caricature of women in positions of power as unreasonable and unjust towards the poor hapless (White) males.

Earthsea?And We Shall March laments yet another bastardization of Leguin’s Earthsea series in the post, And Then Ghibli Screwed Earthsea.

What sci-fi carnival would be complete without some Trekkie-loving? First we a post on the original series of Star Trek: heavenscalyx of The Calyx of the Heavens touches on (among other things) the treatment of Marla McGiver in, Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! But TOS isn’t the only of the Star Trek series deserving of attention! On the Hathor Legacy, a blog devoted to the portrayal of women in the media, Revena discusses the fluid gender expression of the character in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Jadzia’s Gender.

Kirylin of Kirylin’s Voice muses on Traits of a strong female character, looking at shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer in contrast with shows of her youth, like G. I. Joe:

Thinking about Elisa; Gloria and Vanessa; Lady Jaye, Scarlett, and Cover Girl; R.C.; Tea and Alexisa… it makes me wonder what defines a “strong” female character.

And to wrap things up with this section, another post from Charlie Anders at othermag: So much for the feminist take on Doctor Who [Caution! Spoilers in link.], which discusses the relationship between the Doctor and his companion.

Video Games

Beyond Good and Evil
Feminist Video Games: Beyond Good and Evil?

Jeff of our very own Shrub.com kicks off this section by questioning why “feminist video games” didn’t pull up any matches in his post, Feminist Video Games?

Of course, there’s the larger question of what would make a game good from a feminist perspective. In addition to being good from a gameplay perspective, I’d say such a game would include female characters who are full agents in the game world, and who are treated as subjects rather than objects. I think a variation of the Mo Movie Measure applies as well, in that female characters should interact with other female characters in ways that aren’t centered around men.

And, speaking of feminism and games, you know it’s going to spark some controversy when Sony announces that it’s going to release a pink console. Ariel of New Game Plus discusses the politics of pink PS2s and PSPs in her post, Feminists and Pink Game Consoles.

In a more personal expression of feminism and video games, Brinstar of Acid for Blood asks her readers to help her live like a pro-gamer for a weekend in Send Me to Stockholm.

So why do I want to go to Stockholm to learn how to play FPS games with a professional Quake 4 clan? Because it sounds fun. I’d totally blog about it, too. And there would be pictures.

In a less personal post, Brinstar looks at the gender differences in the survivors of a new video game in her post, No Weapons for Women in Dead Rising. While all of the men players have encountered thus far will take a weapon to defend themselves, most women are offered a hand and ushered off to safety. Although I doubt anywhere is truly “safe” when zombies are involved.

And on an unrelated subject, in response to an e-mail I received, I call for readers’ opinions on the where they think the responsibilities of privileged groups lie when choosing avatars in roleplaying games. My post, Race and Video Game Avatars, is on Official Shrub.com Blog and is reproduced over at Alas, A blog, so be sure to check out the discussion at both sites.

Final Words

This concludes the Fourth Edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans. Ragnell is hurting for hosts, so please e-mail her here and volunteer!

Modesty and raunch culture: two sides of the same sex-negative coin

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At first glance, it would seem that the push for modesty is at the opposite end of the spectrum from “raunch culture” — the trend in society to hyper-focus on sexuality (particularly women’s sexuality), which encompasses everything from short skirts to athletes posing in porno mags. Indeed, those who crusade for modesty often cite expressions of raunch culture as why people (mostly women) need to “cover up,” and there are many aspects of raunch culture that can be attributed to a backlash against forced modesty.

But, what if they were just two sides of the same sex-negative coin? What if they were just two different ways of controlling women’s sexuality? Looking at it another way, isn’t it just a new spin on the Madonna/Whore complex?

I. Why the concept of “modesty” is sex-negative

When I talk about “modesty” here, I’m not talking about people who prefer to dress in a more conservative style. I’m not talking about people finding baggy shirts more comfortable, or those who favour pants over skirts (I would be one of them, although I’m re-thinking that given that Japan summer is really hot). Nor am I talking about choosing not to wear makeup. When I talk about “modesty”, I’m not talking about the way we, personally, choose live our lives, but rather the cultural push for “modesty” and the baggage that comes with it.

The primary idea behind modesty is that the human body should be covered up for reasons other than warmth or fashion. In modern Western culture, it is often (but not always) supported by religious arguments, which interact with the secular ideas of gender essentialism. Often there is an undercurrent of disgust for the human body, as well as an objectification element, especially when it pertains to women.

At best, women are told that they’re “unprofessional” if they don’t fit some arbitrary version of modesty, at worst it’s used to blame them for transgressions comitted by men. We’ve all heard the “short skirt” defense for rape, and that’s just the most visible of the “boys will be boys” arguments. Some of the more extreme proponents of modesty campaign against not only “raunchy” clothing that emphasizes cleavage and/or butts, but also tank tops, shorts, and bikinis because they show a lot of skin.

Modesty, as it is pushed in Western society, relies on defining for people what parts of their bodies are, and are not, acceptable in public, or even semi-private places. It uses tactics of shame and guilt in order to force people to comply with its guidelines, and in many cases “modesty” guidelines are part of laws (ex. many states still hold that a topless woman is indecent, whereas a topless man is not) and dress codes. In that way, it is very much a part of, and a method of perpetuating, a sexually negative culture.

II. Why “raunch culture” is anything but sexually liberating

There are a lot of aspects of sexual culture that we, as individuals, can find as liberating. In a very personal way, I can understand how freeing it can be to give a big middle finger to the “morality police” and wear clothing that I choose because I want to wear it. After a year of being forced by an abusive boyfriend to wear the shapless, baggy clothes of his choosing, I’d have to say finally being free to figure out my own style definitely counted as “liberating” for me. Now if I choose to wear my “boy” shirts and “boy” pants, I know it’s because I want to, and I know that tomorrow I could just as easily choose the cleavage shirt and short skirt that lives next to it in my closet.

That said, just as the choice to adopt “modest” dress does not live in a vaccum, neither does the choice to wear “revealing” clothing. There is a lot of pressure on young girls to adopt a particular style of dress. Now, there’s a lot of pressure in every subgroup to adopt the clothing style, as well as the lifestyle, and men are subject to that, too. But take that, and add it to the pressure for women to enact being “sluts” while still (mostly) remaining “virginal” and commercialize it by having visible female role models hawking it, popular culture normalizing it, and the “moral police” making it taboo (and therefore more enticing) by saying, “no, no, no, that’s bad,” and what do we get? Well, as Ariel Levy puts it, “What we once regarded as a kind of sexual expression we now view as sexuality.” (Female Chauvinist Pigs, p. 5)

But what, exactly does this brand of sexuality say about the concept of sexuality if it is, indeed, sold as the expression of female sexuality? Just like “modesty” puts the onus on women to cover up, so does “raunch culture” put the onus on women not to cover up. Female sexuality is turned into something that is primarily for entertaining the men, and if a woman says that she isn’t into that kind of exhibitionism then she is often labeled as “prude,” or “frigid,” or “puritain” (I got that one when I was younger, joy of joys), or some other implication that she is somehow bad for not submitting to being an object of their lust.

Raunch culture guilts and shames women into putting on a sexual performance for men, whether they want to or not. It sets up a “right” way to express sexuality, and by pushing the notion that men are entitled to sexual gratification, even if it’s just in the form of women wearing low-cut shirts, it ignores the fact that true sexual liberation comes from people being able to make choices about what makes them happy without being guilted and/or shamed into acting a certain way. In that way, it is very much a part of, and a method of perpetuating, a sexually negative culture.

III. Conclusion

One aspect at the heart of sexually negative culture is holding women responsible for men’s lust. Modesty, for its part, claims that women provoke men’s lust*, this is bad, and therefore women should be covered up so as not to “tempt” the men. Raunch culture may see men’s lust as a positive, but in this case the response is to encourage women not to cover up, because men’s lust should be catered to. In both of these scenarios, two positions that take the opposite side on an issue (men’s lust) do it from the same frame: that women’s sexuality is the province of men, not the women whose sexuality it is. And that, at least for the women involved, is sexually negative.

* Just to be clear here, I’m using “men’s lust” to mean the dominant paradigm for men’s lust that’s used in these cases, which includes the idea that men are entitled to sexual gratification, that to get off they need to objectify and dehumanize women, and that this is not so much a “bad” thing as it is a biological “fact.” I’m perfectly aware that the reality of what men do, and do not, find attractive is a much more complex subject.

In Which I Call A Truce on the "Sex Wars" Thing

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Dear Feminists:

I’d like to propose a truce on this whole “sex wars” thing. It’s a battle that’s been raging since before my time, but that doesn’t mean it has to go on forever. No matter how we define ourselves, at the core of it we all want women to be treated as people, right? We want to end oppression, right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if feminism had to be summed up in one sentence it would be fair to say that feminists “seek to end oppression” perhaps throwing in a comment on how feminism’s focus tends to be on gender.

So why do we have to tear into each other when it comes to… well, everything, really. But, talking about the sex wars, why is it when one of us makes a post on the sex work industry, it all too often is addressed to the “opposing side” which isn’t, as one would think, the industry itself, but rather the feminists who take a different approach?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that women shouldn’t be the focus of this battle. And by that I mean we shouldn’t target them — we should target the sex work industry. When talking to feminists outside of our particular mindset, what’s to be gained by dragging the conversation down into the pros/cons of being a sex worker, or watching porn, or whatever? All it does is make it personal, therefore obscuring any useful conversation that could have taken place about the human rights abuses that do happen.

Listen, when it comes down to it, whether or not women should do sex work is a theoretical debate. The fact is, for good or ill, women do. And, even if you believe that no woman would freely choose that, it’s an ending point, not a starting one. If we want to stop the oppression, we gotta start with the begining, and it’s one I think we can all agree on: our sexual culture is hostile to women. Before we do anything, we have to change that.

So, are we going to sit here complaining about women and each other, or are we going to look into ways of changing the sexual culture so that the sex work industry can’t degrade, dehumanize, and traffic in the women unfortunate enough to not have a choice in how they work? Are we going to address pornography, not in terms of ban/not-ban, but rather in terms of critiquing content and treatment of the actors? What about looking at how popular culture feeds into and is influenced by sexual culture, and how that culture has a different standard for women than for men?

Respecting women starts with respecting each other.

This Gives a Whole New Meaning to 'Freudian Slip'

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The Almighty Penis... I mean Dagger
Penis Envy

And people said I was crazy when I talked about “girl power” being not much more than male appropriation of female power. Howard Chaykin’s illustrations of Red Sonja take this to an extreme by giving her a penis dildo strategically placed dagger.

She still has the chainmail bikini to give fanservice to the boys, but Red Sonja has always been a strong (both physically and mentally) character and this illustration makes me wonder if the idea of a woman holding that much power herself was so threatening to Chaykin’s subconscious that he ended up giving her a consolation penis. No one’s accusing him of deliberately doing this (because, well, how would we know either way unless he came out and said something?), but come on. Can you honestly say that you saw this picture and didn’t go, “Whoa, she has a penis!”?

Via Dance of the Puppets.

Pimp Your/My Oppression

Luke
[First a big shout-out to Tekanji, Lake Desire and Shrub.com for giving me the chance to guest blog! My name is Luke and I rushed this post out to press once I read jfpbookworm’s great post below that I think is a good branch-off point. I warn, however, that this post is a real behemoth in length. The more I went back to it, the more I added on so you might want to pack a ham-sandwich before diving in or something. Anyways, i’d love to get your feedback, thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc.]

We’ve all seen them.

It’s some night-owl hour and in-between reruns of Roseanne and ElimiDate you see for 30 seconds the uniquely American bazaar of young, thin, often blonde women with flowing hair and large breasts: In some form, you see “The Yes Girls.”

All-too-discreetly advertising itself as none other than a phone-sex line for men where young women dressed (or undressed, for that matter) in lace and satin seductively grasp their phones, bodies supine with eyes gazed towards the camera whispering lines of “We always say ‘yes’” like they know exactly what customers of the phone-sex line would want to hear in some meta-rape fantasy sort of way.

But phone-sex lines aren’t by any means some taboo cultural anomaly servicing the closet desires of perverts or deviants. Rather, their persistent popularity speaks largely to the ways in which men’s (and women’s) sexual identities are shaped—let’s make it “warped”—by what they’re told their fantasies are and in turn reinforced to fantasize again and again.

So placed between Roseanne, perhaps the lone television representation ever of a working-class white America with a stereotypically unattractive and wholly uncompromising woman actress at the helm who articulated a big “fuck off, Dan Quayle” season after award-winning season and ElimiDate, the “reality-TV” hit where petite, scantily clad women compete in a lascivious macho fantasy for the attention and affection of a man, usually tall, white, muscular and unable to hold a non-sex ridden conversation, in order to avoid getting “eliminated” each round, watching The Yes Girls gives us a jump-off point as to how men specifically are taught/cultured/socialized to think about women and sex. The two seemingly become synonymous if you begin to imagine what such commercials essentially say to men: “They’ll do anything…they never say no…they only wants sex…I must have her…I must have them…I must have sex.”

Even as I’m writing this, I’m hearing about how yet another season of The Bachelor is coming to ABC. Forget that every, and I mean EVERY relationship post-Bachelor has crumbled, forget that there is hardly a gender-equality of male and female bachelors and bachelorettes (didn’t ABC only make ONE The Bachelorette?) people love to see not just the paternalistic Cinderella chivalry fantasy anymore, they want to see one pimped out for the new age.

So if that’s what men are conditioned to want, to see as the ideal fantasy and to revolve their sexual and gender identities around, how do they go about achieving a constant state of sex with young women (who are often white, Latina, or mixed race)? If that’s the fantasy, then what’s the situation of the reality and what men are advised and told to do about it and how to go about it?

Based on the flurry of men’s “how to get women” books published largely in the past several years, you sense that what was once the immediate concern of meeting a soulmate, a wife, a husband, a life-partner has become one centered on men meeting and sleeping with as many “girls,” “bitches” or “chicks” as possible.

Like Samantha Jones drawing on the so-called liberating power of no-strings-attached sex (or “sex like a man”), the goal of “getting laid” then comes at a cost of women being seen as new hybrid of animal-commodity. That is, “animal” in the sense that these men’s advice books weave an intricately bullshit guide which adheres to the beliefs that #1, the behavior of women, like animals, is by nature predictable which involves a lot (and I mean a lot of animal watching), and #2, women’s bodies are the only things valued that one must possess through the consummation of sex—and I mean a lot of sex. And “commodity” in the sense that women, reduced simply to women’s bodies, are seen as goods that exchange hands through “purchase” by way of deception, backhanded-coercion and manipulation by men under the guise of having “skills” with women.

Just read the titles of some of these books that have boldly emerged recently in a symbol of immediately impressive yet ultimately fleeting macho bravado based identity:

–What Really Works With Women: Do What Works, Get What Matters To You (2005)
–The Complete A**hole’s Guide to Handling Chicks (2003)
–The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2005)
–The Layguide: How to Seduce Women More Beautiful Than You Ever Dreamed Possible No Matter What You Look Like or How Much You Make (2004)
–How To Succeed With Women (1998)
–Seduce Me! What Women Really Want (2003)
–How To Get The Women You Desire Into Bed (1992)
–The System: How To Get Laid Today! (2003)

The covers alone of many of these books tell a story in itself. On the cover of The Complete A**hole’s Guide to Handling Chicks, we have the classic macho trucker/truck mud flap decal and sticker of a caricatured large-breasted woman with hair flowing in the wind.

In The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, we see another silhouette this time of women sprawled out in sexual stripper poses while the shape of a man twice their size stands proudly drawing upon celebrations of pimps and the prostitution of women.

Perhaps most ridiculously in The System: How To Get Laid Today! is a drawing of a young woman dressed in a corset, leather thigh-highs and cat-ears on knees and elbows seductively drinking a large bowl of what appears to be milk.

Dare venture into the book descriptions and you’ll find the animal-commodity storytelling continues flavored with the old “nuts and sluts” mentality made famous during the Kobe Bryant rape trial:

“We’ll take you from the day you’re born to the day you die and show you how women can be manipulated, frustrated, and ultimately dominated throughout the course of a man’s life. By illustrating the insanity of the female mind, we’ll show you why the flawed chick psyche causes them to continuously fall for the a**hole, no matter how many times they get burned.” – From the book description of A Complete A**hole’s Guide to Handling Chicks

Or you check out similar-themed websites like FastSeduction.com where you see things like:

“You have to be the MAN who has all the sexual power. And when a woman (no matter how hot) sees and feels the presence of a man whom she recognizes as the dominant one while SHE isn’t, she does what every woman does – that is SURRENDERS to the more powerful being. And all that acting like she’s hot and knows she’s the stuff and all those other “head up in the air” tricks are just a test and a way to weed out all the men who are less powerful than her and don’t know their role as a MAN.” – FastSeduction.com’s “Be the Alpha/Dominant Male”

Ultimately, these books provide a crude and patriarchal and thus attractive-to-men analysis of why, if they haven’t “gotten any,” the women they want aren’t attracted to them. Of course it’s the same spiel that’s been revolving in pornography for year and only now seen in the forms of Eminem’s celebrity and the pandemic spread of “pimp” in the American lexicon: Women must like being treated terribly and that’s why they deserve what they get. Women must like bad-boys. Good-guys and nice-guys “finish” last.

To women, of course, the message then becomes that they should validate and be attracted to these images. Women must like being objectified and degraded, why else would they allow themselves to be put on a meat-rack on shows like ElimiDate? Why else would women like the delinquent Mark characters or the abusive Fischer characters on Roseanne and why else would women send love letters to convicted killers like Scott Peterson. He’s a bad-boy misunderstood with a soft-spot inside, really. Women, remember, it’s your job to change him and take away the beastly exterior. Or in other words, be like Belle before he runs out of rose petals and runs out on you, right?

Read the back-pages of any so-called “Magazines for Men” like GQ, Maxim, FHM, or Stuff and you see it’s older cousins in shady black-and-white rectangle ads: “Pheromones proven to drive women wild!…100 pick-up lines guaranteed to work with the hottest girls.” Listen to any recent episodes of Tom Leykis and you’ll hear “Leykis 101” in which men are taught specifically how to “bang chicks” through deception and macho posturing.

The message is clear: This is how you get that and we know this works because they instinctively respond to it—it’s in their DNA. You’d almost think you were learning how to catch Sockeye salmon off the Alaska coast. What lure do I use? Where do I go? When do I know to “go in for the kill”?

Head off into Amazon’s “Bestsellers” or autobiography section and you find the hugely popular I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max. Max, a Duke law-school grad who writes about his supposed true-life escapades, proclaims proudly

“My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world.”

Again, even more telling than the subject of controversy itself is often the cultural response to it. Read any of the many five-star reviews in which men and women have bought, read and proudly promote the book to others and the attitude of praise and dismissal of any criticism of such praise is unbridled:

“Make no mistake, Tucker Max is a vile vile person, but his own admittance. And if you try not to think to much about his victims…er…marks…er… girlfriends/hook-ups, then this is a hilarious book.” – Jake Mckee

“For the people who think that he’s some terrible person who has sex with poor innocent girls, give me a break. It takes 2 to tango as they say. As my wife put it, if there weren’t so many whores in the world he’d have a lot less to write about.” – Travis Stroud

“Tucker Max is pure genius. An excellent writer, and even better comedian, he has Michael Jordan’s bball skills when it comes to women, and an eclectic, highly exciting group of friends and adventures he chronicles in this absolute must-read book.” – Michelle Park

“This stuff can make you laugh until you pee your pants, but I would only recommend it for those who can take racist, sexist, and despicable jokes lightly for that seems to be the life of Tucker Max. In other words, this book is beautiful.” – Samantha Miller

“I loved this book. The stories are funny and remind me of my college days. Good times, good times.” – Jeff White

So the response then isn’t that his behavior lacks repulsive qualities deserving of unflinching dismissal but rather that his life is humorous to women and men and a cause-of-envy to young men in particular. Like he says, summoning all the bad-boy machismo he can, “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.” He knows he’s going to hell (well, assuming one believes in it) and that’s why he couldn’t care less. He’s a bad-boy and a “rebel” engaging in behavior so supposedly gutsy that it is suggestively a this-is-how-I-did-it guide as to having “success” with women. Why else would many aspiring sports-athletes read biographies and autobiographies about Michael Jordan, Brett Favre or Tiger Woods? “Know the legend, be the legend” as the saying goes?

But this type of macho posing behavior isn’t new and Tucker Max, as much as I hate to say it, doesn’t deserve all the blame. Look at what he probably grew up watching. Films like Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Old School, Road Trip, American Pie and National Lampoon’s Van Wilder all celebrate the stereotypical prime of sexual masculinity through the oppression of women: have as much sex with as many women as possible regardless of consequences, engage in high-risk drinking and drugs without any negative repercussions, feel no emotions, display little conscience and give the middle-finger while yelling “feminazi man-hating pussy faggot!” to anyone who says different. It’s college and that’s what you’re supposed to do in college, right? Or, as the Sean Michael Scott character in Road Trip says with his famous Stifler charm “Think about it Josh, you’re in college. The window of opportunity to drink and do drugs and take advantage of young girls is getting smaller by the day.”

The unfiltered Virginia Slims message here is the same. To women and young girls, this says that there’s a proper way to act as women and to have fun, to have some sort of an authentic experience. Worse yet, the message is that the only thing they have going for them is their bodies and by extension, the approval from men of their bodies and the use of those bodies for sex.

But to men, the message isn’t as closely examined or seen as having any sort of significance. Just as women are taught in this way to self-hate and reduce their own human being to an ass, breasts and vagina while validating so called “bad-boys,” the message to men is that this is what men do, this is what an authentic manhood looks like and this is what you want…this is how you’ll be happy. To so-called “nice guys,” the imagery leads to some dumbassed and disturbing deductions: “women like to be objectified, degraded and essentially treated like shit so even though I know something aint right, there’s no moral dilemma if I’m going to objectify, degrade and treat women like shit. Hey, at least I’m not a bad guy!”

So it’s clear then that young men are buying into these books and misogynistic attitudes in hopes of navigating the social scenes with some sense of direction in terms of women. And that I think is where a significant amount of unseen danger is. Not only does this supremely hurt women through yet again another form of men’s oppression of women, but it also denies men and young boys the ability to engage responsibly, honestly and freely.

We’ve all seen this. This reinforced sexist, homophobic and racist socially constructed cultural norm to nurture men simply as emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive whose only purpose is to engage in macho high-risk behavior, see women as animal-commodities and to have misogynist meta-rape fantasies by removing feeling any sort of personal human emotion, all sorts of attachment or desire for more in things like sex or relationships.

And this, to deprive men (and women) from living real lives and identities of free-choice without inflicting pain and suffering on others…to me nothing is more anti-male, man-hating or male-bashing than that.

Reframing the Poly Debate

tekanji

Four Legs Good, Six Legs BadPolygamy, polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, polyfidelity… By whatever label, using whatever configuration, the concept of poly is to involve more than two people in intimate relationships. In the Western world, this practice is mostly seen as immoral. The legal marriage of multiple partners is largely illegal, and the unquestionable “rightness” of this idea is used and abused by both sides when the concept of same-sex marriage comes up.

But I think that it’s time that we, as feminists, reframe this debate. We need to reach inside ourselves and ask why the idea of poly relationships feels wrong. What is it that makes the stereotype of polygamy objectionable? Is it the idea that monogamy isn’t the only healthy relationship style, or that the only example of poly relationships have been ones that traffic in women?

I. Challenging Deeply Held Beliefs

Like most Americans, I was brought up to believe that marriage was something that happened between a man and a woman. I don’t remember when the idea was challeged in terms of same-sex partnerships, but I distinctly remember when my belief that polygamy was inherently bad was called into question.

I was in high school at the time. Standing in my kitchen with someone — I forget if it was a family member or a friend — I think I was reading something about polygamy, but maybe it just came up randomly in conversation. I said something about polygamy being wrong. The person I was talking to countered with, “Why?”

I looked at them and blinked. Immediately I thought about the places in Utah where young girls are forced to marry older men. That’s what most of us think of first, isn’t it? But, a young girl being forced to marry a man is morally repugnant whether or not he’s done this to other women or not. And it is, for the most part, illegal whether it’s his first wife or fifth. Then… what? It just felt more wrong? Come on.

So I gave the only answer I could. I said, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not.”

Since then, I’ve tried my best not to accept that something is one way just because that’s the way I’ve been taught it was. In the case of polygamy, the more I’ve learned about it, the more I realized that it was a lot more complex than the usual idea that it’s a bunch of old guys marrying underaged girls in Utah or the Middle East.

For instance, did you know that “polygamy” doesn’t actually mean that it’s a man with multiple wives (that would be polygyny), but can also be a woman with multiple husbands (polyandry)? Or that there’s a movement out there called polyamory (often referred to as “poly”)? A lot of people think that “polygamy” begins and ends with forced marriages of older men to younger women (not so different from traditional heterosexual marriage), and that therefore there is no other kind of configuration possible. But, if nothing else, polyamory tells a different story. There’s everything from Vs (one partner in the middle with two attached to hir), to triangles (all three partners connected to each other), to complex connections that end up forming a tight-knit community brought together by friendship, love, and sex.

II. Compulsory Monogamy

Good for the Goose, Good for the Gander?For some people, finding one person at a time to share their lives with is the only way to go. And, hey, if that’s your cup of tea, that’s great. But not everyone is like that. Just like not everyone is attracted to a different gender, or the same one, or any person at all, not everyone wants to be with just one person. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. And it’s no more fair to say that everyone should only love one person than it is to say that only people of the same gender, class, race, etc. can love each other.

How can we fight against mandatory gender roles, heterosexism, racism, ablism, etc. and then go on believing that a romantic relationship can only exist between two people? How can we go on promoting this idea — either by our vocal assent or our conspicuous silence — and then expect our arguments against having other people’s ideals imposed on us to be taken seriously? I don’t think that we can.

If a relationship is filled with loving, consenting adults then what business is it of ours what configuration makes them happy?

III. Refocusing Our Efforts

Which brings me back to what I think is obscured by the “immorality” argument of polygamy: human rights abuses. Putting aside the problems we have a society recognizing and dealing with abuse (as that is a whole series of posts in of itself), when abuse is recognized in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, the configuration of the relationship is rarely, if ever, seen as the important factor.

Let me use this case from 2001, reported by CNN.com, as an example. The defendant was put on trial for bigamy and failure to pay child support. The article spends several paragraphs talking about Mormons and polygamy, and then ends the article with this:

The defense focused its efforts on parrying prosecution charges that Green married teenagers, divorced them and then collected their welfare payments as he continued living with them.

Green also faces a charge of first-degree felony rape of a 13-year-old girl with whom he allegedly had sex in 1986. He subsequently married the girl. The charge carries a prison term of five years to life, Reuters reported. A trial date is yet to be set.

What this article, and all the other ones like it that I’ve seen, have done is capitalize on the sensationalism of “Multiple! Wives! How Weird! And Thefore WRONG!” and either downplayed the way in which these women are used as chattel — taken, raped, and married as soon as they are biologically able to have children — or used them as a tool with which to strengthen the “wrongness” of mutiple marriage.

The suffering of these women should not be seen as evidence to support the case against polygamy, it should be treated as an important problem by itself. By making polygamy the main “evil” here, the focus is not on the actual harm being done but on the supposed immorality of non-monogamy. Furthermore, by using the abuse of women in a case against polygamy, it creates an idea that these kinds of things are unique to polygamy, instead of them being a greater narrative of traditional relationships of all kinds.

IV. Concusion

Love is... LoveAs feminists, I think that we can all agree that loving who we love is not wrong. I think that we can agree that people should be free to pursue happiness they way they need to as long as it doesn’t hurt others (a thorny subject, I know, but I think it’s a principle we can all get behind). I think we can agree that what happens between consenting adults is their business.

But, by allowing the debate about polygamy to be focused on mutliple-partnerships being morally wrong, all we’re doing is buying into the idea that one way — monogamy — is the best and only acceptable way. Not just that, but we’re also allowing the focus to be taken off the real atrocity: the trafficking of women. Traditional polygamy is no different than traditional marriage in this respect, and to allow oursleves to pretend it is is a disservice to the fight for women’s rights.