The penis may be evil, but the vagina is empty and we can’t leave the little fucksticks homeless.

Is there a Koufax catagory for the best blog post title ever? ‘Cause if there is, you are so getting nominated!

“KH called bullshit on it” is like saying, “And then Jeff Goldstein wrote a post on his blog about it.”

Piny, you can consider that man-crush mutual.

Can we please, please, please stop bashing this civility strawman, particularly if you’re attempting to attribute its views to me?

“KH called bullshit on it” is like saying, “And then Jeff Goldstein wrote a post on his blog about it.” She’s a contrarian whose opinion holds negative worth in the eyes of most commenters there. I don’t remember a lot of feminists calling bullshit on it. But that’s the thing: I’m not sure that “feminist analysis” allows it to be bullshit. How is it a clear violation of privacy and respect to talk about someone’s sex life on a prostitution thread? It informs their politics, right? How is that necessarily different from writing three or four related blog posts on someone’s sex life? Both of these women posted publically about it, which means that it’s fair game for feminist analysis.

The problem is not how polite something is, it’s how problematic something is, and I hate the way so many discussions get stuck, like this one, on some superficial element of an arguement rather than focusing on the real matter at hand – the substance of it.

Okay, so stop writing like I give a flying fuck about politeness. I’m saying that these two strains of analysis–form and substance–are difficult to separate.

That’s why I threw that semi-serious hissy fit over having to edit one of the bussel follow up posts, I get why people get hung up, but I could live without having to moderate and edit stuff to hell and back – partly out of laziness admittedly, but also partly because it shouldn’t matter – if discussions were really civil, truely reasonable, it wouldn’t be neccesary to constantly destroy arguements that rely on nit picking and word lawyering.

And I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree about the nitpick part. I was upset about the Bussel post because her argument would have been exactly as worthwhile if she’d shown up for the photo shoot wearing a bra–or if the VV had allowed her to write without being photographed, like they do with male columnists.

Well KH called bullshit on that quite well – justifiably so – as did alot of other feminists, so there certainly is a defense and that’s to simply cry bullshit. Civility would of course bind the hands of people to cry bullshit on that sort of crap when it’s not put so bluntly, the way many white liberals actually agreed that asking black people on hot days whether the skin of people from africa acts as a heat sink compared to the pasty skin of freckle speckled northern europeans was a perfectly innocent and unoffensive question that no reasonable black person could possibly get offended about was ridiculous, polite racism is still wrong, polite misogyny is still wrong.

The problem is not how polite something is, it’s how problematic something is, and I hate the way so many discussions get stuck, like this one, on some superficial element of an arguement rather than focusing on the real matter at hand – the substance of it.

That’s why I threw that semi-serious hissy fit over having to edit one of the bussel follow up posts, I get why people get hung up, but I could live without having to moderate and edit stuff to hell and back – partly out of laziness admittedly, but also partly because it shouldn’t matter – if discussions were really civil, truely reasonable, it wouldn’t be neccesary to constantly destroy arguements that rely on nit picking and word lawyering.

But the blogosphere is the last bastion of true anarchy, so it’s incredibly unrealistic to expect better.

I think, though, that the harshness–the unfairness–and the stupidity–the lousy aim–kind of blur together. Women are usually attacked through their sexuality; it’s shorthand for their intelligence, their strength, their sanity, their morality. Slut, bimbo, whore, even prude. And so it’s very difficult to criticize a woman’s politics as relates to her personal life without stepping into all of that. It’s happened a few times on the pandagon threads–there was this one exchange between a pro-sex feminist with a blog and two other women questioning her in detail about personal sexual encounters she’d described there, and aspects of them that they considered indicative of internalized sexism. Not related to the thread, mind you. Just ammunition. Really effective ammunition. There’s no defense against that. It’s not something you can dispute because it’s not something that allows any woman to come out ahead. That’s why it’s disquieting when I see this “harsh criticism:” it’s not that Twisty makes her out to be off her nut, but that she makes her out to be a bimbo.

unless you’re straining to find a meaning that isn’t there. Twisty’s comment, which I believe would be reasonably decoded in context as meaning “young people often believe themselves to be smarter than they actually are, and hilarity ensues” is hardly a commentary on us whippersnappers’ (in)ability to be adequately feminist. While feminism is indeed smart, it does not serve to confuse commentary on one for commentary on the other.

I saw it as a slam against younger women, myself. I get the sense that Twisty sees a lot of overlap between “smart woman,” and, “feminist woman.” Happy to agree to disagree.

who of course is 25

does not equal

saying that younger women are less feminist

unless you’re straining to find a meaning that isn’t there. Twisty’s comment, which I believe would be reasonably decoded in context as meaning “young people often believe themselves to be smarter than they actually are, and hilarity ensues” is hardly a commentary on us whippersnappers’ (in)ability to be adequately feminist. While feminism is indeed smart, it does not serve to confuse commentary on one for commentary on the other.

there was a really bad comment on pandagon done entirely in a bad german accent. I’m not proud of it. And that really bad bussel post.

some idiot who never got over am incident of abusive sex they experienced once

Bad example, because I was 100% right – abusive past experiences with fellatio were basically coloring the opinions of those criticising fellatio in all situations. And no one else called it because there is no possible way that I (and presumably, they) could think of to say that without it coming out as horrible. When on death ground fight – should I have not mentioned it even though it was highly relevent, just because I couldn’t figure out a way to do it politely?

But of course that’s not what you’re criticising, and that’s why I agree with you on your actual point, while also agreeing with bellatrys on her point (which is my way of pointing out that you’re talking over each others’ heads here).

Yes, Twisty often does that stupid thing of missing the point entirely – the problem with each generation is that they’ve been indoctrinated by the patriarchal culture we live in, and blaming the generation itself, rather than the patriarchy that warped it, just like it did with Twisty’s generation too… well it wouldn’t quite be so funny if it wasn’t a bad habit of boomer gen feminists especially to criticise third wavers for not being feminist enough – because a generation that claims Dawn Eden as one of their’s has no business condemning third wavers as a class for the attempt by the patriarchy to entirely co-opt third wave feminism.

Note of course for the next bit that I didn’t simply attribute Twisty’s flaw entirely to her age – the objectionable bits do err on the side of “why in My day, all these streets were fields, by gum, and you could go down the shops and buy ten pounds of liberation for a nickel by jiminny…”, it’s common mistake though because people forget that every generation laments the fall of the younger generation, and generally that’s due to better reporting – no one in the 60′s and 70′s would have made a big song and dance about how they’re proudly a sex object who exists entirely for men’s visual/tactile pleasure, despite the fact that it was probably more common – especially among those “liberated” hippy women (free love just means not having to pay your whores).

On the other hand, that bullshit “can’t we all just get along and agree to disagree” thing is total BS, if an idea or opinion cannot stand in the harsh glare of criticism – especially hyperbolically vicious and often down right nasty criticism (because you don’t think our enemies are going to go easy on us all of a sudden or limit themselves to the rules of that mythical “Civil Debate” do you?) – then it not only doesn’t deserve to exist, it will not be allowed to exist in the long run, and that won’t be my fault.

Twisty’s problem is not that she criticised women meanly, it’s that she criticised them stupidly – like with me attacking Bussel’s photo – it’s the stupidity, not the harshness.

Anyway, what really interests me about the post to which I allude is that, after some blogular introspection on the subject of her ‘blowjob duties’ (gulp), Random Bird, who of course is 25, muses thusly: