BS Watch
One can’t be sure which is more emblematic of male domination of society: the “cut and run” meme currently underwriting the desperate political strategy of the Republicans, or the just-as-predictable resort to the “chickenhawk” meme by Democrats in reply.
Just to go on record before I depart from “cut and run” as a policy issue, there are plenty of times when “cut and run” is absolutely the smartest thing to do. The US war against Iraq is a perfect example. Now that’s out of the way. Back to this gendering of political discourse.
Didn’t we just see this in 2004? George W. Bush and John Kerry engaging in a locker-room dick measuring contest? George said John was a flip-flopper (read indecisive, ergo “feminine” and unfit for command — a masculine duty). John “reported for duty” at the Democratic National Convention, to spotlight the fact that George did his reserve service on the lam while Big Bad John actually engaged in the manly enterprise of killing Vietnamese.
Cut-n-run vs. Chickenhawk might fire up the men of the Republic, but this is just a bunch of boy-shit. Democrat boy-shit is just as reproductive of patriarchy as Republican boy-shit. “You’re a pussy who wants to run” vs. “You’re a pussy who didn’t (doesn’t) have the balls to fight when given chance.” I use the anatomical references intentionally, to show exactly how that which is female is less-than, and that which is male is the standard against which all else is measured. Both constructions — and have no doubt that these ARE the constructions in operation here — valorize the male and devalue the female.
Ever notice how fear of enemies is not just used to mobilize jingo patriotism (Jingo Patriotic Disorder, according to the DSM IV)? It also mobilizes the Male Protection Racket (MPR), a fractal phenomenon that operates on multiple scales. Men sexually harrass, batter, and rape women… so women need to rely on men to protect them from what men do to them. On a national scale, when the nation (like the wife and children of the family) is convinced that it is in danger from bad men (BM), it has to rely on the father and bigger brothers to protect it, i.e., the President and the Military (P&M). This means that anyone who is not manly enough is unfit to lead, i.e., protect the nation from BM.
I want to propose a form of meme warfare for the 2006 elections that undercuts this boy-shit. Let’s establish an Electon Year Boy-Shit Watch (BS Watch, for short). Non-partisan.
We will need a knowledgeable BS Watch techno-geek to set up the BS Watch website, where we can exchange BS Watch anecdotes and tactics, as well as list and archive instances of electoral BS — perhaps even categorize them as state and national officials, and list them alphabetically. On this web site, we can share our letters to the editors, our letters to elected officials, our op-eds, and our blog entries, related to calling the BS-ers on their BS. We can share and distirbute BS humor, swap BS images, and even keep tabs on a Top Ten BS-er List.
Then we will need a BS Watch representative from each state, several from each of the big states, who can stay on top of the local BS.
With a couple of good BS linguists, we can identify and list BS slogans, BS-based discourse, and BS metaphors that are commonly used in politics.
Oh… the possibilities are endless. Suggestions, please…
Grainne:
Ahh, the infamous dick-dick contest.
Is there anything that better illustrates a lack of gonads (testes in males, ovaries in females) all around?
“No ‘nads” works for me. Like “spineless” it is applicable to both genders and can be used to emphasize this death-culture’s lack of pro-creativity/biophilia.
28 June 2006, 9:25 pmSks:
“He is a family man!”
Usually when he isn’t…
“Served his country with honor”
etc
Yet, I am more interested in an alternative to “chickenhawk” that denotes the fact that this people sending kids to become murderers and cannon fodder are in fact unwilling to walk the talk.
Am sorry, but thats the bottom line: never tell someone to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself.
Until this article I will admit I was fond of the term “chickenhawk” not in the sense they where pussies, but that they where hypocrites. I stan(d) corrected…
28 June 2006, 11:35 pmDeAnander:
Boyshit — crude but effective.
I like it. and let’s call it on all the male pundits left and right who persist in using “whore” as a metaphor for “shallow, venal, criminal, expedient, cowardly, dishonest, greedy, blah blah blah”… and (the lefties at least) in the next breath chanting the “prostitution is kewl and grewvy” mantra.
Billmon is a repeat offender.
http://billmon.org/archives/002474.html
http://billmon.org/archives/002463.html
the guy can write, and his insights into the dirty laundry in DC are often useful. but he returns to misogynist tropes like these like the proverbial dog to its vomit. and so do scores of leftyboys.
let’s call BS also on the use of anal rape metaphors for tropes of domination, submission, defeat and victory — no more “boy, we really took it in the shorts on that one,” no more “the Democrats just bent over,” and so on. (not to mention prison rape jokes which are another form of same old boyshit).
funny how leftyboys can hear the ludicrous quality of Ahnold’s cracks about girly-men, but they can’t hear their own blaring misogyny…
another department of the BS Watch web site would be Quotes of the Day/Week from lefty fora, snapshots of misogynist memes in theie native habitat… but we’d need a team of 25 just to keep up
29 June 2006, 12:37 ampeggy:
I protest your defamation of bull shit! That is a harmless and economically valuable substance, after all, and bulls are good animals.
I prefer the term dickhead, or whatever spews from the mouth of a dickhead – some dead and deadly poisonous substance for which I can think of no name.
29 June 2006, 1:00 amblubonnet:
Well, although I believe both parties are flimsy in authenticity, it SEEMS that the left side of the aisle is the lesser of two evils. They right wing has now become the far right genuine fascist party. In response to the Dems being called “the cut and run party”, the Pubs need to be referred to as the “lie, troops die party”.
I truly wish that Nader had a chance in 2008. He states clearly and boldly the true plutocracy we are presently in. If only so many Americans weren’t such lemmings.
I heard a quote that went something like: When the citizenry are sheep, the government becomes a wolf pack.
Maybe we ought to go to those pro-war right wing sites and post merely: “BAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH”. They are so brain dead, it doesn’t seem to matter. I actually try sometimes to go to them and speak of compassion for all humanity, the horrors our country has brought upon an innocent population, the lies that brought it about, and then I go there again and they are talking about and defending AnnCoulter. SCREEAAM!!!!!
Here’s a few thoughts:
James Madison: “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foriegn enemy.”
James Madison: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
James Madison: “We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.”
Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
George W. Bush: “Don’t wave the Constitution at me. It’s just a godamned piece of paper.”
29 June 2006, 5:05 amStan:
Carlos: I had this argument with Dennis and Juliet, too, because they — like you — see the “chickenhawk” thing as an effective polemic, mass appeal and all that, that highllights “hypocrisy,” not manhood.
But the polemic has efficacy precisely because there is a pre-existing sense that real men have proven themselves in combat, and those who have been unwilling to do so are “chicken.”
“Chicken” is a taunt leveled at boys during their socializaiton. and that is where its resonance lies. it is a little disingenuous for people to cling to this without acknowledging how it resonantes, imo.
It is also a polemic which is vulnerable on its own account as an objection to the war… the issue it relates to, after all. If McCain, an ex combat pilot, were the prez, would that make the war okay?
At a somewhat deeper level, it personalizes the war as an act of hypocrisy, not an expression of imperialism.
I have no problem with making this a class issue, but that can be done without the “chicken” piece, by showing how WC families pay the price (because the soldiers are NOT the only ones paying a price for war) in order to maintian the profits of the rich.
29 June 2006, 8:13 amMark:
I heard something along these lines on the radio yesterday in an ad for one of the Republicans running in the August primary for the State Auditor seat.
It starts off with some appropriately ‘stirring patriotic’ music and a guy talking about how test pilots pay attention to detail. I was just waiting for the next song so it took me a little bit to pick up on the fact that this was a campaign spot. We are then introduced to COLONEL Jack Johnson. I capitalize the rank here because A) his name is reapeated many times throughout the ad always with his rank and B) the announcer gives it more emphasis than the rest of the name.
COLONEL Jack Johnson then spends the rest of the time explaining how being a Marine combat pilot in Vietnam and a test pilot for Boeing makes him the perfect man for the State Auditor job. By the end, I have no idea if he even has a degree related to accounting in any way, but I sure know that COLONEL Jack Johnson can fly a fighter aircraft.
29 June 2006, 8:31 amskol:
Seems to me that a culture-jamming site should have that mark of CJing (a la whitehouse.org), and not that here’s-the-info-now-grieve mark of just about every other site (gnn.tv, crooksandliars, buzzflash, etc). Visitors should be greeted with a smile
Not necessarily, of course, since the material is biting, but (I figure) it needs to be as subtle (covert?) as possible. Especially since bswatch-dot-whatever doesn’t lend itself to an in-your-face presentation, which wouldn’t have as much of an impact (what’s this site? Oh, nevermind *clicks back*).
imho, site design takes larger if temporary precedence over material, if it’s meme warfare you’re looking for. Duh, you might say, but (case in point) one of the things that drew me here was the color scheme (props, btw). How superficial of me, yet how superficial of everyone watching Fox news because the “production value is excellent” (democrats included).
I might have the wrong idea here, or a ridiculous simplification (I doubt it), but that’s my suggestion. Presentation trumps material in getting traffic. Material trumps presentation in getting repeat traffic.
29 June 2006, 9:14 amlapetrov:
When I first found Feral Scholar, through another “academically inclined” blog, I thought maybe this group had no sense of humor. This post has convinced me otherwise. Thanks for the much needed laugh this morning.
So right, and so historical. I mean, it’s like nothing has really changed, just the means of disseminating the same tired ol’ message. Read something on the “codpiece” in Renaissance Italian art and you’ll see what I mean. jeez.
I think there should also be careful attention paid to the women who reiterate and mimic the same discourse of “toughness” -use similar figurative speech to associate themselves with “having balls”, etc. They are wannabe dickheads, and while I would be happier to have one of them in the white house than an “authentic” dickhead (ie. has the physiology to prove it), they must also be understood as only a symbolic step on the way to real change and should be chided for reproducing BS.
I will be moving from Wisconsin to Ohio in the next month or so (new job, YAY!) and am willing to sign up as one of the the local/state “watch dogs” for BoyShit -I’m sure there will be plenty, even though they already had their anti-gay marriage vote.
29 June 2006, 9:41 amYolanda Carrington:
Now you know, Lapetrov. We can laugh here.
My boyshit watch suggestion: Liberal white boys pundits who make racist/misogynist attacks on right-wing women and right-wingers of color. The many lefty pricks who’ve sexually harassed Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin come to mind.
With all the fucking abuse that Malkin takes, I wonder why the sista can’t see the light. Goddamn.
29 June 2006, 1:00 pmBenonymous Rex:
I like the idea of BS Watch. Being on the techno-geek end of things I will defer to someone else for design considerations but I do have a dedicated server with unused storage and bandwidth that should be more than enough to accomodate this project. I would be happy to host BS Watch or use my server as a backup site.
I like the term chickenhawk. To me it points out hypocrisy, not a lack of manliness. If you insist that it is boy-shit then you should probably remove or rename the “Chickenshit Press” category from your blog, Stan. Or am I missing some nuance there?
I have described Ann Coulter as “the most vile woman I’d still like to fuck.” Is that just a (possibly lame) joke by a white guy or is it an example of misogynistic sexual harrassment by a lefty prick, subject to scorn as “boy-shit”?
29 June 2006, 2:16 pmAudrey:
B-Rex, I don’t find “the most vile woman I’d still like to fuck” as humor. I find it to be yet another example of men thinking it’s not only their privilege, but their goddamn duty to constantly let ALL women know that they are always and forever judged on their fuckability quotient, and all other accomplishments (good or bad) that they have to their name are subordinate to that one key factor.
I don’t know if you can get worse than that, but I guess you did, because you’re flat out saying you view even the most vile woman who you have no affection for as a potential receptacle for you to shove your dick in. Think about what you’re saying about women with a statement like that.
29 June 2006, 2:45 pmSks:
As I said, you won we over… but we must draw up and alternative… Boyshit is nice, but has the draw back that we must educate (althought I can see it getting usage in the left…) For example, we could make a blow up giant rubber chikenhawk to put in front of, say, Halliburton HQs. Cant do the same with boyshit. So, it leaves a need unfulfilled…
I am *all* for political correctness (people who decry it are usually very willing to impose their own views), but I am also all for propaganda.
Brings me to the whole thing about how to not maletalk. thats the problem: too maby interocnnections too little time.
29 June 2006, 2:57 pmSks:
I also dislike the sexist, racist attacks from the left.
And not just bloggers: Chavez’s highly sexualized attacks on Condi Rice, which also have a racist subtext as black women are seen in caribbean culture as blondes are in the USA.
In spite of all the other things that are good in venezuela’s process, gender aint one of them.
29 June 2006, 3:04 pmSks:
“I have described Ann Coulter as “the most vile woman I’d still like to fuck.†Is that just a (possibly lame) joke by a white guy or is it an example of misogynistic sexual harrassment by a lefty prick, subject to scorn as “boy-shitâ€? ”
No, you didn’t… its on!
29 June 2006, 3:06 pmStan:
Benonymous will continue to be anonymous here. He’s a trolling provocateur, but we let him have his one say in order to give our regulars an outlet for any latent social hostility they might need to express. BR volunteered to be the punching bag.
Very nice form, Audrey.
It is not merely subject to scorn as boy-shit, its a fine example of how the internet provides us all a peek at the publicly concealed thought patterns of many boys, who say what they really want to becaue the internet lets them benonymous.
Bye Be.
29 June 2006, 3:32 pmskol:
I have little understanding of patriarchy and feminism outside of homosexuality (and then only barely), so I can only ask a question in reply: why would you want to “fuck a vile woman”? Seems (to me) to be mighty ironic. My newly built and barely functional parser reading this blog is having trouble parsing your last paragraph though (if you get my drift; techno-geek to techno-geek). It’s swinging heavily towards the latter option. Although my humor-meter puts it a few ticks below lame.
Seriously though, at least you’re here and willing to learn (ostensibly? I don’t know. Me? Dunno).
As for “chickenhawk”: It points out hypocrisy on a very, very superficial level. The element of hypocrisy is in the foreground, but the etymology (as Stan described it) is in the background. So it’s foundation is infact boy-shit.
You asked the above question fairly, I think, but without a trace of irony (and it was very, very ironic). That irony is in the background too. The background is patriarchy, a system of power. Maybe that’ll help you out. I can only describe these things in simplistic terms. Or maybe my parser isn’t working.
Or whatever. /popcorn
29 June 2006, 3:40 pmAudrey:
“in order to give our regulars an outlet for any latent social hostility they might need to express”
Sorry, guilty here. My (un)social hostility carried over from the other discussion. (excuses) I won’t be hurt if you want to just delete that whole mini-rant. Skol said it more diplomatically than me anyway.
I understand the chickenhawk subtext. But it’s hard to compress “sacrificing poverty-stricken and working class people in a war based on lies, corporate profits, racism and nationalism when you aren’t willing to sacrifice yourself – not that you should be doing that in the first place†into a concise catchy phrase that people remember.
29 June 2006, 4:39 pmDeAnander:
the ann coulter crack imho just illustrates the enormous cognitive diss around attraction/sex in the patriarchal mindset. ann qualifies as WILF for most men because she is slender, blonde, and conventionally Aryan-girl-good-looking, which is supposed to be a compliment, i.e. “I’d like to fuck her” means “she’s an attractive woman, I like her phenotype and her conformity to cultural rules for female appearance.” so that’s complimentary, right? “attractive” is supposed to be a complimentary description.
but at the same time, “fuck you” in common parlance is not a compliment — it’s a threat. and there’s a strong memetic thread that fucking is what men to do women — or to other men — to punish, dominate, shame and humiliate them, to keep women in line, to express authority over women, to make a sub-alpha male into a “bitch” and ultimately symbolise his lower status, etc. so there’s the implicit message that ann is an Uppity Woman who needs taking down a peg by being fucked. or that ann is the Enemy’s Woman who should be raped to express our contempt and hatred for the Enemy — the “Hadji Girl” of the wingnuts.
and then of course, women who are “vile” are those who are most fuckable, right? “nice girls don’t” and we are back in familiar Virgin/Whore territory.
so there really isn’t a contradiction in the leftyboy attitude to ann as a “vile pinup girl” — it’s just one more expression of the more general cognitive diss about male sexuality when the selfsame physical act is described and sometimes experienced as “making love”, yet functionally experienced and described also as aggression/domination/hatred. for many men physical/sexual attraction and respect are like matter and antimatter, they simply cannot feel the two feelings at the same time for one person. so wanting
to fuck someone you despise seems like a perfectly logical outcome of the same culture in which the steady customers of brothels use the word “whore” as an insult and a putdown, then defend the “right” of women to be prostituted, etc.
all same braintwisting double vision…
29 June 2006, 5:35 pmBenonymous Rex:
May I stick around and continue this conversation or am I simply banished now that you’re done using me as a punching bag?
So this is the wrong crowd for that joke. And some, maybe all, of you don’t find it funny in the least. I see how people can take it the way Audrey described, although I did not mean it that way. Even taken literally and as truth, it was a statement about one particular woman, not all women. Would the reaction have been different if I had said “most vile person?”
Sometimes I post using a pseudonym; sometimes I use my real name. I can’t really say why or how I decide which to use. It varies. I used the same “joke” in a comment I made — using my real name — to a post on Mount Blogmore (local newspaper blog here) about South Dakota’s representative in the U.S. House being voted “second hottest woman in U.S. politics.”
That was a couple of days after reading Julian Real’s list “What Men Can Do…” so it was on my mind. I went after the “hotness” post in my own way, realizing I violated number 3 (and probably others) in the process. Use me as a punching bag and call me a “boy” if you want (I won’t deny it) but I am here, reading and trying to learn and understand. I’m sorry my first post here gave such a bad impression but I hope you won’t write me off in my entirety for it.
29 June 2006, 5:49 pmR.S. Morris:
Heya B. Rex: All I can recommend for you is to pay careful attention to what the various regulars on this site have to say and try to internalize their offerings (that’s where I’m STILL at, so don’t feel alone!). Take a walk back through the older posts and read some of the amazing insight and personal sharing coming from so many intelligent and caring people.
Read the writings of Yolanda, DeAnander, Elaina, Julian, Audrey, Peggy and others who represent viewpoints that are not often heard clearly outside this site.
We have a LOT to learn about our own deeply internalized masculine psychosis; I beleive truly LISTENING to those who suffer directly from our unconsciousness is the first step and the best medicine.
Welcome, and good luck!
Randy
30 June 2006, 1:03 amskol:
The rules for comments are here, fyi. or http://feralscholar.org/blog/?p=25, if the anchor isn’t working.
30 June 2006, 3:03 amlapetrov:
This for me is worth exploring a bit:
“for many men physical/sexual attraction and respect are like matter and antimatter, they simply cannot feel the two feelings at the same time for one person”
Respect. First, it shoud be defined/understood. What behaviors demonstrate respect. And, as Aretha said so well: “find out what it means to me” –assuming her female voice was talking to a man. What does respect look and feel like for women (are these different for men)? What is respect to you De?
Second, what other challenges surface regarding respect for women besides De’s suggestion of desire and its interference? I’d venture there are some very, very deep=seated barriers to respect for women.
30 June 2006, 12:58 pmlapetrov:
Oh, and is it true that men can’t (or is it won’t) respect an object of desire? Why objectify desires and desired others? Can we experience desire without any of that?
I’d go on, but I’m going to do some more thinking first.
30 June 2006, 1:23 pmfrank:
christ! this ambivilence on all sides, the ticket-punching, the BS, brings to mind Pink Floyd’s “Sheep”- or as a good friend of mine never fails to remind me, “people are amazing”, as in, where did they learn that it’s OK to act like a complete asshole to fellow human beings?
30 June 2006, 2:48 pmlapetrov:
I did some more thinking, while I was washing some dishes and staring out the kitchen window.
My understanding of masculinity leads me to the conclusion that respect for many men is a function of fear. Meaning, men often respect what and who they fear. Now, we all know men can fear women, and I can imagine several contexts in which that fear is accompanied by intense sexual interest and subsequently also a “hot pursuit” (Hollywood loves this one). But yes, “highly fuckable” women and lots fantasy contexts overwhelm the imagination on this one.
So, I would venture that most men in real patriarchal life (not Hollywood’s particular brand of BS) prefer to separate desire and fear and are most attracted to non-threatening women, who they of course then don’t have to respect too much cuz they’re not too scary. There are always exceptions of course, and maybe I’m wrong.
30 June 2006, 9:00 pmAudrey:
B-Rex, if it were just one comment about one particular woman coming from one particular guy, I wouldn’t get so exasperated that I want to flip out ninja-style on you. It would still be wrong, for all the reasons I said so eloquently above, because although it’s a comment about one woman, it’s an echo of the thought process men have about women as bodies vs. women as people. Break it down and ask yourself what exactly is the humor in it. I see the humor as coming from the universal truth that men will screw women as objects for their own gratification, separate from whether they value them as people. No?
The reason it’s so exasperating is that this is the message we, as women, get hundreds of times a day, every day. We get it from men, we get it from a thousand blogs like the one you linked, we get it from print journalists who still report on the opinions of men and the dress of women, we get it from television, and we even get it from other women.
The joke is like the French-fry of sexist comments, it’s not the one fry that gets us, it’s the fact that we’re eating the super-sized version of them each and every day. Some days, I feel like if I see one more fry, I’m gonna explode. Yesterday, your joke was that fry.
So I appreciate your attempt to make a point on that blog you linked about the nature of the original article there, and I see that you were critiquing the fluff piece and saying a person’s worth is separate from their status as potential sex object. I just wish you hadn’t muddied it with the followup that endorses men’s right to view women as sex objects.
Anyway, No, to answer your question, it’s not any better for me if you say “most vile person†instead of “most vile woman.†You can’t fix the dehumanization of women by dehumanizing men as well. To quote Andrea Dworkin, that is not the equality we are struggling for.
1 July 2006, 12:53 amGary:
Stan . . your idea for this new website is wonderful. I would be happy to contribute graphic, audio/video, music skills to the project. Your concept for the site has also generated some thoughts on this end that I would like to throw into the mix.
After reading other’s posted comments, clearly language will be an issue. To that end, in the vernacular, “Synapes that fire together, wire together”. If I have made a gender denigration synaptic connection to the phrase, “Fuck you”, or the word “Fuck”, how do I unwire it? How do I create different meaning? How do we, as a new “tribe”, unhook this “Stinkin’ Thinkin”? It really doesn’t make sense creating a new foundation out of outmoded rotten material. So, “Unlinkin’ Stinkin’ Thinkin’” should be a priority. I remember that back in the 1940s Cab Calloway came out with a dictionary, of sorts. A Harlem/English primer on how to speak “Jive.” Maybe something like that would help us over the huge learning curve as to the meaning of the words in question.
Along with fuck, I think we should also look at the word “shit”. I know thinking about “shit” is hard. Smoking or drinking “shit” is much easier. But thinking about “shit” is difficult. Using Boy”Shit” as your web title might not be optimal. Only because the act of shitting is necessary for maintaining life. Whereas, Boy Shit is NOT necessary for maintaining life.(it is mostly used for desroying life!) My proposal would be to use something like; http://www.WMDs.com, where the acronym stands for “White Male Domination system. Then, under the banner, you could state; “Keeping an eye on Whitey”, or something of the sort. Just an idea.
As far as an orgaization to create and maintain the website, how about referencing the Haudenosaunee. The Haudenosaunee is comprised of the traditional leadership of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations. These nations formed the first representational government in this land and operates under the oldest, continualy-operating form of government, called the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee. These nations trace their ancestry through matriarchal lineage. Women elect the “chiefs” for the the tribe and for people representing the tribe during the Nation’s meetings. They sit behind their representatives at meetings making sure their particular tribe is accurately represented. Benejamin Franklin made mention of the Haudenosaunee during one of his respites from spreading syphillus throuout France. I don’t remeber the exact quote, but it ran along the lines of; “If a group of “savages” can form a representational government, why can’t we?” Many people believe representational government stems from a European mindset(WMDs). Others find it difficult to believe that Amerika’s Fore(skin) Fathers weren’t influenced by a bunch of “savages”. Shit!
I have rambled a long time. Forgive me. They are just ideas. Good or less good.
2 July 2006, 2:41 pmlapetrov:
I was thinking about the male gaze and was intrigued by the idea that images (of male “packages”), like the one that opens this thread, presupposes male eyes.
Patriarchy/Hegemonic Masculinity, what have you, has an interesting “knot” that I must ravel to get anywhere philosophically with (and know my politics for) the greater problem of sexism.
There is an extreme amount of homophobia and heterosexism that co-exists with a real “love/hate” relationship with homo-eroticism. This is a paradox that I’m wondering how to explain in material terms. I mean, are men only looking at those “packages” and thinking “big/small” or “bigger/smaller than mine,” or are they also feeling something too?
And why is it so bad if they do? What is riding on that distinction? Is it only a question of dominance, of being on top or not, or is there something deeper that depends on the division us/them? I keep thinking it comes back to self and image of self, and illusion. Not us/them, but I/thou perhaps? And what are the material effects of that attitude? Do my illusions (as a man) condition my behavior propelling me to support illusions of my greatness in order to demand greatness from myself (for myself and my kin, however I may define that group)?
Sorry, these are the questions that haunt me.
Julian: ¿y tú, qué piensas? Translation: Help!
And De, I’ve just started reading Jensen’s _Culture of Make Believe_. So far I like it. I will use it in a class next chance I get. College kids need to read stuff like that a lot more than they do.
5 July 2006, 3:45 pmelaina:
DAMN! It’s good to be back online regular-like. Not just ’cause I missed the thrilling conversation, which I did, not just ’cause I can’t read this kinda analysis elsewhere, which I can’t.
Thing is, I was kinda finding myself in a physical/emotional/philosophical space where I was very much questioning my current chosen path of celibacy. I spend an hour reading Stan’s blog and I’m like, “oh yeah. THAT’s why” every 5 seconds or so.
But seriously, I really NEEDED this space here to keep my head on kinda straight, and to keep myself on my toes. Immerse yourself in a gaggle of hardcore organizers 13 hours a day six days a week, most of ‘em men who, though dedicated to what they’re doing, couldn’t give less of a shit about gender analysis- who really don’t see it as important as the very matter at hand, usually as a best-case scenario- and it’s astonishing the stupid shit you’ll pull just to fit in and get along. Hm. Not to even mention the stupid shit you’ll SAY without even giving it a second thought. And I’ve got this dumbassed tendency to just “act like one of the boys” when I’m dealing with men, that I’ve kinda slipped back into.
Jeepers.
Anyways. It’s good to have daily access again, to put material reality back into it’s proper abstract framework.
6 July 2006, 12:19 amelaina:
And Stan, thought it was worth mentioning that I just now noticed the new name of the category formerly known as “Chickenshit Press” and I snorted milk outta my nose.
6 July 2006, 12:22 am