theology&geometry

Like everyone else with a functioning limbic system, I am sick of hearing and talking about Anthony Weiner. But this is one of those controversies where so many people seem to be willfully missing important points, and before you know it, the Dow’s back in the crapper and planes are falling out of the sky while we’re all yelling at each other about a socially retarded congressman who sent prick pics to near-strangers. It’s stupid. But I am going to contribute to the noise because I need to get this out of me so the toxicity of even having to think about this crap does not eventually give me cancer.

I’m glad he’s resigning. I hope this means all the news people will stop saying his name and we can move on now. I think it really, really sucks for the Democrats to lose him because he was an incisive, funny, politically whip-smart pain in the ass to the Republicans. The party needed someone like him because the rest of them, by and large, seem to be able to engage the public about as easily as rotten carp. But you know what? He’s not my ally anymore. He did something exceedingly stupid, he lied about it, he got caught, he needs to go.

Some people keep bringing up other Great Mean in History and pointing to their unsavory personal lives as proof that what Weiner does in his personal life has no bearing on his life as a politician. Saying Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. were dogs with the ladies is a stupid argument. You mean to tell me that American men were freer to womanize without consequence decades and decades ago? When women couldn’t vote or own property or, later, when women were fighting for their civil rights to be recognized as full people and not just homemakerbots and babyfactories? You mean there were men of power who took advantage of their privileged station in life to fuck (and fuck over) whoever they wanted without having to answer for it? Next thing you are going to tell me is that toasters aren’t powered by wishes. Well then, let’s just all agree that since men once upon a time could point their penises at things and declare “WANT!” to a backdrop of trumpet blasts and rainbows, we might ought to keep it that way, or there might not ever be another Great Man In History ever again!

Horse shit.

On that note, the Bill Motherfucking Clinton argument needs to go on and die a stabbed death. “Bill Clinton actually had sex with someone who wasn’t his wife and he didn’t step down!” Believe it or not, Dems with amnesia, there WERE people on your side saying that Clinton should step down. Clinton abused his power in egregious ways and then lied about it (just like some of those other presidents Dems love to villify). He should not be awarded sainthood, he is not the best president ever, and conveniently forgetting about or glossing over his fuckups does not make them disappear. Letting Weiner slide because Bill Clinton lowered the personal-morality bar is a dumb thing to do.

Saying “so and so did a much worse thing and kept his job!” is a non-starter. If we continue to set the pace of the present and future based on how much we let people in the past get away with stupid, egregious fuckups, we are heading for trouble. How does that give us any incentive to evolve toward something greater, to strive to be better tomorrow than we were today? Isn’t that the chief charm of progressivism — to move forward, make progress?

Oh, and here’s something to think about: The fact that we consider abusing power in order to get sex a much less serious issue than abusing power in order to get money says something about how we value the human body and human dignity, doesn’t it?

There is a bit of “boys will be boys” attitude floating among Weiner’s defenders. Again, who’s the wacky man-hater in this scenario? Here’s that bitchy man-hating feminist, who wants all people — especially our supposed leaders — to aspire to be better people than the average flailing dumbass with his dick out on ChatRoulette. And then here are people defending Weiner by saying that men are just programmed to be complete idiots who are at the constant mercy of the muscle twitches of their genitals. Hint: It’s not me, the bitchy man-hating feminist who actually hates and devalues men. I think men are better than the bullshit standards they are often held to.

This scandal is not exclusively about sex and wanting Weiner to go away does not make me or anyone else anti-sex. This is not about legislating morality. It’s about judgment, doing the right thing, leadership, and earning the right to be a representative of the public. We’re not talking about a man who is polyamorous and in a marriage where his wife knows about his sexual proclivities and agrees to them. (If that had been the case, then I’d be the first to say we should all shut up and let the man work. But that requires that all parties involved in the the activities are up to speed on what’s going on. Clearly that is not the case.) We’re talking about deception. Sneakery. He took an oath of total commitment to his wife — who is having his child — and look how he treated her. How on EARTH could he ever treat constituents with any more respect than the one person he promised in a fancy frigging ceremony to put above all others?

Remember when we argued that saying George W. Bush is the kind of guy you could have a beer with is a dumb argument for why he should be president? This is along the same lines. I want my leaders to be better and smarter than the average douchebag. Saying “Anthony Weiner is just another dbag in pursuit of poon so give him a break” is not good enough for me. I want my leaders to be better than that. Smarter than that.

It’s a disservice to continue to think that it’s impossible for us to ever expect that kind of goodness from our leaders.

That sound you hear is this week sucking the life out of me. It’s been … not great. Apparently my karmic retribution for being in a horrible mood midweek was to turn the tail end of the week into my own private failfest at work.

I got called on the carpet for my participation in this conversation, and I can’t say I don’t see why. I’m an asshole! I don’t mince words! I speak to commenters with the same amount of respect they use when speaking to me and others! I’m a horrible diplomat! But, I know. Put the word “staff” in red allcaps by my name and I guess I seem like a MAJOR asshole. To quote Le Tigre: I get it, I get it, I get it. So I will voluntarily resume shutting the fuck up in story comments since I know I can’t just suddenly get nicer, and I’ve been told that my not niceness isn’t going to fly. Fair enough. I’m a big (biiiiig, according to some critics) girl.

It’s humiliating, though. I hate knowing I’ve done something wrong enough to get in trouble for. Makes me feel like an eight-year-old again, like everyone’s looking at me and thinking about what a fuckup I am. The only difference is that this time I was standing up for something I believe and I don’t have an ounce of regret about it. I am grossed out by the pervasive idea that dudes have the right to gaze at Hot Chicks^TM on demand and at all times, including on a NEWSPAPER’S website. And if you don’t think that’s where that comment thread was heading, then maybe you don’t know the internet very well. Ugh, I need a shower now.

Oh, and compounding my failure rate for the week was the fact that I lost the “forced sex”/”rape” word battle again in this story. Editors are still sticking by the notion that we can’t call it rape if the court isn’t calling it rape. (Related: We used the word “rape” without hesitation over “coerced sex” in this story.) No one seems to really want to acknowledge the point I’m trying to make: That the court terminology is necessarily muddied because it’s motherfucking COURT and there are all KINDS of shenanigans happening there that laypeople don’t get. In a news story, it is possible to both describe what a person is pleading to/charged with AND what he admitted to doing. Are we afraid of being sued for libel at saying the officer raped a woman? Because, uh, he admitted to it, even if he didn’t technically plead to it. Therefore it’s true and libel-proof. Where does our fear of calling a spade a spade come from?

I don’t know. I love my job. I love journalism as an entity and what it can do for a community. I love working for a newspaper and being a total newspaper wonk. But it’s a lonely life being a shrill feminist harpy bitch hag who raises these questions repeatedly and sometimes to ridicule, not just at work but from everyone.

But hey, I’m not a feminist to make friends, you know?

On a decidedly more positive note, I won an award of excellence from SND for two True Crime packages (this one and this one). I’ll finally make it into the SND yearbook. So at least there’s that to stanch the flow of fail this week, I guess.

Me: Sally, you’re so pretty.

Sally: [unblinking stare]

Me: You’re also very smart.

What’s stuck in my head today:

Only what looks to be the most hilarious book ever!!!

Barf:

“It’s a girl power kind of thing,” Shafman says. “You’re kind of making a statement: I know I’m a woman. I know I’m the most sought after victim in regards to sexual assault, sexual abuse. So please stay away from me. If in the event you do come after me, I’m going to use my pink Taser to put you on the ground.”

“Most sought after victim in regards to sexual assault”? Wow, there’s a superlative for the yearbook.

Also worth noting is the potential victims’ very polite regard for their potential attackers’ physical well-being (ie “please stay away from me!”):

Amnesty International, an activist group, frowns on the C2 and any attempt to spread the use of stun guns.

Shafman has a quick answer for Amnesty International. If she had a choice of getting shocked or being attacked with something else, “I’d much rather be assaulted by a Taser.”

Yes, ladies, even when you’re trying to defend yourself from deranged rapists, it’s important not to do anything that could really hurt them. Just zap them with your cute pink Taser and then run away — slowly, I guess — in your stilettos. Girl power!

Ugh, fuck. I’m going back to bed.

Thaddeus Matthews brings to our attention the curious case of the pastor of World Overcomers Church (the church that brought us the crazy cross-wielding Statue of Liberty) who felt the need to urge the women in his congregation to get freaky in the bedroom to keep their husbands faithful.

From Thaddeus:

In the pulpit was a Queen sized bed draped in burgundy and gold.

Members were wondering why the place that normally Pastor Alton R. Williams preaches the word of God from had turned into a large bedroom, when he entered wearing a robe and pajama pants with his bible in hand. the lights are dimmed, mode music is playing,Williams at this point lays on the bed reading from the Songs of Solomon.

While still reading the bible his wife Sherrilyn enters the sanctuary wearing a long red feathered seductive fitting gown. Mrs. Williams very seductively walks across the pulpit turn bedroom and sits on the bed next to her husband. She closes his bible and begins to rub on him, and then lefts him from the bed and very passionately embraces and kisses him. Pastor Williams whose Sunday morning freak session is designed to save marriages tells the women in the congregation “This is how to keep your husband so the Hoe don’t get him”.

Mmmmmkay.

This is an old schtick, dressed up in gaudy bedsheets. Just a few months ago, megapreacher Joel Osteen — he of the impossibly smiley gums — apparently encouraged the women of his congregation to shop at Victoria’s Secret to keep their husbands interested.

Obviously you know what I’m going to say at this point.

[Sarcastic remark and possible ad hominem attack on both preachers.]

[Snark regarding the insanity of the people who must attend these churches.]

[General musing about the state of Christianity today, and how it is so pathetically off-track of its stated goal, which is to make people more like Christ.]

[Sincere denunciation of the pervasive sexist practice of making women responsible for the behavior of men.]

[Pissy indictment of the culture's insistence on placing a woman's highest power and value in her sexuality, and not just her sexuality, but her ability and willingness to please men with her sexuality.]

[Acknowledgment, once again, that the most subtle and ubiquitous form of man-hating comes not from feminists, but from those who seem to believe that men are sub-human animals who can't control their own behavior and must rely on the womenfolk to do it for them.]

Repeat. Ad nauseum.

I’m not sure where your life must go wrong to land you on a Saturday morning looking up “mammary intercourse” on Wikipedia (link NSFW), but sometimes life just rolls like that, the earth squeaks around on its axis and we just keep moving on. (Truth be told, this photo of graffiti got me to looking up Bukkake just to make sure I knew what it was.)

One thing I’d like to point out, though, is the completely creepy illustration that accompanies that entry. If you’re fortunate enough to be somewhere where you can click the link, have a look. Who wants to guess what my beef is with the picture?

I’ll give you a hint: SEX DOES NOT EQUAL PORN. And vice versa.

The lady is decked out in red lipstick and earrings, and is looking seductively, mouth agape, at the viewer — not her partner — as strings of ejaculate fly toward her. This is a classic porn pose. It is performance. It is flattery for the (default male) viewer. It is nothing more.

Obviously, this illustration is not included for education. But if they just have to include a visual aid for the entry, I don’t get why it should be this one. Other than the idea that porn=sex is so pervasive that most people don’t even notice the difference.

Now check out the unsettling edit log for the photo. There’s some back-and-forth about the racial makeup of the lovers in the illustration. Supposedly now that’s been fixed with more neutral, mixed-race skintones (the folks still look pretty white to me, but that is SO NOT THE POINT).

Kudos to the person who tried to crop out the “pornographic look into camera.” I’m laughing at the person who edited the color of the areolae to be more “realistic.”

Jesus, I don’t even think these people have any idea how hilarious that is.

But this one’s more than just annoying and stupid.

Win a ringtone if you can click your mouse button fast enough to unravel this coy hottie’s sweater. Note how both of the unravelers look like your stereotypical unhinged, dark-alley rapist types, and marvel as (you can’t see it here, as this is just a screenshot) the rapidly exposed hottie demurely covers up her bikinied crotch as her sweater dress is removed by said unhinged rapist type.

Wrinkle your brow as you see “your” avatar kicked off the screen and proclaimed a “LOSER!” if you do not rip the sweater off your own personal coy hottie.

Scoff as the ad prompts, “Participation required.” (Yes, for fuck’s sake. We know participation in the idiotic patriarchal paradigm of dominance is required.)

Dry heave as you realize this ad, stupid and random as it may be (and, in fact, especially because of its stupidity and randomness), is indicative of the way our society feels about the accessibility of the bodies of women. If it’s there, brothers, help yourselves. UNLESS YOU’RE A LOSER.

[Who knows how long this ad will occupy the space on this page (I was looking up the lyrics to "AFK" by Pinback), but check it out if it's still there. I have not seen this ad anywhere else. Yet.

UPDATE: As of 1:20 a.m. on 5/20, it's not there anymore. If you see it pop up elsewhere, please do let me know.]

Working for a big corporate media behemoth has its perks: Decent pay, health insurance, air conditioning, cake when people get awards, etc. But there are drawbacks, too.

[Disclaimer: I like my job and would like to keep it. I am only writing this here at my personal blog because these are points I would be happy to make to any of my superiors if consulted; I write better than I speak, so I am, in effect, collecting my thoughts on the matter and offering them up for mass consideration. And ridicule. You know, whatevs.]

For one, you have to put disclaimers on your personal opinions because no one wants to get Dooced.

For two, you have to count yourself among the ranks of the dreaded MSM, which can make it tricky to rail against the dreaded MSM.

For three, you have to suffer through all sorts of insipid corporate e-mails from people you’ve never met who don’t know your name or what you do.

For four, you are but a cog in a much larger machine that will often be used in ways you really, really wish would just evaporate and go away, because they’re so horrid and your influence is so minimal that you can’t really do anything about it.

I allude, clumsily, of course, to this: Skirt! — a monthly women’s publication currently being offered to subscribers of the Knoxville News Sentinel (among other papers, I’m sure, including, very possibly, the CA in days to come).

I have to admit, I am not clear on all of the details of Skirt!. All I know is what one of my bosses told me when he laid his March copy down near myself and two fellow young women designers and asked us to take a look and tell him what we thought of the unconventional design approach. He described it as a publication geared toward youngish, successful professional women.

My first impression, based on the name and the flag design alone, was one of uncontrolled revulsion.

“Skirt!” is written in some vaguely familiar and probably commonly misused typeface (my guess is Franklin Gothic), and is at times stretched and condensed and all manner of other typographic abominations in order to achieve a sort of chaotic, frantic, childish feel, punctuated frenetically with an exclamation point. Which really bugged one of my co-workers for some reason. (Perhaps she had an exclamation-point accident as a child or something?) The ‘i’ utilizes a different typeface than the rest of the word — some sort of italic serif deal, which, on the website, is animated to be a blinking eye. I am sort of happy yet still queasy to report that there is NO EYE in the print edition. Small miracles and all.

So, based on name alone, you know where this is going. Tell me you’ve got a publication for strong, successful women and I’ll usually be all, “Okay, right on,” thinking we’ve got a political-minded, informative, thoughtful outlet on our hands. Tell me it’s called “Skirt!” and my brain will start shutting down. Suddenly you’ve introduced fashion and feminine markers into the premise. Not to mention the secondary verbal definition of “skirt,” which means to avoid or work around. It’s indirect; it’s passive.

Open up the tabloid (it’s a large tab, maybe the size of the Scene or the Flyer — though I’m thinking the Scene is bit taller than the Flyer — printed on hi-brite with what seems to be full color available on every page, though they don’t use full color on every page, which I’ll get to in a minute) and you’re met with the typical blitzkrieg of colorful advertising that greets you in any periodical. My boss asked our opinion of the editorial/advertising design divide, since it seems to have blurred a bit within the pages of Skirt!, thanks to the editorial and ad designer being one in the same.

The pages of Skirt! feature gaudy blue and violet display type, aligned anywhichway seems cutesy and fun, and hefty sprinklings of solidly colored flower clip-art. Think flower power clip-art. Flowers and text, flowers and text, cute illustrations of vaguely ethnic women with impossibly long nails and eyelashes and hair, flowers and text. Ads. Flowers. Ads. Text and flowers. Ads.

One of the more remarkable (and profoundly depressing) aspects of the design is the editorial photography. All editorial (non-advertising) photographs are printed in black and white. I am told that this is — and I shit you not — because women look better when not photographed in color. That’s so their complexions don’t look so icky in print.

So you’ve got brightly colored ads of airbrushed models sitting alongside somber black and white portraits of actual women.

I’m not sure there could be a more clear and ironic distortion of what it means to be a “real” woman than this policy.

The ads sing, of course, in full color, while the editorial copy whispers. “HEY YOU SHOULD BUY SOME OF THIS AWESOME DEPILATORY CREAM” vs. “Hi, my name is Mary Ann and I save lives because I am a paramedic who works 36-hour days while raising a kid on my own and raising money for cancer patients.”

It’s almost too sad to ponder.

The rest of the editorial copy within the newsmag ranges from the feel-good, pat-yourself-on-the-back-for-having-a-job type profiles of working/creative women to the usual hyperconsumerist agitprop about which wrinkle creams get the best results and so forth.

And then, of course, there are the little things. “Shemail” as a stand-in for “e-mail.” A section called “PMS: Problems Men Started (right now, featuring “Girls Gone Wild,” “Voting machines,” “Brawling,” “Office cubicles,” and “Homophobia.”). A page in the print edition devoted to the skirt of the month. And then this borderline crazy letter from the publisher about her leap into the unknown territory of publishing health and beauty tips for upwardly mobile honky women. Because, you know, that’s something that’s never been done before.

And yet, Skirt! proclaims its mission so loudly on its cover that I must snicker at the bitter irony (see Fig. 2 for details). A huge-ass tagline that touts its deepness and its ability to bring you to the light, to a revelation about yourself is, at best, a display in marketing hackery and, at worst, a cruel joke perpetrated on unsuspecting readers who, after years and years of being bludgeoned by the spiked mace of patriarchy-consumerism, may not know how to wield a skepticism filter properly.

It’s just sad, really, that any of this could be touted as deep and meaningful, when it is so clearly viciously superficial and about anything but actual empowerment.

But that is the way with words and products hawked to the empowerful woman and the patriarchal construct that keeps her in check.

That’s why this publication, aimed supposedly at professional women (which implies the twenty and thirty and forty and fiftysomething set, at the very least), looks like a joke; its design aesthetic is more suited to a magazine for tween girls who can more easily be wooed by cute flowers and choppy typography (which they see in their glossy mags every day anyway). And the copy? Well, it’s the same hyperfeminine/hyperconsumerist shit you can read in any depressing glossy fashion mag that purports to be Empowered Woman’s Best Friend.

Twisty, the patron saint of the What I Wish I Had Written, gets the last word:

This modern preoccupation with the Empowerful Woman was funny for a while, but it begins to wear thin. I predict that if a post-patriarchal social history of the New Millennium ever gets written there will be a hilarious chapter on this bizarre, buffoonish construct.

I allude to the confident, photogenic, entirely fictitious female who inhabits TV ads, “Sex in the City,” Oprah, and the popular imagination. Today’s woman isn’t a feminist. She doesn’t need to be, because she’s empowered.

She may only earn 3/4 of what a man earns, but she damn well has the empower to look sexy doing it in her cheapcrap push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret. She has the empower to demand pink products from manufacturers. She has the empower to cry out ‘I did it for me!’ when she gets her boob job; maybe she even has the empower to believe it. The empowerful woman is saucy, yet feminine. Clever, yet feminine. In her early thirties, yet feminine. Heterosexual, yet feminine. Stays in shape eating Lean Cuisine and sweating blue Gatorade while kickboxing in slow motion, yet feminine. Yes, the empowerful woman is many things. Too bad powerful isn’t one of them. That’s because feminine is all of them.