* NOM's nationwide "One Man, One Woman" bus tour takes a turn: Dude with sign voices support for lynching gays.

* Via Broadsheet, the gays aren't the only ones destroying marriage: Sleeping in separate beds may also be threatening the institution.

* Sady Doyle writes in support of snark (kinda):

"Snark" is one of those fundamentally goofy internet neologisms that we could try to fight, but are better-off just learning to work with. The word denotes mean humour: sarcasm, venom, the art of the put-down. Mostly, it's an attitude. Snark is the kids at the back of the class, heckling the substitute teacher; it's the voice of people who feel stifled, talked down to, or left out; the tool of people who have discovered that honing in on the weaknesses of those in power, exposing them publicly (if only to their own circle of friends), and reducing them to figures of fun (if only in their own minds), makes them feel a little less helpless.

* The Washington Blade has more on the death of Secrets dancer Mark Gower:

Although it couldn’t be immediately determined how long Gower was dead inside his apartment, White said police indicated he could have died shortly after he was discovered missing, which was nearly two weeks before the body was found.

* Lilith redux: NPR talks to 700 female musicians about the industry.

* Ms. Magazine reporter Kate Noftsinger asks a panel of Lilith Fair artists a question:

“Who here identifies as a feminist?”

I got a long pause, followed by nervous laughter.

Finally [Brandi Carlile] spoke, “I don’t know, it means something different that it used to.”

Before I could ask what it meant now as opposed to then, [Sarah McLachlan] assumed the role of official spokesperson and began building a mystery:

"It’s a tricky question, because it’s been redefined and I think we all define feminism to a certain degree. We all define femininity. I think we’re able to have a little more balance. There’s still fights to be fought. There’s still inequality, absolutely. . . . I think as long as we’re being mindful and honest with ourselves and doing what we feel is right, and that’s a very personal decision for all of us, if we’re going forth with that intention, then we are; we’re being feminists, we’re being humanists, we’re being feminine. We’re being true to ourselves, in every way, in every facet of our personalities."

By conflating feminism with femininity, Sarah McLachlan officially lies squarely in the feminist tradition of Sarah Palin devotees.

* Metro Weekly profiles "the first out transgender Capitol Hill staffer."

* But, also in Metro Weekly, magazine co-publisher Sean Bugg is "terrified to write about transgender issues."

* In 1999, David Segal penned the definitive Buttman profile:

Ladies and gentlemen, hide your daughters: John Stagliano is strolling down a riverside walkway and he's got his mojo working.

Cradling a video camera in his hands, he sidles up to a curvy brunet and fumbles for a pick-up line. Gazing into the lens, the woman seems flustered at first, then amused, then — lo and behold — flattered. She follows him to a hotel room, and within minutes she is standing on a coffee table, peeling off her dress. A man knocks on the door and eventually there is a whole lot of naked writhing on a white couch.

Stagliano shoots. Stagliano scores.

* Sady Doyle channels Simone de Beauvoir-as-dating advice columnist.

Photo via Kashmera, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Sure, we want high-profile women to be allies to other women—and it stings extra hard when sexism is perpetuated through their public personas, instead of exclusively by dudes. But behind one Olivia Munn is a producer instructing Munn to "take it off reeeeeeally slow," and a network president "standing on a speaker in the back, leaning over to get pictures," and a team of photographers vying to catch an unauthorized glimpse of Munn's nipple, and a male co-host who insists that he "violate [her] from behind" despite her protestations, and a whole audience full of fanboys screaming at Munn to put her mouth on something. Behind her is an entire industry making sure this happens.

"Olivia Munn is not the one running this show," Sady Doyle writes. "If she weren’t willing to play this role, she wouldn’t have her job; if she didn’t have her job, someone else would. . . . Olivia Munn embodies geek-misogynist expectations and desires for women, in this one specific job she does, but those expectations and desires are what make girls’ lives hard, not the women who are paid to fulfill them."

Another expectation making girls' lives hard? The equally sexist demand that women take full responsibility for these sexist expectations by always refusing to fulfill them. By faulting Munn for "flaunting it"—instead of taking a look at the demand side of the Hot Girl equation—we're not only accusing Munn of being a bad feminist, but also a poor gatekeeper of sexism. An entertainment industry that's built on arousing men by wearing women down until they acquiesce? That, we take for granted. Women, who have little power in this structure, are nevertheless expected to keep the industry's libido under control—just as they're expected to hold off sex, keep a sufficient amount of clothes on so as not to tempt men, and never "put themselves in situations" where sexual assailants may strike.

It's unreasonable, of course, for us to expect any one woman to hold off a whole culture's misogyny. In fact, we expect all women to do it—not just high-profile women like Olivia Munn, but our peers and ourselves. In this world, when a woman is subjected to sexist treatment over and over again—like Munn has been, in magazines and on television—it's not evidence of systemic sexism. It's evidence that we should be "skeptical" of the woman herself who failed to adequately shake it off—and once again turn our attentions away from that big industry behind the girl.

In Jennifer Senior's New York Magazine piece on recent research into the joylessness of parenting, Senior recalls a time when her beloved 2-year-old son dismantled a wooden garage then proceeded to chuck the wooden planks at her head, leading Senior to turn to booze. But does it make her happy?

Signs point to no! According to Senior, "a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so." Duh, right? While joyless parenting may constitute a newfangled field of research, that whole joyless motherhood thing has been racking up its share of anecdotal evidence for quite some time. In the Atlantic, Sady Doyle recounts 60 years of its horrors: Simone de Beauvoir's observation that "the child is merely harassing and bothersome"; Adrienne Rich's assertion that children cause "the most exquisite suffering"; Mary McCarthy's fictional mother feeling that, "to her shame, [the baby] was a piece of hospital property that had been dumped on her and abandoned—they would never come to take him away."

Feeling soulless yet? What this edition of Sexist Beatdown needs is a couple of fancy-free non-parents who have not yet been trampled by the misery of child-rearing! So join Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I as we discuss the Stockholm syndrome of baby-making, the luxuries of upper-class depression, and the quiet despair we are told we will forever regret not having!

SADY: Hello, fellow non-parent! Enjoying your non-parental non-miserable lifestyle yet? Because I sure am!

AMANDA: God, I am too. I plan on enjoying it until I have children too late in life, at which point memories of my blissful childless years will only contribute to my ultimate unhappiness.

SADY: If only we were all having children immediately after leaving our parents' homes! Surely this would alleviate our misery. Also, it would help if we were not so rich and successful. This makes it harder for us, unlike the lower classes and immigrants, who simply take these bodily matters of procreation in stride. POOR PEOPLE: Not at all subject to undue stress in the matter of having kids!

AMANDA: Indeed. It is so very taxing to have the time to dote over our own happiness.

SADY: The thing is, I don't think that the news that raising children can be stressful IS NEWS. Like 74% of second-wave feminists were talking about how grueling it is to raise children, and/or to have that as your primary responsibility.

AMANDA: Haha. And now that it's shared, people are suddenly all like, "Should we even be doing this?"

SADY: Right? Like, "wow. It turns out this is HARD. Who knew?

AMANDA: "Who" indeed! I do find these studies of happiness interesting, but I find it strange that people are looking for some sort of definitive answer from them: Like, Everyone procreate! Or, Condoms!

SADY: Right. I mean: "Happiness Studies," in and of itself, which I hear is actually a growing field, is strange. We can measure what makes people happy or unhappy, but ultimately I guess I'm with Senior on this point: Are we questioning what role "happiness" plays in our life choices? I mean, I have recently come to feel that I might not want kids, but this has to do with the fact that I am (a) poor, and (b) high-strung. I can't get a dog without Googling care instructions obsessively and researching what sort of terrible ailments might wind up killing it. But was "happiness" what people had children for, ever, anyway? Maybe the issue isn't that "parenting has changed"—because it seems to have changed most fundamentally in terms of who has to do it—but that we EXPECT "happiness" from popping one out in a way we didn't use to.

AMANDA: Right. I think the happiness part is some new-agey conception of raising children. It's important to remember that joy aside, the fact is that now a lot of people get to choose whether they have children or not, and if so, when. And so it becomes much more of a quality-of-life question than a biological-necessity one. And so I think it's fair to expect that you do the thing that you think will make you the happiest. But there's also a lot of fear-mongering about that, because of that whole ovary-loss thing. So people are like, "If you don't have kids now, you will never be happy and you'll regret it for the rest of your life!" And people on the other end are like, "Once you pop it out, there's no turning back! Life-ruiner!" When, actually, I bet that a lot of people could find meaningful, happy lives doing either of those things.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, women are so, so frequently scared out of, like, LIVING, or doing anything other than having children ASAP, because they're told that their fertility is evaporating and they'll be unhappy forever if they don't have babies. And I think it's worth noting that a ton of the parents interviewed, who were speaking most directly about being unhappy and frustrated, were women. Men in that article were mostly "experts," even if they were also fathers.

AMANDA: Right, I think there is some stat in there that women are on the whole less happy. Which, you know, probably has something to do with that whole "shared parenting" thing not being completely shared, and the general added expectations placed on mothers. One of my favorite parts of the story was the suggestion that you "always regret the things you didn't do, not the things you did do." Like, why does the "thing I do" have to be having babies? There are plenty of things I won't be doing if I end up having kids.

SADY: Haha, yeah. "I will never regret not having children, when I die because my child threw boards at me and one of them had a nail in it and it punctured my skull and killed me." But I'm also wondering if being told that children are the KEY TO HAPPINESS (if you are a woman) has to do with the disappointment (among women) that children don't auto-fulfill you? I mean, Simone de Beauvoir talked about this. Her whole deal was that women are told having children will fulfill them, and then it doesn't, and then they hate their children. Her solution: Make something else in your life more important than getting pregnant?

AMANDA: But there's nothing more important than hating your kids! If you never do that, you will regret it for the rest of your life!

SADY: It's true. You'll never regret hating your kids as much as you'll regret not hating them. It is fun to think about fathers in all this, though. I mean, I like to imagine they're at least MARGINALLY more involved in dealing with the poop and the breaking things and the eighteen years of college prep these kids are all being put through now.

AMANDA: Right. The story did mention that the most unhappy parents of all were those who were the non-custodial parent (mostly fathers). So having a kid and not raising it? Depressed for life. Having a kid and raising it too much? Also depressed—single parents and moms in general were less happy. Solution: Move to Norway?

SADY: Right. I, predictably, DID enjoy the part where they were all like, "maybe if we had state-sponsored child care?" "Also, longer maternity leave helps?" Like: All of these things that feminists are advocating FOR WOMEN would actually make parents' lives easier, in the long run. OR, you could just live a life of heedless wanton non-impregnated self-satisfaction. Until you die, and there is no-one who will visit you at the nursing home. Except for that one robot seal thing.

AMANDA: Right. I mean, is that the whole point of it? That someone will be there to care when I die? That seems to be the last-ditch explanation when I press people on why this is necessary. I'm guessing it's more like a Stockholm syndrome thing.

SADY: Yeah. Probably. We love our tiny oppressors!

AMANDA: The baby captors stole our happiness! Join us!

Photo via Smithsonian Institution

SADY: HI. THIS IS NOT A LATENESS THAT IS MY OWN FAULT. IT IS THAT OF MY COMPUTERIZED CHAT SYSTEM.

AMANDA: I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were not too busy feeding your Internet pornography surfing addiction to join me here for this very important Internet pornography discussion.

SADY: It's true! I was... not at all indulging in my shameful addiction to Internet pornography! Because if I were (indulging in my Internet pornography addiction) I would be rendered incapable of interacting with you, a woman! “Are you waiting for a pizza to be delivered?" I would ask. "Or, perhaps, for someone to fix your plumbing? That is the only reason I can conceive of for you not to be having titillating adventures at this moment!"

AMANDA: Well that's too bad! For if you truly were suffering from an Internet porn surfing addiction, I could get you a great gig speaking to groups of conservative audiences about your Internet porn surfing addiction in glorious detail. My very favorite part of the "Porn Harms" briefing I attended last month was right after Shelley Lubben—ex-porn performer, current anti-porn activist—finished her spiel, and one of the old white men running the briefing stood up and informed everyone that he was addicted to porn for 25 years.

SADY: These two storylines connect, I am thinking! It is all very LOST!

AMANDA: Everyone clapped!

SADY: Awwwwww. I mean, I have no doubt — NONE NONE NONE — that there are women in the porn industry who are abused, for whom working in porn was sexually traumatic, for whom being an anti-porn activist seems like the best and most necessary course of action, given what they've been through. It's that whole prayer-meeting aspect to it, though, that freaks me out. Like, a lot of these speakers are clearly people who have spent a LOT of time looking for porn, and specifically for the most transgressive porn they can find! And then they describe the porn, in porn-like terms! In order to demonstrate the evils of porn! Like, the "I once was lost but now have found gagfactory.com, AND AM WILLING TO REGISTER MY DISTASTE" aspect is a little weird. Like a ritual purification, rather than a discussion.

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, one of the most frustrating parts of the debate around porn is how difficult it is to punch through the dichotomy of Porn v. Anti-Porn. It's often framed as a fight between the "Keep Your Fascist Government Off My Boner" camp vs. the "Bring All the Poor Abused Women to Jesus" camp. And if you're someone who is approaching this from a feminist perspective (and there are a LOT of feminist perspectives on porn, pro and anti and in-between) you're sometimes forced to align with one or the other. Boners v. Jesus, if you will.

SADY: Right. And, I mean, I think it's symptomatic of people seeing that institutions are troubled, and then assuming that the institutions THEMSELVES are the problem, which sort of bars off a more nuanced discourse. Or bars you off from encouraging yourself to take a more nuanced standpoint. But I like to think that we're slowly getting past that. I mean, we're maybe getting to a point where people can acknowledge that porn can express pretty vile attitudes toward The Ladies (and anyone else it sets its sights on) and that those vile attitudes can be expressed on set in ways that hurt people, without having to describe ourselves as "anti-all-porn-everywhere-ever."

AMANDA: Right. And also that porn isn't some big monolithic hate-fuck. It can be a lot of things. And as much as the strange explicit purging of the anti-porn activists freaks me out a bit, pro-porn people who aren't interested in dissecting it at all scare me more.

SADY: Yeah, definitely. I mean, a commitment to not looking at the potential problems in porn is probably way worse, in the long run, than TIRELESSLY AND VIGILANTLY WATCHING A TON OF PORN so that you can point out the problems.

AMANDA: Yeah. And the reluctance to engage isn't something I've seen in the more feminist pro-porn circles, but it's definitely something I've seen in the Get-Your-Fascist-Government-Off-My-Boner circles. Any industry that provides boners can't possibly be problematic!

SADY: Boners are our nation's most valued resource! It's just that it seems to me that the people most qualified to write or speak about porn's effect on women are . . . women who've been in porn? Rather than women who've seen some of it, or read what someone else wrote about seeing it?

AMANDA: Yeah.

SADY: But I worry that, with the Defend the Boners league pressing for those stupid sluts to keep their mouths shut when they're not giving blow-jobs, and the Burn the Tapes crew pressing for the elimination of any non-anti-porn discourse, sex workers who express complicated feelings about porn are being sort of shut out. Not that those folks aren't having conversations and building communities of their own.

AMANDA: Right. And then you have Sasha Grey on Tyra talking about her job and life, as Tyra shakes her head slowly and announces on television that she refuses to believe that Sasha Grey is not a victim of childhood abuse.

SADY: Haha, yeah. Or the cases in which porn stars DO (like a lot of women) have incidences of being sexually abused or assaulted, and everyone is like, "don't you SEEEE? Don't you see that this has clearly driven you MAD? And any of your feelings about the job you do are now INVALID?????" Whereas no-one is saying that to the accountant who was sexually abused growing up. Clearly no-one is like, "the pain and shame of your assault warped you so that you had no other choice but to fall into a life of TAX FORMS!"

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean what sexual assault victims really need is for more people to take away their agency and reduce their options in life, and then to shame them based on their sexual expression, right?

SADY: EXACTLY! I mean, I think a lot of porn discourse—and people who are fervent watchers of porn, and would fight to the death your right to take away their cinema boners, are just as willing to say that people (particularly women) who do porn are sad and deluded and damaged—depends on the assumption that, if it looks gross and un-sexy to me, it must be gross and un-sexy. And anyone who does it has to be stopped or "saved." See: BDSM, and the vast misunderstandings around that. Whereas, if I look at the kink conference you covered, well, I will be honest with you: There were a lot of videos you posted that I was just like, "nope! Not gonna open that one!" There were a lot of things that I consider gross and un-sexy going on there, such as: homemade Harry Potter erotica.

AMANDA: Haha. Right? But crusading to wipe it clean of this Earth, citing The Children, is another position entirely.

SADY: But who am I to come between you and the turgid purple manhood of Severus Snape?

AMANDA: Gah.

SADY: You know? Like: I can say, "I will not jack off to this, and would prefer not to discuss the levels of arousal it produces in you," without singlehandedly trying to ban it.

AMANDA: Yeah. Dan Savage gives some pretty good advice in his column this week to a guy who has been indulging his wife in her daddy fetish. The husband writes in wondering if the fetish is a sign that his wife was abused as a child, and Savage basically says: Maybe, and that's something you should talk about, but it doesn't mean that she now has to deny her safe exploration of that fetish because her sex life has been informed in the past by horrible experiences. It's your sex life. And past abuse doesn't make your safe and consensual adult sex life invalid.

SADY: Right. I mean, I guess the other side, the argument against mainstream porn is that (a) it influences expectations of what sex "should be like," or what good sex is supposed to look like, and (b) it has to use real bodies in order to do so. Which, I feel like we've dealt with (b). Terrible things happen in porn, but that's a reason to look at the terrible things, not ban porn. Terrible things happen in houses, but that's a reason to look at the terrible things, not to ban houses. But (a) still does trouble me, I'll admit. It is a fact that stuff that happens in porn—your anal sex, your spitting on crotches, your facial shots or bald vaginas, what have you—can be kind of uncomfortably enthused over by people who watch a lot of porn. And have picked up, can I tell you, just the WRONG MOVES for accomplishing it.

AMANDA: Right. Like, I've heard a lot written about how younger men and women absolutely expect hairless vaginas. But again, what are we supposed to do about that? (a) Ban porn; (b) talk about how expectations in porn do and don’t translate into real life; (c) make more diverse porn, maybe? Because (a), beyond being dumb, is also impossible. So we have to start thinking about how to accomplish (b) and (c).

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I think the option is actually to become a little more relaxed and less shameful about porn. Rather than, like, watching it on your own, and then expecting your sex life to match up to it, and then responding to efforts to talk about your porn feelings with "lalala, can't hear you, it's DIRTY!" There are a lot of people who are absolutely cool with sex for the 20 minutes they spend doing it, and then feel weirded out and shameful about it immediately after the fact. And I think porn takes a lot of the bullets, when it comes to those folks and their freaked-out feelings. But, if they're talking AGAINST porn, they can be as graphic as they please! I think, is the message here. That all of us should express our desires to our sex partners in terms of lengthy, Old-Testament-style inveighing against sexual acts we were ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED BY when we saw them last.

AMANDA: I think if Ayn Rand taught us anything, it's that absolutely no thought or discussion needs to go into our darkest dominant sexual fantasies. Just Do It!

SADY: And/or build an entire social order around it!

AMANDA: Right. Or people could just, like, talk about it. What porn needs is more dialogue!

SADY: Can you imagine how much easier porn would be to deal with if it actually included scenes of the date and well-adjusted people undergoing sexual negotiation with each other in a kind and realistic way? "I consent to this," Miranda panted, erotically, "but not the other thing which you mentioned earlier this evening, which is never as much fun as you'd think."

AMANDA: You are seriously crushing some dude's boner right now. But possibly arousing some other dude! So: Even.

SADY: "Your consent gives me such a boner," cried Hans, "which is made but firmer and more sexy by my respect for your stated boundaries!"

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, politely open a Bud Light Lime with your teeth. Then, join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I as we discuss the man that is Stanley McChrystal, the machismo that would be his downfall, and his enthusiastic endorsement of an almost suspiciously terrible beer.

BUT FIRST: Wondering how your workplace machismo measures up to McChrystal's? Take this handy quiz to find out!

Read each of the following statements. Circle each one that describes you:

1. I have wondered aloud how I got screwed into this meeting.

2. I have employed the middle finger in the course of my professional duties.

3. My work reputation is so macho that even drinking Bud Light Lime cannot mar it.

4. I have publicly complained about being forced to hang out in Paris.

5. My gaze can destroy a subordinate's soul without the need for me to raise my voice.

6. I routinely announce that I am superior to my superior.

7. That superior is the Vice President of the United States.

8. I own a custom-made set of nunchucks.

9. I have participated in the "rat-fucking" of my co-workers.

If you circled between one and eight of the statements above, SISSY. If you circled all nine of them—with an emphasis on the "rat-fucking"—congratulations! You're McChrystal-level macho. Do not stare directly into my eyes!

—

AMANDA: Why hello!

SADY: Are you wondering, perchance, how you got screwed into this chat? The answer is that it is scheduled! It comes with the position! Feel free to wave a middle finger and utter a popular middle-school joke in my direction!

AMANDA: That's gay! Or something!

SADY: Dear Lord. This McChrystal profile: I cannot get over it! Like, four pages in, it starts becoming more generous. Which is kind of startling, because on page one it kind of presents McChrystal as this overgrown eighteen-year-old drinking Bud Light Lime and playing World of (Actual) Warcraft (In Which People Die) with his buddies. Bud Light Lime. BUD LIGHT LIME! The reputation-killer!

AMANDA: Right. And also strangely (and earnestly?) appropriating light satirical commentaries on American patriotism, like Team America and Talladega Nights. Maybe he drinks Bud Light Lime and attends Irish bars in Paris ironically? I can't tell.

SADY: I just don't know. But it seems to me that this whole article is profiling McChrystal as like this sad doomed exemplar of a certain kind of machismo. The kind that doesn't overthink, doesn't do things that are "fucking gay" like attend restaurants with candles or drink wine or respect the President, and is dead set on getting its way no matter what the consequences of getting your way when you're resolutely opposed to thinking about stuff or opening your mind at all might actually be. Like, he's this lone soldier who's gonna make everyone see it his way and share his favorite Bruce Lee quotes with everybody and get called a "Jedi" (!!) and it does... not work out well. At all.

AMANDA: The lack of self-awareness is the main thing. I'm amazed that no one had their guard up around Hastings—or better, that this is what they look like with their guard up. I mean, looking at the hilarious photographs accompanying the story of Hastings in hipster jacket and beard and sunglasses hanging out with all these dudes in uniform, you have to wonder what they were thinking.

SADY: Right. Like, that's what's kind of alarming. That not only are they being frat-house homophobic and hostile to diplomacy — although part of their job is supposedly understanding this culture that they're trying to singlehandedly break down and reconstruct — but that they're being quoted as talking smack about everybody in the administration. They're all identified mostly by their positions, not names, but does being anonymous really help with the impression that this entire operation is just Out Of Control?

AMANDA: And insulting the administration in the laziest way possible. Biden? More like Bite Me! France: Gay! Beer: Good! Us: America! THAT BEING SAID. I have employed the middle finger in a professional capacity more than once. I'm not saying I should be appointed Overlord of Afghanistan or anything, but the juvenile culture didn't come as much of a shock to me.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, the sort of cult of macho in the military has been pointed out or critiqued by a lot of people more skilled and nuanced than I. The whole thing, though, about this very specific, juvenile, macho thing is that it prizes the Rugged Individualist who Gets His no matter what and Shows 'Em All... that's also apparently been the downfall of McChrystal, as a dude. Much as I enjoyed the flashbacks to his early days of "rat fucking" (stripping dudes and covering them with shaving cream? Or something?) and taking his wife to Jack in the Box in formal-wear for their erotic date liaisons, it's easy to see that this military culture sort of made him the man he is, and positioned that man for a fall in some very big ways.

AMANDA: Rat-fucking has predicted many a man's downfall.

SADY: Indeed! Rarely has the phrase "enjoys a spirited round of rat fucking" been attached to the resume of a stellar man! Although "he carries a custom-made set of nunchucks in his convoy" is slightly more promising. A custom! Made! Set! Of nunchucks!

AMANDA: When mass-produced nunchucks just won't do.

SADY: Also, this quote, which I just love so much: "The fucking lads love Stan McChrystal,” says a British officer who serves in Kabul. ‘You'd be out in Somewhere, Iraq, and someone would take a knee beside you, and a corporal would be like 'Who the fuck is that?' And it's fucking Stan McChrystal.” That fucking quote, man. I'm like, what the fuck is up with that quote? And it's a quote by a British fucking officer, is what it is. And he's fucking like, "let's use the fuck word some more, mate! Pip fucking pip! Fucking cheerio!"

AMANDA: And it's essentially about how McChrystal is like fucking God of Iraq. Which, you know: That guy who thinks he can do anything he wants with an entire region without either respecting the opinions of his superiors or appearing to take any actual interest in understanding how that region works and what it needs (Bud Lite Lime) — he's gone now, but how did he get this far?

SADY: Yeah. And that's the thing: He participated in cover-ups, he found himself in the middle of scandals, but he endeared himself to the previous administration by embodying the sort of soldier they wanted — one who would do what "had to be done," whether or not it was, like, actually permissible. And now he's carrying that same mind-set forward. It's hubris, I think. At some point, in some administration, Stan McChrystal's sense of entitlement or potential was probably proportionate to his actual mandate or talents. Now, at this point in his life, that seems to be clearly not the case. But what kills me is the part where Dude tries to adopt a more nuanced way of moving forward, and the troops aren't buying it, and it looks like the plan once advanced by... Joe Biden. BITE ME BIDEN. HE'S BECOME THE THING HE HATED. WHICH IS APPARENTLY THE VICE-PRESIDENT.

AMANDA: Except only one of these men is not unlike an older version of Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn! This makes his military strategy instantly more relevant.

SADY: True. Indeed, comparisons to Christian Bale always inspire me with trust in the professionalism and stability of the man being compared. Maybe he actually IS Christian Bale. In his most method role yet!

AMANDA: Where does a hotshot uber-American Bud-Light-Drinking Frenchman-hating black ops military genius go from here?

SADY: I'd kind of like to see him host a cooking show? Or — better! — a new and improved Loveline. "DID YOU TRY TAKING HER TO JACK-IN-THE-BOX? THAT'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM RIGHT THERE, PUSSY.” These are flippant answers, but I honestly don't know. Dude's been disgraced. I somehow don't see him comfortably taking on consultancy roles. Although Lord knows he just may.

AMANDA: I SEE MY WIFE 30 DAYS A YEAR. YES I'M RETIRED NOW BUT THIS IS THE OPTIMAL RATIO OF DAYS TO SEE YOUR WIFE FOR MAINTENANCE OF A ROGUE MASCULINE PERSONA. OK, so I just think he's just going to type in all caps all the time, on the Internet. Maybe he could write for Tiger Beatdown? I'd like to see him attempt feminist blog comment moderation.

SADY: Ah, the true insurgency! WE'VE GOT TO UNDERSTAND THEIR CULTURE. SOMEBODY GET ON 4-CHAN, NOW NOW NOW! SEND IN THE CHOPPER, AN AYN RAND SITE LINKED US! ARRRRGH!

AMANDA: I mean at the very least he could point us to his custom nunchuck tailor. I've been looking for an upgrade. Also, I'm tired of taking the effort to actually insert fruit into my beer. Surely there's an easier way!

SADY: Have you considered — PRE-FRUITENING? The fruit invades the beer, then assimilates into it! It re-structures the beer to better fit its own juicy flavor! Maybe he could just think of new things to flavor with limes, disgustingly. That's an ongoing market.

AMANDA: Nevermind, it sounds French.

* A new study suggests that 11 percent of male drivers under 30 are masturbating  on the road. No word on the habits of the ladies, who these days are cleared to both drive and touch their own genitalia—but can they do it at the same time? Get science on this.

* Figleaf supports Lindsay Beyerstein's assertion that Palin is a feminist—-the worst feminist, amirite? Of Palin's contribution to the movement, he writes:

Maybe 10-15 years ago Michael Moore had a television series where he did his Bowling for Columbine/Roger and Me schtick in generally nicely-paced 10-15 minute segments. I didn’t see very many episodes (I’m not sure how many episodes there were) but in one of them he managed to get himself invited on a skeet-shooting trip with the wives of a bunch of conservative Republican congressmen. He seemed to get along well enough with them, and they with him, but at one point he made a leading statement like “you know, I didn’t think women could be so handy with a shotgun. You’re better than a lot of men I know.” There was a little general laughter and one or another of the women said something like “women can be better at a lot of things.” He said something like “maybe some of you could run for Congress, you might be really good at that too.” And the women just sort of clammed up and looked at each other like that was a terrible idea. And that seemed like the point where he wore out his welcome.

Fast forward to today and, thanks in surprisingly large part to Sarah Palin, I don’t think Moore would have gotten the same shocked or embarrassed silence were he to try the same stunt now.

* The Curvature's Cara Kulwicki on the efforts of Australian detectives to derail the investigation of a rape case.

* Thomas McAulay Millar at Yes Means Yes! on "ugly":

some insults appear to be empirical claims, but are effective even when demonstrably untrue. “Ugly” is like that. Antifeminist trolls call even the most obviously conventionally attractive women ugly; and it still has some power, even when used against women famous for their beauty. Why?Why indeed. Because they’re not empirical claims at all. They are claims that assert a truth based in social structure. “Ugly” and “slut” work not because of the truth of the matter asserted, but primarily and often exclusively because there are elements of the culture that work to instill in every woman an insecurity that these things are true. The insult is really a claim about the existence of an insecurity; and the hurling of the insult itself is part of the social structure that creates and maintains the unsecurity. And I know several prominent feminists who admit that some of these insults sting even if rationally they know it’s untrue, for just that reason. It takes a strong woman to really just remain unaffected by it. A lot of women I’ve talked to over the years remember vividly when Kathleen Hanna wrote “slut” on herself in lipstick, because it was a difficult and radical thing to do.

* Sady Doyle is smart, and talks about books.

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's 1,000 page allegorical novel about why people who read Atlas Shrugged are superior beings who "welcome" rapes from other superior beings, for that is what all superior beings find sexy, is slated to hit the big screen next year. Directing and starring as the most superior "welcomed" rapist of all, John Galt, will be Paul Johansson of One Tree Hill fame. Johansson will also direct. Eroticized fascism has never looked so gauche!

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I as we discuss  the class concerns of objectivist rape fantasy, the inherent horniness of soft-core steel production, and whether Atlas Shrugged: The Paul Johansson Story can possibly be worse than the 1949 film adaptation of the Fountainhead (trailer above, tl;dr version below):

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SADY: AYN RAND! AYN RAND AYN RAND.

AMANDA: Enough! I am overcome by the urge to be sexually conquered by the small group of captains of industry who I believe to be my intellectual superiors!

SADY: A superior woman, I see! Unlike the puling mewling soft-featured panderers of compassion and mooching! And, like, school lunches! Wicked inferior greed-children, feeding on the lunches of the elite!

AMANDA: It takes a special woman indeed to earn a hate fuck from that guy from One Tree Hill.

SADY: This was always my favorite part of Ayn Rand: There's always ONE WOMAN who is, like, super-smart and super-competent and super-skilled at all this industry stuff that everyone else sucks at because they're socialists. (Also, this woman is always thin and "angular." "Angular" is the key defining visual attribute of Virtue, in the Rand lexicography.) She is, explicitly, better at this than every man in the entire world. EXCEPT FOR HER BOYFRIEND! He chooses her to smack around or rape or whatever (AND SHE LOVES IT) because that is how very superior she is. Like, I'd really rather NOT be superior if it means getting slapped all the time?

AMANDA: But from whence will you experience the natural eroticism derived from the physical and intellectual imbalance between the masculine and the feminine?

SADY: I dunno. Professional wrestling?

AMANDA: Ayn Rand loves gender equality, to a point—the point where she personally thinks it's really not sexy, at which point the greatest man in the world rapes the greatest woman in the world, who he knows will just love it. Because that’s how great she is. Are inferior beings allowed to rape people in Ayn Rand novels? Or is middle-class intimate partner violence not as glamorous?

SADY: Eh. I think a lot of the rough sex derives from the sort of romanticized fascism of the novels. It's all about the right of the strong to fuck over the weak. There's not a lot of structural engagement — any attempt at it is met with some sort of "YOUR BOOTSTRAPS! PULL ON THEM" lalala-I-can't-hear-you thing — but whatever. So the right of, say, multimillionaire industrialists to pay their factory workers one cent a day is the same as the right of that multimillionaire factory worker to beat up his girlfriend. The girlfriend gets to play the role of Good Inferior Person, in that she totally loves it and is honored by it. Unlike those mewling puling mooching factory workers who want to raise the minimum wage enough to buy food with it, or whatever.

AMANDA: Totally not a turn on! I have to admit that I would have loved to see a big-budget Atlas Shrugged cast with immaculately angular captains of Hollywood. But I'm pretty sure Ayn wouldn't be too pleased that some more round-faced television actors are pinching pennies in order to realize her greatest work. You know, maybe they're going to make this amazing recession-era Atlas Shrugged that puts an ironic spin on her glorification of wealth, but I think probably it's just going to be a half-assed dud that doesn't even capture the ridiculous grandeur of her stupid book.

SADY: Haha, yeah. I myself am greatly looking forward to the movie. Because the whole point of it — superior people make superior products and earn superior money because they're superior! — is going to be really complemented by the spectacle of this broke-assed movie made with former WB stars for like five cents. I mean, this is an expensive movie, on the face of it. There are like gleaming teal sci-fi train tracks and uberbridges and megaweapons that can explode a goat and the whole thing ends in a postapocalyptic landscape with the death of civilization and everyone in it. (SPOILER.) How are they going to pull that off, Claymation? Or are they just going to film the speeches? The seventy-seven page speeches? Which, I guess, is the real draw. Ayn Rand writes the stupidest things you've ever heard, but she wraps it up in this package that says you have to be A GENIUS to agree with her, so you make your way through the seventy-seven page speech and you're like, "I DO agree! Plus I done gone and read me some philosophy! I ARE a genius, Ayn!"

AMANDA: Right, I mean, I bet the crack team behind this production can find a way to paraphrase the whole thing. Like: "Not only am I a genius, but I'm also one of the hottest people alive. Also, I hate women just the appropriate amount, a position that isn't sexist in the least, because a woman wrote this book, and anyone who disagrees is simply irrational." KABLOOEY! Or something.

SADY: Yeah. Poor Paul Johansson. I mean, I may personally feel that the best way to embody boyish blonde sexually irresistible Everydude John Galt is NOT to hire a dude who looks like the scarier variety of nightclub bouncer, but he's not only playing this iconic poor-hater: He's directing the thing. Quite possibly because they couldn't find anyone else.

AMANDA: How could you put a film like this in anyone else's hands but the most superior person available for every position involved, Paul Johansson of One Tree Hill? The positive here is that if Ayn Rand's novel is any indication, they won't need to hire an editor.

SADY: Maybe he'll apply lessons learned in his previous erotic straight-to-video thriller "Bitch Hunter 2: Night of the Evils" and EDIT IT AS WELL. A true capitalist can do ANYTHING! With no training! It is like the Matrix! What excites me is that they might be splitting it up into a trilogy. As with the Harry Potter and the Lords of the Rings and so on and so forth. Because, in the first part of this book, LITERALLY NOTHING HAPPENS. Dagny rides trains and Hank buys her a necklace and hates his wife. People will be leaving the theater like, "so... trains, then?"

AMANDA: There will, of course, be plenty of soft-core shots of steel tracks and shit. I for one expect to be extremely aroused.

SADY: The history of Ayn Rand is that people are super-persuaded by her books until those books are filmed. "The Fountainhead," written by Rand herself, is notoriously bad, mainly because Rand insisted they keep in the speeches. People were super-turned-on by the edgy rape scenes and the One Man Takes A Stand Against Society bullshit, and then they started filming it and were like... "wait a second! No-one actually talks like this! And they're arguing over buildings the whole way through! This shit is SUPER-BORING, oh noes!" So, in a way, the "Atlas Shrugged" movie is the best thing that could possibly happen. Provided you hate "Atlas Shrugged."

AMANDA: I think enough people hate "Atlas Shrugged" that this movie actually has a fighting chance at the box office.

HANK REARDON, MULTI-MILLIONAIRE INDUSTRIALIST: Who is John Galt?

DAGNY TAGGART, MULTI-MILLIONAIRE INDUSTRIALIST/LADY: I would also like to know the answer to that question!

HANK REARDON: (Slaps DAGNY.)

DAGNY TAGGART: Ohhhh, so sexy!

* Georgetown Girl endeavors to answer the question, "What's a feminist?" She's compiling answers from "students and recently graduated students," "adults," and "female politicians and celebrities." If you're a student, recently graduated student, adult, female politician, or celebrity, e-mail her to participate!

* Molly Ren on the latest in macabre sex toy technology: the sex coffin. "I don’t think I’d react . . . well to being shut inside the coffin. The lid is so heavy it takes both hands to lift, and the act of shutting my friend away “forever” was a powerful visual. I’d struggle and scream inside the coffin if someone shut me inside it—and the opportunity to really struggle and scream against a much larger dom is what excites me about it."

* On Broadsheet, Scientology gets even creepier: coerced abortions, via "intimidation, isolation and forced manual labor for pregnant women who decided to continue their pregnancies."

* And check out Fannie's Room for another reason religion sucks.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Role-playing time! Let's say you're having sex, with a partner, in whatever manner that you both enjoy. And let's say that toward the end of your time together, your partner asks, "Hey, would you mind if I brought several million of our closest friends in here, just to observe this?" And you're like, "Oh, please, no. I would not prefer that." And then your sex partner invites millions of people into the room anyway, instructing each of them that you would really prefer they not come in. This excites them! They are willing to pay $10 a pop to observe what you do not want them to see.

So: What does this experience say about you, as a person? Let's take a representative sample of public responses to people who once privately videotaped themselves during sex many years ago, and then later saw that videotape disseminated to millions of people without their consent:

* You don't deserve reproduce, or ever succeed at any job: "[to] all the little girls and boys out there who one day hope to be famous/have a family/have an awesome career. Don't make a sex tape."

* You're either a calculating liar, or too dumb to fuck: "Spare us the outrage at how you feel sooooo betrayed, how you have no idea how this could have fallen into the wrong hands. . . . if you are actually dumb enough to make a sex tape and think it won’t get leaked, you are too dumb to ever have sex again."

* If you express discomfort at having your sex tape disseminated without your consent, you're a whiner: "Forgive us if we don't feel too sorry for Paris, given that the sex tape helped transform her from a two-bit reality TV star and wannabe to an internationally famous tabloid darling and blonde icon."

* And on the off-chance that you are not embarrassed by the tape's release? Well, you're a whore: "Like any mentally unstable famewhore, she's speaking out about the entire debacle."

Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I disagree with these sentiments! Join us in this edition of Sexist Beatdown as we chat consent with girls on film, until the conversation devolves into a demonstration of OUR FEMINIST HULK RAGE:

SADY: Well, good morning! Who wants to discuss... THE EROTICIZATION OF NON-CONSENT????

AMANDA: Oh me! Me! Wait ... I believe I am meant to feign disinterest in this discussion, in order to make it hotter. THE CHAT THEY DIDN'T WANT YOU TO READ.

SADY: Perhaps you should hire a lawyer to stop me from chatting with you, so that I might go ahead and continue chatting anyway!

AMANDA: For that is the consequence of having a Gmail account.

SADY: EXACTLY. And we all know that, however many verbal and/or legal refusals a woman may utter, she SECRETLY WANTS YOU to do whatever the hell you want and/or will profit from, anyway. If she didn't WANT you to release her sex tape, why did she make a sex tape? If she didn't WANT you to penetrate her vagina, why did she have a vagina? And so on! And so forth!

AMANDA: Right? So, the whole wink-wink "taboo" behind the "leaked"-but-not-actually-leaked sex tape doesn't bother me so much – I know that some people get off on the idea of watching people have sex on tape who don't normally have sex on tape. . . as long as all parties are actually just playing the "leak" card for its erotic potential. The problem is that the people who are selling, downloading, and writing about these things don't appear interested in differentiating between "leaked" sex tapes and. . . leaked sex tapes.

SADY: Right. That's the thing. And the assumption, among people I've talked to, is that these things ARE leaked purposefully. Thus making their subjects total sluts! But when one brings up the idea that maybe, JUST MAYBE, someone like Kendra Wilkinson may be repeatedly saying that she doesn't want people to sell or view her sex tape because SHE DOESN'T WANT PEOPLE TO SELL OR VIEW HER SEX TAPE, then the reply that comes back is, all too often, "well, then she's just stupid." Stupid for making the sex tape, stupid for not thinking strangers would jerk off to it without her consent. Which MAKES the non-consent involved in your jerk-off time... okay? Because you think she's not smart? How does that work? As far as I can tell, we value consent no matter who it comes from. It's not like you have to pass the SAT in order to decide whether or not you want a certain sexual experience. You just want it or you don't, and if you clearly don't, it's not okay for anyone else to proceed with that against your will.

AMANDA: Right. I am also confused as to why some people assume that people who fight the release of their sex tape in court are simply doing it for publicity purposes? Because I have been involved in a civil court proceeding like one time on a relatively minor matter and it was hugely inconvenient and horrible! And I imagine that when a video of you having sex is involved in evidence collection it is even more unpleasant!

SADY: Right. And the fact is, even when we all assume the release of the tape was fully consensual — instigated by both or all of the people in it — the idea of it not being consensual IS kind of eroticized, by the people selling it. That, I am actually NOT okay with — the way there were, according to Tracy Clark-Flory, mocking speech bubbles over Kim Kardashian's face on the packaging of her own sex tape, reading like, "OMG!" or "PWNED" or whatever. The idea that you're dominating this specific woman — er, excuse me, stupid fauxlebrity bitch, I believe, is the term we for some reason think is appropriate when discussing her — and doing something sexual to her against her will IS CAPITALIZED UPON. As is the idea that legal court proceedings are just cute little gestures of resistance so you won't think she's a slut. That, to me, is exactly what rape culture looks like.

AMANDA: It is. And it's also this really weird phenomenon where even people who are OK with other people having consensual sex the way they want to get all confused once that sex is transferred onto videotape and commence with the slut-shaming again. Like, one of the biggest arguments I've heard against people who make sex tapes and then don't want them released for strangers to jack off to them, is that they don't understand the "consequences" of sex. REALLY? Because while I understand the practical concerns involved here, and think everyone should be educated about the risks of sexual intercourse, people who trump up "personal responsibility" while doing no fucking work to help make bad "consequences" of sex any better just essentially think people who have sex OUGHT TO BE punished for it. These are the same arguments against abortion, the same arguments against working to stop HIV, the same arguments against working to stop rape.

SADY: Right. It's the "well, she's stupid, so she deserves it" argument. And people can make sexual tapes or photos or whatever for a lot of reasons, aside from being stupid. They can be young, they can be drunk, they can be getting off on it, they can be trying to get their partner off better, they can have trusted their partner's multiple protestations that he'll never in a million years show it to anyone and in fact he'll erase it once he gets home HE SWEARS and... whoops, your partner lied. As far as I can tell, "you trusted your partner and then he lied to you and hurt you" isn't a "consequence" of sex. It's a "consequence" of your partner being abusive. And we're placing the onus of guilt on the victim.

AMANDA: Exactly. And I just want to give a shout out to Amanda Marcotte and Lena Chen here, who have written about this stuff a lot, and I really wouldn't understand any of the dynamics at play here if not for their work.

SADY: Yeah, Lena Chen really clarified a lot of this in her own writing, as far as my reading goes. Because she's experienced this form of assault first-hand. And the shaming that goes along with it.

AMANDA: One of the things Lena spoke to me about in an interview I did with her is that at Harvard, where she blogged about sex, she would get so much slut-shaming from other college students who were also having sex, and also probably had taken some photos during sex at some point, but who a) didn't write about it publicly, and b) didn't have some douchey ex leak those photos on a blog. The assumption being made by all of the people shaming people who make sex tapes is that it would never happen to them because they're not idiots. When really, it probably won't happen to them because they're not targets. Lena was a target because she talked about sex; Kim Kardashian was a target because she has a name that could sell copies. If random Internet Commenter makes a sex tape, they will likely never see the "consequences" of having sex on tape, because no one is particularly interested in watching random Internet Commenter do it, and yet they glean some sort of moral superiority out of that.

SADY: Right. Another thing that crops up, in these discussions, is the idea that if the woman ALREADY has expressed some of her sexuality in public, ALL of her sexuality belongs to the public. Like, Megan Fox is shooting a nude scene in a movie — where she probably has a carefully worked-out deal about how much is going to show up on screen and how it will look, or whatever — and that's assumed consent for some random douche to take a photo of her for the Internet. Lena Chen blogs about sex, so that's assumed consent for people to leak and/or look at sexual photos of her. Kendra Wilkinson has made porn, so therefore anything she does on film can be distributed as porn. Whereas the reality is, if someone as comfortable with being naked on-screen as KENDRA FREAKING WILKINSON is saying "no, I don't like this, this is hard for me, don't sell or watch my tape," I think that REALLY, REALLY SUPER-DUPER MEANS that she doesn't want you to do those things.

AMANDA: Exactly. Christ. It's that really awful anti-sex impulse rearing its head again. Like, you're allowed to make a sex tape – as long as you stay married to the other person in the sex tape forever and ever and never betray each other until you go to Heaven. Or you can make a sex tape – as long as you keep your head down and never make a name for yourself, because people who reach some level of success deserve to be shamed for having sex.

SADY: Exactly. They're successful, and they're often already "impermissibly" sexual, so the whole "humiliation" — we can see your cleavage! We think you're skanky! You belong to US now, whether you give consent or not — is really just about scaring women out of being sexual. Again.

AMANDA: And people who give the "skank" treatment to celebrity women? They're actually talking about all women, everywhere, but they use the fame as a convenient excuse. We all hear these messages.

SADY: Exactly. No matter how comfortable you are with your own sexuality, no matter how well you think you can set your own boundaries, you don't belong to you: You belong to the people looking at you. They decide what to do with your sexuality, not you. So don't flirt at the bar. Don't wear that short skirt. Don't go to the bar. Don't go out. And when you're in the house, don't make a sex tape. Because we'll find it if we want to. I mean, so many people don't even watch this stuff to get off: They watch it to mock. To feel superior. They watch it, pretty bluntly, to shame.

AMANDA: It's just really sad to me that when it comes to "sex tapes," we can't even reach the level of common courtesy of your standard Girls Gone Wild shoot, where at least the women being videotaped expect what it's being used for, and are generally forced to sign a contract stating as much. Like, that's a really really low bar.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, there's basically no responsibility at a GGW shoot. Girls are young and girls are WASTED. GGW goes over the line of consent pretty continually. BUT AT LEAST THERE IS THE ILLUSION OF CONSENT, you know what I'm saying? When we, the American public, hold ourselves to a lower standard than Joe "Alleged Rapist" Francis, things have gone pretty far in the direction of Hell.

AMANDA: Yeah I'm pretty depressed about this whole human enterprise right now. Thank Christ for Lena Chen.

SADY: Dear Lord. Woman is sharp and woman is strong. She has dignity like I will never in a million years have. Although, right now, I am also developing a real affection for Kendra W.

AMANDA: For real.

SADY: In conclusion: YAY for the survivors. Especially the ones who keep telling us that this is fucked up even though occasionally real live grown adults keep finding reasons not to listen.

AMANDA: I know. I am seriously proud of them for being brave enough to speak out about this. Even though they know people will turn around their honest commentary about how fucked-up this situation is in order to accuse them of trying to make money off not consenting. UGH. I'M LOSING IT AGAIN.

SADY: "SURELY YOU ARE NO ORDINARY SLUT! SURELY YOU ARE A MONEY-HUNGRY SLUT AS WELL!" "You only want your rapist to go to jail because you support the prison-industrial complex!"

AMANDA: URRGGGG

SADY: "Something something! No legal recourse for slatterns! Something something word barf!"

AMANDA: Someone get FEMINIST HULK on this.

SADY: FEMINIST HULK NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT HOW TO APPROXIMATE NOT-HULK TALK. FEMINIST HULK STILL PROBABLY UNDERSTAND WORD "NO."

Photo via ed.ward, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Recently, Sady Doyle discerned the social issue that would define our generation:

The chicks today, they get to do so many things! Why, they can vote, and attend colleges, and even drink and smoke in public! These chicks: An alarming number of them have jobs! And, like, financial autonomy, from the jobs, and hence a socially assured position of power from which to negotiate the terms of their relationships and lives, thereby making them not entirely dependent on the funding and/or goodwill of men for their continued survival and status, and so they’re all able to make decisions and expect fair treatment and … dude, it’s a mess, I tell you. Because it turns out, after like fifty-some years of this business, none of these chicks is impressed enough by your penis!

URGENT MEETING OF THE BACK IN THE GOOD-OLD-DAYS CLUB. In order to combat the disturbing trend of the traditionally masculine heterosexual man not always being the default human in every circumstance anymore, this suddenly marginalized group must band together to . . . create poorly-designed websites and write hack trend pieces on the Internet! Interested? Here's how to fight the good fight. For manliness!

* First order of business: Study the "Retrosexual Code," a hyper-mascline gender identity largely defined by Some Dude's oddly personal hang-ups! (Seriously! Read the code! It is oddly personal!)

* Next up: Stage a "Menaissance," wherein men who are "tired of bending over backward and getting kicked in the balls by a spiked heel" by the "equal rights" movement (Seriously! They put "equal rights" in scare-quotes!) stand up for their rights to turn back the clock to a time when Men were Men . . . back to a Superbowl beer commercial aired just last February, apparently!

* Finally: Sit back, relax, and go out there and play some basketball with the guys! Yeah! Wait, what the fuck? This is what dudes today are fighting for? Be our guest, dudes! You can have pick-up basketball! In the meantime, in this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I talk about how to learn to solve our problems by DEALING WITH IT like real men do—unless of course the "IT" in question is feminism, in which case DEALING WITH IT involves a whole lot of self-conscious posturing. Join us!

Exhibit B: These Men don't watch TV shows with "Queer" in the title.

SADY: HELLO Let us travel back in time! Retrosexually!

AMANDA: Oh lets! I am excited to kill animals (and also possibly humans! I guess!) in the service of Retrosexualism. But not overly excited, for feelings are for women.

SADY: The Retrosexuals, they don't have feelings! I will tell you what they have, however: A very detailed and complicated system for figuring out who should give up their seat to whom on a public bus. Also, some gender-based insecurities! Lots of those! And a fuzzy and somewhat inaccurate understanding of how awesome things were For The Dudes, back in some unspecified but distinctively non-feminist time period!

AMANDA: Indeed! It seems that in the olden days, even horrific natural disasters couldn't stop the manliest citizens. They just DEALT WITH IT. Not like all those present-day sissies in like, New Orleans? And Haiti? Being a thoroughly modern . . . sexual, I am understandably a bit confused on the finer points of this theory.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, the whole "Retrosexual" thing is just... These are young dudes, I'm thinking. At least, younger than Don Draper would currently be, which is like nine hundred and seventeen years old, or maybe seventy, I am bad at math.

AMANDA: I like the game of predicting the Dude behind the Retrosexual Code!

SADY: They haven't actually experienced the time periods they're romanticizing, is what I'm saying. They don't know what it's like to be told that you need to get married and have kids before you're thirty or everyone will think that you're emotionally disturbed or gay. They don't know what it's like to live in a world where a two-income household isn't really a feasible possibility.

AMANDA: Yeah. And that's why being a Retrosexual takes aim at topics as diverse as the inherent emasculation of marriage and ... Hot Topic. HOT TOPIC! It has been feminizing our nation's men for too long!

SADY: The Retrosexual Code is, like... I agree with you. I want to know WHO THIS DUDE IS, because some of this stuff is just bizarre. Like, there's some predictable shitty homophobia: "A Retrosexual watches no TV show with 'Queer' in the title." I expected that. But also: "A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to conceal himself from prey." Did Dwight Schrute write this list? I think Dwight Schrute wrote it. "A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that your are riddled with fear." "A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting." A Retrosexual owns a beet farm. A Retrosexual knows karate. A Retrosexual wishes he could menstruate, because he wouldn't need a calendar. It all follows.

AMANDA: I am frankly confused by anyone interested in recruiting other people into conforming to whatever gender presentation they have chosen for themselves.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, that's how gender policing works: It's not enough for you to be the Butchest Butch Dude Who Has Ever Butched A Butch, you have to make sure that everyone ELSE does it, because otherwise people will pick up that butchness, like everything else, is performative.

AMANDA: But that's the strangest part of the Retrosexual movement—and the "Menaissance" in general (ugh). They appear to be fighting against the women who have forced them to "conform" to an emasculating version of manhood by ... setting up codes for being a proper Retrosexual? Offering step-by-step guides for learning to become a real man, again?

SADY: Yeah. I mean, if you have to buy a book subtitled "How To Be A Real Man," doesn't that point to... not-realness? Of your manlihood?

Exhibit C: These Men know how to tie a Windsor knot—and only a Windsor knot.

AMANDA: It's the same old thing with gender-policing conservatives, which Amanda Marcotte in particular has pointed out many times before: On the one hand, they want you to think that a certain version of "manhood" is natural, and on the other, they emphasize that it takes a lot of work to learn to be a “natural” man. I will admit that it keeps the AskMen creative juices flowing.

SADY: Ha, yes. I mean, on the one hand, I imagine that dudes seek this stuff out for the same reason that ladies read "He's Just Not That Into You," or whatever: It's confusing to be a person, and frequently painful, and everyone wants to believe there's some secret set of rules that they can follow to make sure things turn out well, or at least to make sure that they know what's going on. And they don't notice that "He's Just Not That Into You" is pages upon pages of basically emotional abuse, telling you that it was your fault for loving some dude and thinking your relationship could work out and it's your fault it didn't. And they don't notice that all of these "STOP BEING SUCH A MOTHERFUCKING PUSSY AND OWN A GUN" dude manuals are the same kind of emotional abuse, just basically berating you for not being male enough. They think it's helping.

AMANDA: I just feel sorry for whoever AskMen is speaking to. If you can identify with the Regular Guy writing these columns—if you see your girlfriend as a whining, gold-digging harpy who wants to bleed you emotionally and financially, and think the world is out to get you because you don't apologize for enjoying drinking beer and "shooting hoops"— you have some problems that even AskMen cannot solve. I imagine the entire point of that website is to convince men that they're being persecuted for enjoying extremely normal and in fact boring activities? Like "watching the game" and "throwing back a few beers." Which everyone does and no one particularly minds. It's the weird "everyday hero" thing that I guess keeps selling a certain beer brand over another.

SADY: Yeah. That's the thing. I mean, the not-so-secret ace in the hole for continuing to be sexist has long been, "I can't help it! I'm made this way!" Like, the "dudes are inherently vulgar and stupid and hump everything and just basically are like dogs who can talk, be glad they're not chewing on the furniture and pissing on the carpet" card, which I don't understand why men keep playing. Men say TERRIBLE SHIT about themselves all the time, frequently on ladysites where they are The One Dude Who Tells Everyone What All Dudes Are Like, but they don't seem to recognize how much they downplay their own abilities. Or they do, but it's an excuse. Like, embracing a shitty version of manhood is a way to defend yourself when someone points out that you, specifically, are being a shitty person.

AMANDA: Yeah. And then also: When it is suggested that men maybe don’t have to conform to the idea of lowest common denominator masculinity quite so much, the response is: "women are trying to change us from our real-manliness!” But interestingly, also: “IT'S WORKING! so we must fight this by desperately teaching other men how to do that lowest common denominator masculinity shit again!"

SADY: The idea is that feminism is working, and women have power now, and there's all of this built-up resentment at the idea that the women of the world are dictating at least some of the terms of social engagement. So you just sit there and go, "I AM A MAN! I HAVE AN ENTIRE WEBSITE ABOUT IT! I WON'T BUDGE FROM THE PRINCIPLES OUTLINED ON THE CRAPPILY DESIGNED WEBSITE WHERE YOU CAN FIND OUT ABOUT MY MANHOOD!"

Exhibit D: This Man practiced hammering nails in secret so that he not be rightfully ridiculed as a "wuss"

AMANDA: It just seems a little desperate, I guess. I just don't know who is furthering the Important Feminist Cause of making sure men don't have camouflage outfits in their closets, or forcing dudes to watch gay television shows. The problem instead appears to be that some men choose not to wear camo and some like gay TV. Like some gay men for example. And those men are not real and that’s bad. Who hates men now, men?

SADY: I don't know. I mean, I guess in a way I am strangely encouraged by the "Menaissance?" Because people don't get defensive unless they think they are actually losing something. Like, if this whole "feminism" thing were actually completely ineffectual, men would still have unmitigated privilege, and they wouldn't basically be having aneurysms and throwing tantrums about all these powerful women and the ability they have to influence societal expectations of gender.

AMANDA: Right, and it is also funny, kind of? Because a conservative screed published on a website that looks like it's from 1993 is always ripe for mockery. Particularly when the New Masculinity goes by the name "Retrosexual." Come on, dude.

SADY: SERIOUSLY. I mean, what's amazing is that it's also showing up in real, non-idiot-focused publications. Never underestimate the power of totally wackadoo male heterosexual insecurity to change the course of events! In fact, it is the only thing that ever has! Except for feminism, which is winning. So, in conclusion, maybe these dudes should just... DEAL WITH IT?????? I hear it is what A Real Man does, after all!

AMANDA: Haha. I mean, I'm the last person to begrudge some guys from dressing up and playing Mad Men, not that that activity sounds particularly masculine to my ears. The only part of the Menaissance I quibble with are the parts where men are forced to wear dumb fedoras and/or camo pants, depending on your flavor of Retrosexuality, and also the part where everything is the fault of women and GOD MOM they are the worst. But! I've heard that a very Retrosexual way of DEALING WITH MY PROBLEMS is to go online and make a website about it, and that's essentially what we're doing here, so perhaps we are all not so different!

SADY: Right. I mean, if dudes are into wearing handsome suits and knowing about scotch, more power to them! I enjoy both a good scotch AND suity dudes! I just wish dudes could recognize that a decent palate and good fashion sense are... pretty girly? As is running a website entirely about your gender and how persecuted it is?

AMANDA: Exactly.

SADY: I think they just all want to be feminist bloggers basically. They want to be us. And who wouldn't?

Exhibit E: This Man knows how to sharpen his own kitchen utensils.

Photos via the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the State Library of New South Wales,

Hey! Looks like Megan Fox is due for her six-month Sexist Beatdown check-up. According to Transformers director and noted Hot Girl inspector Michael Bay, Fox has apparently grown "pale," "underweight" and "unhealthy," allowing her Hot Girl essence to whither away into a sickly frame that's utterly beneath the lingering gaze of Bay's signature camera-boner.

Meanwhile, Fox is also apparently still suffering from mouthiness on the issue of Michael Bay being a gigantic asshole who verbally abuses his employees for failing to meet his unattainable camera-boner standards!

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I as we dissect the latest installment in Bay v. Fox: Which will make an incomprehensible robot alien blockbuster for the third time, and which will emerge as a budding feminist hero? Let's find out!

But first, a recap:

TEAM BAY: "'It’s never a good idea to speak negatively about a director you work with—it’s a small community,' said Hollywood producer Nathan Folks. 'Actors sometimes think they can get away with anything, the egos some possess are out of control. When they stop getting work, they will learn.'”

TEAM FOX: “'If Megan was indeed verbally abused, and pulls back the curtain on what is really going on in Hollywood,  and tells her story to the right person like Oprah, she could reach icon status,' said Associated Press  pop culture reporter Natalie Rotman. 'There has been a long history of tyrant male directors in Hollywood. If Bay really did verbally abuse Fox and she is the first to speak up to a bully director, it could make her a pioneer.'”

TEAM BAY: "Megan Fox is an ungrateful bitch."

TEAM FOX: "Imagine a really, really bitchy grandmother on the set, and that's what Michael Bay is like."

—

SADY: Why, hello! I come to you today in a great spirit of mourning. For an icon has fallen.

AMANDA: In the great battle of Bay v. Fox v. Robo Alien Monster Truck?

SADY: YES. The battle that shall define our times! Sort of! Basically, I'm kind of sad and kind of happy that I called this. Back when Megan Fox was mouthing off about Bay, everyone was like, "she's only doing this because it helps her career." And it's just, like... How often does a woman speaking her not-entirely-complimentary mind about a much more powerful man HELP her career? We wanted to punish her then, and I'm getting a vibe of distinct celebration because we can SEE her getting punished now. By, um, being dropped from "Transformers." Surely the worst of all fates!

AMANDA: Haha, right? Allow me to reproduce this quote from the FOXNews take on the kerfuffle: “If Megan was indeed verbally abused, and pulls back the curtain on what is really going on in Hollywood, and tells her story to the right person like Oprah, she could reach icon status,” said Associated Press pop culture reporter Natalie Rotman. "There has been a long history of tyrant male directors in Hollywood. If Bay really did verbally abuse Fox and she is the first to speak up to a bully director, it could make her a pioneer.” So, the choices for women in Hollywood are: Star in the third installment in a really really really really awful alien robot blockbuster series, or become an icon ... by rejecting the idea that you, MEGAN FOX, are a sickly pale excuse for a Hot Girl.

SADY: Ha, yeah. Fair enough!

AMANDA: I love that Megan Fox is speaking out against Michael Bay, who legitimately sounds like an abusive douchebag. But I am also amused that Megan Fox could be a pioneer in the important feminist cause of "Actually, I Am Hot." But I pretty much love everything about Megan Fox, largely because I know a lot of people hate everything about Megan Fox? To the point that there is actual cultural commentary from news sources speculating that Megan Fox not being in the third Transformers movie could hurt her career. How does that work?

SADY: Right. I mean, I do wonder, because she has been affiliated with that franchise ABOVE ALL OTHERS! Mostly because she has not ever stopped talking about how hideous working with Michael Bay is. Most of her other stuff has died an inglorious, potentially Diablo-Cody-related death.

AMANDA: Even though she got her start dancing under a waterfall in an American flag bikini for him. How could this relationship ever sour?

SADY: Right? I really did think that those two kids could work it out! But I think it's interesting that she has this new second life as a Feminist Pioneer thanks to the fact that we can see her statements actually have negative consequences for her. Because before, when she was saying all this, the official party line was, "Megan Fox seems like such an asshole!" It's like, the second we could identify her as a victim, we started listening to stuff she'd been saying for years. Because now she could be officially embraced as an underdog.

AMANDA: Right. I remember when she was complaining about Michael Bay making her go look at all the Egyptian pyramids. And everyone was like "What a bitch!" But deep down I know that a trip to the pyramids with Michael Bay was probably teeming with his authoritative douchery. You just know it was!

SADY: And then there was that "mystery" blog post or whatever about what a bitch Megan Fox was for not enjoying the pyramid trip, which plenty of people speculated was written by Bay himself. I mean, I doubt that Megan Fox has suffered more than anyone else on the planet. I just genuinely think she's a girl who can't stop herself from complaining when she suffers. Which, you know, as a whiner and occasional asshole myself, I found myself deeply in sympathy with that response. And I think that what she's talking about probably isn't unusual, for Hot Girls; she's just whiny enough to talk about it.

AMANDA: Yes... And all the complaining about Fox "mouthing off" about directors was always actually about how moviegoers think Megan Fox is hot and talentless, and therefore she is only allowed to provide masturbation material, and no personal commentary on what it's like to be professional masturbation material. And now Michael Bay comes out and says, "You are only useful as masturbation material, and also, you are a few shades too pale and a couple sizes too small to be good enough masturbation material for me, at the current juncture."

SADY: Right. "There are other women to whom I and the American public would prefer to masturbate! More unfamiliar, and potentially younger, and more inexperienced women! BRING FORTH THE AUDITION BIKINI! We will meet at the Audition Waterfall to discover America's next great boner!"

AMANDA: Yeah, and it really makes you wonder what these people expect of Fox as an acting talent. Her role in Transformers, most specifically was her gyrating on alien robot cars for a couple of hours and gratuitously bending over in front of Shia LaBeouf some. And people are like, "Sheeee's teeeerrrrrrriiiibbbbllleee!"

SADY: RIGHT? Like, when was she asked to be anything other than terrible? Was there like a point in “Transformers 3” where she would be required to recite a soliloquy from "Hamlet?" Is that why they cut her?

AMANDA: I really think that criticizing her acting skills is a way to weasel out of the truth of the situation, which is that people demand female characters that actually aren't characters, but rather bodies. And when an actress like Fox embodies this expectation perfectly, they blame it on her lack of skill, not on their fucked up desires.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I have seen her act, and she IS really, really bad at it. But it's not like she was playing Margaret Thatcher, you know? And, like: Fox seemed pretty aware of that throughout. She was never (or rarely) like, "I would like to become a Serious Actress, and take on Oscar-worthy roles of massive cultural importance in tomorrow's film classics!" She was just like, "yep. I'm a Hot Girl. Being Hot isn't always necessarily something that I'm into! But it's my job! And I hate it sometimes, just as you hate the data processing that you do." She seemed so self-aware of the whole thing, being an object with a date of expiration. And now her genius is that she's been loud enough for the date of her expiration to be announced all over as if it weren't happening every day to every other Hot Girl in the business.

AMANDA: Yeah, and I wonder what people are actually looking for actresses to do with the Hot Girl role. Do they want them to act their way out of the Hot Girl paper bag and turn a deliberately 2-dimensional character into an actually compelling performance that makes the Hot Girl actually seem like a real person, even if she's not supposed to be one? That sounds unreasonable. I think I've figured it out, actually. I think they want a Hot Girl who could also go put on a fake nose and play fucking Thatcher or whatever and win that Oscar, but also sometimes want to play dumb and sexy for the movies, because they like it. The Hot Girl transition does not appear to be in the cards for Megan Fox anytime soon though. I have perused her future projects on IMDB, and they are predictably hilarious. But also probably not as bad as Transformers 3.

SADY: PROBABLY. She has apparently done a voice-over for "Pokemon!" So when the live-action motion picture experience comes to a theater near you, I guess we know who that one Hot Lady Villain with the blue-haired sidekick will be.

AMANDA: Like, in one movie the plot is described as this: "An angel under the thumb of a ruthless gangster is saved by a trumpet player down on his luck."

SADY: "The U.S. military makes a scarred bounty hunter with warrants on his own head an offer he cannot refuse: in exchange for his freedom, he must stop a terrorist who is ready to unleash Hell on Earth." Is Megan Fox the scarred bounty hunter? Or Hell?

AMANDA: I WISH. In that one, she plays an olde-tyme strumpet love interest of an old western bounty hunter seeking revenge on John Malkovich for burning his face off (OR SOMETHING). I really hope they have scenes together. Fox and Malkovich.

SADY: Oh, God. The strange facial decisions! I cannot even imagine! She does shoot a gun, sexily, in the previews, if I recall correctly. But there are no olden-tymey motorcycles for her to hump/fix whilst the camera lingers lovingly on her ass, one would imagine.

AMANDA: Haha. I'm sure the camera will find something to dwell on, with that whole olde-tyme strumpet business and all.

SADY: I mean, that's the thing. People have been calling Megan Fox "ungrateful" since forever. And I can't figure out what she's supposed to be grateful for. Being in the worst-reviewed film franchise of recent years? Having her ass used as a plot point and/or focus of interest for sweaty dudes who have, FOR WHATEVER BIZARRE REASON, a really strong interest in "Transformers?" Knowing the role she plays in the fantasies of said sweaty dudes, and/or professional film critics, who write her ass up as one of the view interesting points in said film franchise? Money? Sure, money. I'd be fine with money. But I get creeped out when a dude looks down my shirt on the street. Megan Fox has been, since high school, a professional Shirt down which to Look. People are just so bitter that she's not into it! She's not even NOT into it; she does it all the time. But she's not like, "ohhhh, I just sit at home in my lacy underthings thinking about all you sweaty dudes and the hot things I'm going to do with your action figures when we meet."

AMANDA: Amazing. I recently read another account of her "complaining": In said "angel under the thumb of a ruthless gangster is saved by a trumpet player down on his luck" movie someone on set took a camera photo of her while she was standing naked in some sort of glass circus cage? For some plotline? And they sent the photo around the Internets, and she was rightfully pissed about it She was basically like, "You're taking a picture of me naked while I'm working. I'm trying to work over here and you're being an asshole." And that's the thing—people want to pretend that this sort of thing isn't "work." That it's the easiest thing in the world to be what Megan Fox is, and that she is just a lazy ungrateful bitch because she makes it clear that it is work and not her personal sexy fun time.

SADY: Right. Because this "plotline" (!) that "required" her to be naked also probably "required" her to be, like, at the very least conscious of how she was standing and moving and etc. etc. etc. And it was a controlled environment, and this and that and the other. And then some dude is like, "oh, great, you're naked! Clearly this is consent for me to send my iPhone picture of the event to the entire Internet!" Like, what was she supposed to do? Wait, don't tell me: Be quiet and autograph something for him.

AMANDA: Like his penis.

SADY: "Megan, I have a pitch for you! It's about a down-on-his-luck iPhone camera user and a starlet imprisoned in a glass cage who can only escape through utilizing her secret superpower. Her secret superpower is giving blowjobs. Also. Anyway, we're auditioning for the part later, if you're interested! If you are not interested, I will tell the Internet what a bitch you are, also. That is another part of my movie. For which I am casting. Right now."

AMANDA: "Also in this movie the cure for ungrateful bitchiness is handjobs."

SADY: Wow. I really think this could be Megan's comeback!

* Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown welcomes summer, and all the irrational fighting it brings. Kicking off fighting season for Doyle: Tequila-fueled feminist infighting!

Oh, the shouting! Oh, the insults! Oh, the many and various accusations, most of which, in recollection, make no sense whatsoever! I said she had internalized misogyny and cared more about protecting liberal party lines than about human decency; she said I had internalized classism and behaved “like a character from the movie Mean Girls;” I made fun of her for the Mean Girls reference, which didn’t help, and at some point, long after the conversation had transcended the bounds of sense-making, she said that she wanted to talk about how terrible I was with my boyfriend, at which point I got out my phone and started yelling, “Let's call him! Let's call everyone I've ever fucked! Let's ask them how much I hate poor people!” And I would have called them, too (“So, we dated from December of 2007 to February of 2010. During that time, to the best of your recollection, how many hobos did I set on fire for kicks? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S FOUR IN THE MORNING. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE DID NOT WORK OUT”) but then I started crying, and the whole thing just went completely off the rails.

As I stood up and walked outside for a cigarette, at this point visibly sobbing, she called out, “I look forward to reading about this on wherever it is you blog.”

Fun fact: I witnessed this summer-opening fight! I was slumped into a booth of some swanky Brooklyn lounge thingy, drinking my millionth beer and attempting to keep it together while some guy explained scuba diving to me. Summer is here!

* Zack Rosen of The New Gay hates lube, and unrealistic, lube-less television fucking:

In season 6 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which I am currently watching, a lot of the previously high school-aged characters have a lot of very spontaneous sex. Two people are talking or fighting or waiting for the bus when suddenly, Bam! They are fucking. The show can’t be too explicit about it, so they just show undulating bodies from the waist up, fully clothed, standing against a wall or lying on a table, miming all the faces and sounds of intercourse. As a gay man, I can’t get over this. It just seems so easy. You have the interest in having sex and then you do it. Just like that. No muss, no fuss, no lube.If Buffy wanted to show a realistic depiction of, say, Angel and Spike fucking it would not be so easy. They would fight for a while and then suddenly Angel’s legs would be locked around Spike’s waist while they kissed. Spike would pantomime trying to slip his dry dick in, and then Angel would yell “OW! Spike, are you fucking kidding me?” He might even turn into Angelus from pain and frustration while Spike went tearing around his crypt, looking for a 6 month-old packet of lube that he thinks he picked up at a gay bar and left in the pocket of his other black t-shirt. Angel/Angelus would look at his watch for a while and wonder what kind of sodomite vampire doesn’t keep lube around, for chrissakes. Spike would suggest things like conditioner or spit, and then give up and resign himself to a mutual undead hand job. (And by the way, you can all thank me for not casting Giles and The Master in the above imagination exercise.)

* Megan Fox won't be returning for the third Transformers movie, presumably because notorious asshole director Michael Bay treated her like a huge asshole. Women & Hollywood's take:

Her side told The Wrap that said she walked away because director Michael Bay was “verbally abusive” and had just had enough of his crap.  She’s also talked about how he made her tan so much for the film that’s she’s nervous about getting skin cancer.  Bay is known to be an ass to his female actors, and the article goes on to say that another of the female actors in Transformers 2 Isabel Lucas wouldn’t do publicity for the film because of Bay.But he gets away with this shit over and over because no one has the power—or the guts—to hold this man accountable.  He could never get away acting like this in an office environment.  It’s also probably true that the if the executives who hire Bay and tolerate his behavior acted like he did, they would be in court up on charges.

Photo via The Library of Congress.

In ye olden times, chivalric codes were drafted in the interest of guiding the courting behavior of men toward women: "Thou shalt avoid avarice like the deadly pestilence and shalt embrace its opposite"; "Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest"; "Thou shalt not be a revealer of love affairs"; "In practising the solaces of love thou shalt not exceed the desires of thy lover."

In modern times, however, the code of chivalry has certainly evolved a bit: Thou shalt pay for her Miller Lights, before you retire to thy bed; thou shalt withdraw her chair, in preparation for her ass; thou shalt open thy lady's door, in deference to her tiny dinosaur arms; and thou shalt punch out any man who stareth at thy lady's bosom.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I talk chivalry, and its many splendored fucked-up-ed-ness.

SADY: Why hello, milady! Allow me to open this chat for you! And also, all your many doors!

AMANDA: I demurely accept your chivalric advances. Milord.

SADY: Should you not do so, my honor would be spurned! I think it's really awesome that you wrote about this, by the way. The idea of women as just sort of cred-building vessels for a dude's Honor. As if dudes were all Klingons and had to fight over Honor all the time because of their harsh Klingon ways.

AMANDA: Right, and of course, we are meant to be flattered by all the polite attention!

SADY: Right. I mean, people object to "chivalry" all the time on the grounds that it infantilizes women. WHICH IT DOES! The idea that I can't open a door or pay for dinner or walk on the side of the street that is nearest to traffic (this is actually something someone told me once: It's the dude's duty to walk on the outside, to protect a lady from traffic-proximity and, one supposes, mud from horse-drawn carriages spattering her dainty gown) makes it seem like you think I'm a freaking toddler. But it's also a way for dudes to reduce ladies to chips in the ongoing poker game between dudes, the stakes of which are deciding Who Is The Most Manly.

AMANDA: To me, chivalry is shorthand for "How can we treat women like they're not full humans in the most seemingly complimentary way possible, so that they can not object to not being treated like humans?"

SADY: "Oh, sweetie, let me pay for dinner. Everyone knows you can't do math!"

AMANDA: And because chivalry is seen through the lens of Doing Nice Things For Women, the idea is that if we get rid of chivalry then men will treat women poorly. I've heard people argue that men punching women in the face is a consequence of the loss of chivalry! Feminism causes men to hit women, essentially. But people who further these awesome theories are actually just leaving out the flip-side of chivalry, the one where Men Act Aggressively Toward One Another In Order to Protect A Lady's Honor, and that side has also got to go.

SADY: Right. That's the thing, the thing that was most interesting to me about your piece: The idea that Patriarchy is just some grand competition that dudes put on to show who is the MOST Patriarchal, and since our conception of a Patriarch includes violence and doin' a bunch of broads, dudes are inherently sort of pitted against each other in an eternal punch-off over the broads they do. Granted, one might have absorbed this lesson by watching, like, "Die Hard!" Or any given action movie! But your piece was kind of revelatory to me in that aspect. And maybe that's why certain dudes think that the only option, other than Patriarchy, is punching women ALSO. Like our only options are to have a Punching Class and a Non-Punching Class, and if we get rid of the distinction, civilization will devolve into one big ongoing bar fight.

AMANDA: Haha, right. Like: There is a set number of punches that a man must administer in order to get laid, or whatever, and the rules of chivalry dictate that those punches must be delivered to the faces of other men, not women. Once chivalry is dead, men will have no helpful rules informing them who to punch in order to get laid! This will be a very bad development for humanity! Punches for all!

Stay safe inside, milady, as I visit an associate for the purpose of calling him a "pussy."

SADY: And then, men who are seen as insufficiently punch-prone — men who are, in effect, like LADIES, or who take the sides of ladies in a manner other than punching some dude cause he was rude to the broad they're doing — are seen as defectors from the Manliness Wars. AND DEFECTORS GET PUNCHED! I'm really just super-interested in this; that misogynist violence gets aimed at MEN who are seen as insufficiently misogynist. I mean, you can see it all over; in homophobic hate crimes certainly. Because gay dudes are targeted because they're gay, but the underlying assumption in a lot of gay-hating thought is that this makes them somehow like women. And therefore appropriate to hit.

AMANDA: And hey, sometimes it works into making that guy a misogynist! "I got punched for some lady? The world is sexist against men! I will spend my days fighting feminism in order to avoid getting punched again just because I'm a dude!" But my very favorite anti-feminist argument is that anytime a man treats a woman well for any reason, he's being chivalrous, and since feminists think that chivalry is bad, we have no obligation to treat women with respect anymore ever. The end!

SADY: Right. That's the thing. Like, "I helped you move! I held your arm so you could jump over that nasty-ass puddle! I refrained from sexually assaulting you! ALL EXAMPLES OF CHIVALRY. What will you do if it's gone? Get sexually assaulted by me?????" "Probably!"

AMANDA: Haha.

SADY: Like, there has to be some social contract in place so that treating women LIKE THEY'RE PEOPLE, with a minimum of empathy and decency, is not only possible if we also treat women like they are all T-Rexes with tiny little arms that can't reach doors over the length of their large and cumbersome dinosaur bodies. Or a less confusing metaphor! Like, I'd like to think that people are capable of recognizing that ladies are people and can do stuff, and that one ought to treat them well FOR THAT VERY REASON.

AMANDA: OK, but where is the part where I get to punch someone?

SADY: Haha, yeah, that's the part that puts the lie to my theory. Because Real Person Who Can Do Stuff status has historically been reserved for (certain) dudes, and apparently they're all punching each other CONSTANTLY. So! Like, I think this is honestly getting into a real and structural point about the Patriarchy, one which makes me feel very '70s to point out, but: A structure of society based on violent dominance perpetuates violent dominance even betwixt members of its ruling class. The idea is that power — or, hell, personhood — is based on being able to keep other people down by any means necessary, but it's not like dudes are all working together, because the only way they can understand their right to personhood within this context is by their utilization of violent dominance. So The Man is not only keeping us down, he has to keep The Other Men down as well. So that he can remain The Man.

AMANDA: And there's only one The Man.

SADY: I heard it was Willem Dafoe? Or Ernest Borgnine, but he might be dead. So.

AMANDA: Time for a Battle Royale! I do love that we have a sport where you win by punching someone until they can't get up anymore.

SADY: The Ultimate Expression of Manliness! And then we find out that sometimes those dudes actually hurt people in their private lives, and are like, "whoa. But we told you that your value was specifically dependent on your being really good at violence! I don't understand WHY THIS HAPPENED!" I mean, I was recently looking at murder statistics, and it is a fact that men simply DO kill each other more often. Women are killed less, and kill less, but when someone kills a woman, it is like really super-likely to be someone with whom she has an intimate or sexual relationship. I mean, that to me is How Patriarchy Works: Dudes kill ladies with whom they have private relationships, but then, they also go out and kill each other because they cut each other off in traffic or said something shitty at a barbecue or whatever. My point is, there has to be a way to maintain a social accord with our fellow citizens that is not based on (a) being the best puncher, or (b) being widely regarded as too weak and childlike to punch.

AMANDA: and (c) confining your punching of women behind closed doors because punching a woman in public makes you a sissy also.

SADY: Right. Because that's chivalry. Noting that "chivalry" itself is descended from ideas about knights and fair ladies formed in a time and place where women literally had NO RIGHTS WHATSOEVER; women were a "protected" class, but the "protection" was from, like, someone other than your husband who had the legal right to beat you for disobeying. "Chivalry" was code for, "stay in the house and I'll protect you from dudes what might sexually assault and impregnate you, that I might sexually assault and impregnate you with no worries as to whose baby you're having." "Also you're probably like fourteen."

AMANDA: Yes. It's just an organizing principle for perpetuating misogyny, not any sort of solution.

SADY: Exactly. But, I mean, what's the solution? For dudes to defect from the system? That makes them total pussies, bro!

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean ... I have yet to solve the cultural problem of guys punching each other. I'm working on it. Right now, the tactic that chivalry takes is to say, "if you perform this certain type of violence, you're a pussy. Only this other kind of violence makes you not-a-pussy."

SADY: Right. I don't know, I think focusing on how Traditional Masculinity Hurts Men is totally fun and I like to do it, but also, they're going to be in the same situation as every other ally, which is: If you stop hating us, you're going to get treated like us.

AMANDA: Right. Have fun with that!

SADY: So... stop hating us anyway? I guess?

AMANDA: Stop hating us and then realize that associating with guys who punch guys for being pussies may get you punched, so stop engaging with those types of people. Stop appearing on the "Jersey Shore" program, basically.

SADY: Yeah. We should make a pamphlet! "Have YOU, friend, been invited to appear in a reality TV show program for awful people? Perhaps you should consider your level of exposure to awful people! And not be awful!" That, I think, would solve a lot of problems. Except, like, Snooki's.

AMANDA: Snooki's problem is interesting, because, having watched the show, Snookie REALLY WANTS TO GET LAID. But she can't just punch somebody in order to do it, because she's a woman! Chivalry is preventing Snooki from getting laid, basically, and it needs to end, for that reason.

SADY: Yes. FREE SNOOKI!

Photos via Svadilfari, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Sady Doyle refrains from discussing George Bush's tongue on Laura Bush's genitals for a second to discuss some of the less sexy aspects of Bush's fulfillment of the role as First Lady:

self-denial is one of a First Lady's job requirements, however, and Laura Bush fulfilled it admirably. . . . Bush writes of her irritation with being called a "traditional woman." But abnegating her own beliefs in order to stand by her man—even as he did things that affected innumerable lives, things she apparently knew to be wrong—was exactly "traditional," and the worst kind of tradition. The really troubling thing is how much people liked it: How a woman publicly enacting lack of engagement, lack of opinion, lack of self, was met with such sky-high approval ratings and such wide applause.

Read the whole essay here.

* Human centipede: It's a thing. A horrible, horrible thing.

* "Pretty women pose health risks." Burn them. Buuuurn them! Wait, actually, they just stress out heterosexual guys who are trying to finish a really important game of Sudoku.

* Brown University is being sued by a former student who claims he wasn't afforded a proper investigation after being accused of rape. SAFER Campus on why schools must strictly adhere to their own sexual assault policies, for the benefit of both victim and accused:

I have no idea why in this particular case Brown decided to disregard their procedure (the article suggests perhaps because the complainant’s father was a Brown alum and donor) but they did a serious disservice to all their students in doing so. While we usually focus on the rights of the survivor, it’s also imperative to uphold the rights of the accused, both because it’s absolutely important to protect individual students and because when you disregard the rights of the accused to add fuel to the fire of those who want to paint campus rape hearings as unfair witch hunts.

* On Femocracy: Why the media gets rape wrong—legal concerns, boys clubs, and a lack of training.

* Scarleteen launches a series for queer teens of color.

* On Tiger Beatdown, Sady Doyle conducts a Mother's Day chat with her mom, who is a super awesome feminist lady who was put on a "death list" by the Klan:

SADY: . . . OK: Can you tell me some awesome Journalism Stories, please? Because I always tell people that you home-schooled me as a teen (WHICH YOU DID) and now you are home-J-schooling me as an adult. But mostly I just like the stories! So let us revisit a time in the swinging ’70s, when the smooth sounds of folk-rock were everywhere, and you were listening to a LOT OF STEVIE NICKS and also a journalist. Go!

KAREN: Mississippi was still a mess. And every day felt important when you were a liberal white journalist in rural Mississippi. The Klan began a small resurgence about the time that Mississippi began to reinstitute compulsory education. (When the federal government ordered the schools integrated, Mississippi revoked all mandatory education laws so the white kids wouldn’t “have” to go to school with black children. This was getting fixed when I was there.) The Klan members wanted to be interviewed with their hoods on, and I refused to do so. They supposedly put me on a “death list,” but they did take off their hoods. It turned out they were all just factory workers that no one knew. And then the Klan treasurer stole all their money, and the Klan dissolved.

Miley Cyrus' new video features avian headware, backup dancer eye-fucking, tortured visual imagery representing puberty, and copious Auto-Tune. Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I respond.

AMANDA: Hello!

SADY: Why hello! I have worn my bird cage hat of Serious Analysis to this meeting. My Serious Analysis is: The children! Are they getting too sexy? Specifically the beloved starlet children who live as normal tweens by day, international pop stars by night?

AMANDA: Allow me to answer that question with a prediction: In about two years, Justin Bieber will announce his grownupedness by appearing in a video surrounded by women dressed as sexy aardvarks, or something.

SADY: PROBABLY. I think that's the next big step for the Beebs. That or allowing leaked photos of his very first armpit hair to appear on TMZ. But dudes don't have to, like, "grow up" by announcing how sexy they are now. Not the way ladies do.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, it seems that the sign of grownupedness is ladies without pants, and so if you're a lady, take off your pants, and if you're a man, get some ladies and take off their pants. Lady Gaga has of course complicated this equation by making sexiness also about dressing like bizarre animals. Which is hilarious, because now when you have parents clutching their pearls over this, they also necessarily have to be like "And what's with the kids these days with the bird costumes?"

[youtube:v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4]
Not A Girl: A modified Catholic schoolgirl outfit provided ample fodder for creepy adult fantasy, while Britney Spears' stated virginity insulated her from the accompanied slut-shaming.

[youtube:v=I4a8DY7SiMU]
Not Yet A Woman: "Britney, are you sure you're mature enough to take responsibility for that sensual albino python?"

SADY: Right? Not only do they have to worry about the teens doing the sexy dances, they also have to worry that their wholesome sons and daughters are going to slaughter everybody in the IHOP and get sent to Bitch Prison. I mean, it's interesting to me, though, like the whole transition from "innocent" (or "not that innocent" in one notable case) to "I am wearing a thigh-high boot, spinning around a pole, and letting backup dancers lick my face" that so many women who grow up in the public eye have to undergo. Like the ONLY OPTION is publicly performing "virgin" or publicly performing "SEX SEX LOOK AT ME IT'S POSSIBLE I MIGHT BE HAVING SEX." For ladies. Dudes are just allowed to grow up gracefully, more often. And there's nothing wrong with being licked! Or spinning around a pole, if you want to do that! It's just like... she HAS to announce adulthood with these very public, very overt signifiers of sexuality.

AMANDA: I know, I was wracking my brain for young pop stars who have not gone through the Not Wearing Pants phase, and the only ones I can think of are a) Kelly Clarkson, who wrote a song about how she doesn't hook up and how she can clean up the mess your ex-girlfriend made who probably does hook up because all the kids are doing it, and b) Taylor Swift, who, well WE KNOW. WE KNOW ABOUT THAT ONE. For the record, I'm not a pop star, and I've attended several parties where I haven't worn pants the whole time at those parties. IT HAPPENS. But the dichotomy is really frustrating.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, me and pants have a troubled history. There was a time, Amanda! A time when I was convinced leggings were, in fact, pants! A time when I was TERRIBLY WRONG. And I enjoy taking my pants off in certain conducive contexts, of course, as we all do. Nobody wants to wear pants permanently! Except for Tobias Funke!

AMANDA: Haha Indeed. But so, I was thinking about Thinking of the Children the other day. And how Think of the Children is almost always used as a really transparent cover that adults use to condemn something they're extremely uncomfortable with at all ages, and then claim that they're only protecting The Children from it, instead of themselves.

SADY: Yeah. And Thinking Of The Children often seems to involve... not a lot of thinking about how The Children actually tend to behave? Like: My shameful secret is that I actually ENJOY THE HELL out of this video. Not because it's "empowering," or because I take ANY of its messages at face value, but because — like Miley herself — it's so goofy and embarrassing in precisely the ways that 17-year-old-girl rebellion is goofy and embarrassing.

AMANDA: It's pretty much the Twilight of videos. Except less virginy.

SADY: Haha, yeah. I mean, it's so high school! Like: She is in a CAGE! A CAGE of your JUDGING HER! But she is a bird that Cannot, as the saying goes, be Tamed! or Blamed! She will do what she wants! GET OUT OF HER ROOM, MOMMMMMMM. SHE'LL WEAR WHATEVER SHE WANTS TO WEAR OH MY GOD STOP MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT I WANT TO DIE I HATE YOU I HATE YOU. And then the door slams. And the video's over.

AMANDA: And then she gives this interview where she Explains, like, what the video is about. It's about being an adult now, GOD.

SADY: Right! I mean: We talk about growing up in public. But Miley Cyrus, despite (DON'T READ THIS PART, MILEY CYRUS) having released some of my least favorite songs EVER, actually seems to be, like... growing up. In public. With all the associated awkwardness. But that's the thing, about Thinking About the Children: We have this very idealized normative concept of how a "good" teen behaves and it's just not in line with these realities. At all! And honestly it is, as you said, just about shoving aside what makes us uncomfortable.

[youtube:v=kIDWgqDBNXA]
Not a Girl: In Christina Aguilera's first hit single, she waited for someone to release her from the confines of bare midriffed virginity.

[youtube:v=Kaej4Wjkj1Q]
Not Yet A Woman: In 2002, assless chaps were considered a strong indicator of adulthood.

AMANDA: Yeah, and why the fuck are we acting like all our insecurities can be resolved by Miley Cyrus not doing some weird shit in a music video? I'll also add that Miley's actually doing pretty fucking awesome at navigating all this stuff. In February, she said this: "My job isn’t to tell your kids how to act or how not to act because I’m still figuring that out for myself. To take that away from me is a bit selfish . . . Your kids are going to make mistakes whether I do or not. That’s just life.” Coming from someone who was EVISCERATED for appearing in a magazine with her back visible, that point is well-taken.

SADY: WHOA. Miley seems really together! In that quote! Sorry, Miley! I mean, yeah: I think the fact that our cultural insecurities CAN be raised by just such a video is pretty telling. Like that not-really-pole-dancing she did that one time, or the Liebowitz shot: A lot of it was just grown men (and women) being all, "I'm afraid this might turn me on! And I'm scared!" And, yeah, you ought notta be eroticizing the teenagers. But constantly monitoring this one specific female teenager to determine whether she's inappropriately sexy is, like... Not that much less creepy? I think young women's sexuality is often put in that place of overtly well-meaning, covertly creepy monitoring. Like, we're SO OBSESSED with young women not being sexual (which they really usually are) that we constantly evaluate how sexual they are. And then there's all the teen-eroticizing that takes place ANYWAY, because it's so taboo. And the result is Britney, America's #1 Virgin, dancing in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit, and later sort of cracking under the weight of how VERY many contradictions she was expected to represent.

AMANDA: Right. I'll take the bird costume. And the adult hand-ringing: It is extremely creepy, and it's directly related to people being freaked out about their own interest in Miley Cyrus. But like, for 17 year old boys and ladies, a crush on Miley is extremely reasonable? And Miley is, as I read in a recent story, 17 AND A HALF. A half! She's almost 18. Let her wear not-pants!

SADY: Yeah, exactly. Like: I think it's totally fine for teens to be sexual, WITH EACH OTHER. Provided they're educated enough to not take stupid risks and hurt themselves or others. Even if I was like, "it's not okay! Stop doing that, teens! STOP IT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I SAID SO," they would do it anyway. But there's no safe space in this culture for a young woman to sort of grow into her sexuality, because it's fetishized and demonized and the fetishization and the demonization are directly connected. So people want you and they hate you and they hate you because they want you and they want you because they hate you and it is basically a wonder any of us gets through it even semi-intact.

[youtube:v=9MkstZ3n4G8]
Not a Girl: As a Cheetah Girl, Kiely Williams sang about doing her best and following her heart.

[youtube:v=J96ujGstSUw]
Not Yet A Woman: As a young adult, Williams' heart led her to eroticize passed-out sex.

AMANDA: Right. It's just important to make the distinction between OH MY DISNEY GIRL SEXY AVIAN COSTUME WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO OUR CHILDREN! and saying, Hey, it must be hard to be a Girl, Not Yet A Woman in the spotlight and be criticized no matter how you want to grow into adulthood. I will say that the song kind of sucks, in a not-criticizing-her-burgeoning-sexuality kind of way.

SADY: Oh, yeah. I mean, I am not going to the "Miley, your expensive silver corset denotes your Brainwashing By The Patriarchy" place. Not in my lifetime! And I hope I'm not saying that I think she's stupid or anything — just in a really awkward place, and I kind of find the very awkwardness of the place charming, because I have so been there. Also her Auto-Tune makes her sound like a cartoon animal, though. Which is not a criticism of her sexuality or body, just of the fact that it like squeaks and she reminds me of a Forest Friend offering helpful advice. "You can't be blamed either Sady! Come with me to my land of mystical enchantments! We'll have a tea party with all the other bunny rabbits!" EEK.

AMANDA: I can't wait until Auto-Tune is recognized as a feminist issue.

SADY: WHY MUST WE DEFORM OUR SISTERS' NATURAL TUNELESSNESS TO APPEASE THE MEN?

AMANDA: Yes, but on the other hand, Auto-Tune helps to equalize a patriarchal music industry standard which prefers women with naturally pleasant singing voices.

SADY: That's so last-wave-of-Auto-Tune politics! I prize the sound of ALL voices! Howsoever sucky!

On Monday, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown will speak at Harvard's "Rethinking Virginity" conference, a summit on the state of sexual purity.

But before she Rethinks virginity, Sady must first Think it! Accordingly, I have volunteered to help Sady pop the proverbial cherry of Virginity Thinkin', a rite of passage every ladyblogger must endure, and which readers of this blog must endure as well!  It is awkward! It is sometimes painful! And it goes on far too long! In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady and I as we recall That Time It Almost Went In, mourn the loss of the Precious Treasures, and devolve into a fit of terrible sexual puns.

SADY: LADY! I think it is time for me to lose my Having This Particular Chat Virginity! As opposed to my Oral Sex (Receiving) Virginity, my Oral Sex (Delivering) Virginity, my Various Other Stuff Virginity, and my Virginity Virginity. All of which are gone already. I HAVE SQUANDERED MY PRECIOUS TREASURE!

AMANDA: Oh wonderful! Well I'm personally excited to commence Rethinking Virginity ... out of existence! For it has never really worked for me.

SADY: Oh, no? Please do detail the manner in which it failed to work!

AMANDA: "Failed to work" may actually be the operative term here? Because if someone were to ask me When I Lost My Virginity, they would then be subjected to a series of stories about Those Times It Almost Went In, But Didn't. I tried REALLY HARD to lose my virginity! I was like, Out, Out, Damned Virginity! But it just ... it just didn't work. Physically. For a long time. And now I don't fucking know/remember when it happened. It was late.

SADY: Right. The definitive moment at which you become an Anti-Virgin is hard to peg! In fact! And, honestly, gives too much credit to the first person to definitively Stick It In. Like, it's not like no-one has visited these territories before! Those dudes are like Christopher Columbus. They, like, Claim This Land for Spain, but fail to notice all the people who were already there. Uh. Sort of.

AMANDA: RIGHT. (?) And everyone pretends it's this really objective moment that's defined from the outside, but I've found for most people you just have to Decide when it is, and pretend that that time syncs up with whatever everyone else is talking about. I count myself as lucky to not have a very intimate relationship with Virginity and Non-Virginity, though. Fuck that noise.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I myself was at one point one of those girls who went around telling everybody that I was totally not going to sex it up until I met the dude I was going to marry. And people would laugh at me, and I would be like, "WHY MUST YOU DEVALUE MY MORAL CHOICES?" But then something magical happened, which was that I went to college. And there were like three dudes with whom it could very plausibly have happened, and I was just so tired of trying to figure out which one was going to be my husband (HINT: None) that I had sex with the WORST ONE just to get it over with. Which is also not a choice I recommend!

AMANDA: Haha! STRATEGY. I waited a long time to (try) to have sex, and it wasn't for some sort of sense of morality. I was never surrounded by any religious influences or anything like that growing up. But I did feel really, really, really, really uncomfortable with the idea of having sex, and a lot of that had to do with stuff imposed on me on the outside about how sex was bad. Like I was worried about getting AIDS if my boyfriend's penis got too close to me.

SADY: Yeah. That is also part of it. Like, there are so many risks to sex — AIDS, all the other terrifying illnesses, etc — that delaying sex can feel, really, like the best of all possible options. And also, there are other risks of sex If You Are A Lady, which include: Getting Knocked Up (I would basically consider this to be a terrible illness, in my current circumstance) and Getting Called a Slut. But here is the magic thing: All of these things can happen to you EVEN if you are not a virgin! And I feel like the emphasis on virginity, or the lack thereof, encourages everyone to place the emphasis on this ONE sexual encounter, your FIRST (and hopefully not last), instead of being like: Sex! You're going to be doing this eventually! Here's a realistic risk evaluation!

AMANDA: Exactly. And the emphasis on virginity didn't really help what I was going through either. The message was, "Don't have sex! And if you do, just wear a condom!" Which didn't speak to any of the issues I had with sex, or how to decide how to do it and when and with whom and why. Like, I am very much anti-abstinence-only education – and in high school, having sex was NOT going to be a productive option for me, in the place that I was. I was a VIRGIN and wanted to stay one, for a while. And still the emphasis on the virginity stuff really did not help me.

SADY: Right! And, like, a while ago, there was this headline all over the place, which was "Abstinence Only Education: Totally Works!" And what it actually WORKED at, apparently, was delaying vagina-to-weiner intercourse for a few years among the preteens. Good job! But also, this magically effective abstinence-only education program taught abstinence this way: Don't have sex until you are totally comfortable with having sex and know how to make good sexual decisions for you. This program that worked? NOT TEACHING ABSTINENCE, actually. What it was teaching was SEXUAL CONSENT. Like, "Hey, when you decide to have sex, your decision should probably be full and informed!" Uh, OK. But feminists have been teaching this for approximately FOREVER? I guess we never thought to call it "abstinence." I guess that's why we don't get the credit for our revolutionary sex-education technology!

AMANDA: Exactly. SEX ED EDUCATORS: PLEASE TEACH CONSENT. Because honestly, I've been having sex for a while now, and it took me a long time to be "totally comfortable" with it. A lot of that had to do with body-image stuff and all the connotations that went along with not being a virgin anymore, and so being a slut, but some of it had to do with people not respecting my right to make decisions about when I have sex and when I don't.

SADY: Right. I mean, I think my thing is: My first few sex experiences were kind of HORRIBLE, which I think had a lot to do with choosing the worst of all possible contenders so that I wouldn't have to think about being a virgin or not being a virgin any more. Because when I say "the worst," I mean we were at TWILIGHT LEVELS OF AWFUL. But also, I think they would have been awful anyway, because I had been taught "don't have sex," and I had been taught about the importance of putting a little rubber outfit on his apparatus if I ever DID have sex. But what I had NEVER been taught, apparently, was how to respect what I wanted, and to ask for it, and how to say "no" if I did NOT want something he wanted. I mean, I didn't even know how to say "ow" or "yikes." My impression was that one could Have Sex or Not Have Sex, and so my first few experiences were like, "oh, so apparently sex is AWFUL? It seems weird that people are so into it! But, OK! I am Having Sex!"

AMANDA: EXACTLY. GOD. I very much had the experience of something like, happening to me—-"Having" "Sex"—not participating or enjoying something, but like, enduring it. And part of that was necessary to come to a time when I would figure out how to like it, and assert myself, and that stuff. But surely, we can do better about the way we talk about things and prepare people for them, and how to know when Bad Sex is not bad sex and when it's Rape. We don't do enough of that.

SADY: Right. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about before, which is: Sex being defined as this very heterosexual experience of having a Penile Apparatus stuck into our Vaginal Apparatus in an Act That Could Potentially Produce Offspring (if you don't make his weiner wear an outfit, or whatever). Like, OK: There are a lot of things that are pretty darn sexual, which this description of Sex does not cover! And I am struggling to say this without sounding like some kind of creepy Tantric sex instructor, but: If you're like, "OK. So somebody is going to stick that into the other thing, and then you will Have Had Sex," you're missing out on (a) much of what makes sex fun or enjoyable, (b) much of the potential complications, and (c) the fact that sex, ideally, should not be some sort of terrifying Bene Gesserit test of fortitude? Like, that thing where they stick Kyle McLachlan's hand in the box and are like, "WITHSTAND THE PAIN OR DIE" so he can't take his hand out or the space nun will kill him instantly: Sex should, ideally, have little or nothing in common with this experience. Why can't we all just enjoy ourselves? By, like, respecting what feels good and what doesn't?

AMANDA: Right! And I'll add that making the definition of "sex" "Penile Apparatus stuck into our Vaginal Apparatus in an Act That Could Potentially Produce Offspring" also includes "rape" as a thing that is "sex," and so perhaps we should move toward a definition that includes shit that people want to do, and also expels the word Virginity from existence, because it doesn't mean anything and it's stupid.

SADY: RIGHT? Okay, so: Here's another reason why making "virginity" important is scary. There was, some time ago, an Ohio-based abstinence education group, and they had this little online "game" for students. This game, it was kind of a downer! In that it was about deciding whether a lady had been raped or not! So, lady SAYS she's raped. And, as we all know, rape accusations are totally fun to make for kicks! So you have to evaluate the testimonies of the people she knows, about her character. And one of them — A GIRL CHARACTER! IN THE GAME! I BELIEVE! — mentions that she's had sex before, and is thus probably a liar. Guess which conclusion you are supposed to draw?

AMANDA: UM. That she's a liar?

SADY: YES. Like, the idea that you can either want NONE of the penises or ALL of the penises: That is an idea that is taught! By "education" "groups!" They had to take the game down. But we can't take it out of the equation, when we look at the cultural ideals around virginity.

AMANDA: Well I know that there's a direct correlation between how much sex I'm having and how much I lie about everything!

SADY: LIAR. I mean, I would classify several of my experiences, especially early experiences, in the "consensual but not okay" zone of sexual activity. Not to make this a big downer of a chat. But, the idea of Sex or Not Sex means that sometimes you don't say "no" because you don't totally have it in your mind that you CAN say "no," because you don't have any idea in your mind that Sex is not just one big package that you are either OK or not OK with. So, like: You go along with it, and you even say “yes,” so there is consent although it's not enthusiastic, but that is in large part because Boundaries are not really a part of the understanding you have of Sex. Or maybe that is just me! Maybe I am just a people-pleaser! But I don't think I am! Because I please very few people, really, on a daily basis.

AMANDA: Yeah, well, you either want to Have Sex (slut) or you want to Not Have Sex (virgin), and so if you decide to have sex, then—"SEX"! Sometimes, you don't really know all the possibilities of what that could mean, but you do know that you've consented to It, Sex, and that's as far as the conversation goes.

SADY: Right. And I think a lot of girls struggle with it. Like: My frequent yelling about slut-shaming and my frequent yelling about rape culture are actually the same yelling. Because the devaluation of female sexuality devalues female pleasure which in turn devalues your ability to say, "I don't like this, but I do like something else, can we do that instead?"

AMANDA: And some people who have had sex many, many times, when confronted with the opportunity to pass judgment in a rape case, still believe that. Even though it's plainly obvious that sex is not all or nothing.

SADY: Right. Exactly. That's where it gets really kind of scary. And, I mean, if I look at my various virginities: Every time you do something new for the first time, you are basically a virgin at it. You have no idea how anything works and you are probably kind of bad at it and you just sort of muddle through. Like this chat! Which for some reason I am terrible at expressing any ideas within!

AMANDA: We are virgins at rethinking virginity! It's OK! But now we're rethinking virginity sluts. And there was much rejoicing.

SADY: Yes. Next time I do this, hopefully I will know more about what is happening, and be able to contribute! Or something!

AMANDA: Instead of being like, Ow! You are inserting your opinions into mine quite vigorously, and in a way I am unprepared to respond to! Can we try this on e-mail!

SADY: I am just sort of lying here. I am like, "okay, you take it from here, I'm just going to scope out the whole operation." I didn't mean for this to end in a really inappropriate sex metaphor between two heterosexual ladies with dudepartners, Amanda. IT IS JUST PART OF THE PROCESS!

AMANDA: And I'm like, ouch, my position ... on virginity is beginning to form a cramp, in my brainparts. OK! I have finished! After dragging this on for far too long, after you have grown bored with it!

SADY: Yeah. I think we're done. And now, to go on and have Rethinking Virginity Chats... WITH MANY OTHERS! Truly, after doing this one-on-one, the only other option is to do it with four other people. Simultaneously! In public! And possibly on film! THEY WERE RIGHT! THEY WERE RIGHT ABOUT THE ABSTINENCE! THE DAM HAS BROKEN, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK NOW.

Photo via MRBECK, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Writing in the Awl's Sex Offender week series, Sady Doyle goes long on Rivers Cuomo and why he (and his cute glasses) have messed you up "forever."

* In an attempt to disprove the allegation that teabaggers employed racial slurs against black members of Congress at a rally, Andrew Beibart has agreed to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if anyone can produce "video and audio evidence that this occurred." Somehow, none of the accused racists attending this rally have stepped forward to donate a bunch of money to this organization. Hmm!

* Is Dita Von Teese a feminist? The answer is complicated, according to this interview with the burlesque performer:

Hmmm. Well, it’s a question that’s posed to me quite often and it’s frustrating, because if you look at the definition of what it means to be a feminist, it’s to have the same rights as a man. If someone tells me that I cannot create, produce, direct these shows and star in them, that that should be for a man should do, then that doesn’t really jive with feminist ideals. It’s kind of an argument I hate even addressing because I think it’s just a stupid thing to ask. I’m sorry, but you know, I get asked it all the time! I’m, like, how can I be anti-feminist if I’m pro-woman and all my fans are women, so if you say it’s anti-feminist and you come to my show, or you come to one of my book signings, and it’s 80 percent women, how do you explain that means being an anti-feminist? A lot of women look to me as someone who is embracing her sexual power and confidence and trying to explain you don’t have to fit into the media’s mainstream image of “sexy.” I feel like the only time someone should call me “anti-feminist” is if they don’t understand what I do and who my fans are and what I’m standing up for. . . It’s not a word I don’t really like to address, you know? It’s not even that I want to call myself that, I just sort of go, “Oooooh!” It’s an eyeballer roller. (Laughs) You know what I mean? It’s like, oh man, it’s a weird question. The word “feminist” is so broad.

* Melissa McEwan tells Dr. Drew to shut up.

* Kate Harding takes down Peter Beinart's campaign to put a "mom" on the Supreme Court, in order to provide a role model for girls who want to snag one of the unlikeliest positions in American government, and also make babies. First point: There's already a mom on the Supreme Court!

Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida

This week, disabled feminist blogger Annaham wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment of the international, televised, celebrity-sanctioned, horrible-death-threat variety.

And Salon writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment of the if-you-experienced-PTSD-after-a-traumatic-childbirth-then-you-sound-like-a-bitch-who-just-shouldn't-ever-reproduce variety.

And recently, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment by loudly and publicly eviscerating the harasser, and then replacing all of their comments with the word "[BONERS]."

And also Awl writer Maura Johnston wrote a piece about dealing with Internet harassment by developing a "thick skin" because the Internet is "pretty much as mean as all of us," no more, no less.

And all of these people are women. And so, in this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady and I get to talking about Internet harassment of the you-women-ought-to-employ-your-mouths-for-dick-sucking-and-not-opinionating variety. Come troll, come all, and join us for a conversation which, oddly, does not conclude with Sady and I shutting up and performing blow jobs!

SADY: Hello! And, in related news, I hate you! Because we are on the Internet. Where ladies are hated abundantly!

AMANDA: With much vigor and from many angles! I really, really identified with Annaham's post, mostly about how shit on the Internet does affect me, but I'm not allowed to talk about it because "it's the Internet." But there. I said it, it does.

SADY: INDEED IT DOES! I once spoke to someone who was like, "all you ever talk about is who hates you on the Internet today. And why are you letting it get under your skin?" And I was like, "Because they hate me! I don't care where they are! Being on the Internet makes it WORSE, because I can SEE them hating me, FROM MY BEDROOM!" "I have a phone with e-mail on it! I can see people hating me WHEREVER I AM IN THE WORLD!"

AMANDA: Yeah, or from my office? For my career is located on the Internet.

SADY: PRECISELY. And, I mean, I really identified with Annaham's piece too. It said stuff I had been struggling to say, for like the LONGEST time, but in an actually sensical way that could potentially persuade people. Rather than me being like, "AND ALSO, in the SUBWAY, people are mean!"

AMANDA: For me, it wasn't so much that I couldn't figure out how to say it—though she said it very, very well—but that I didn't want to, because I don't want to tip my hand toward awful, anonymous commenters, or show any weakness, or risk being eviscerated for acting like a victim. It's not that I feel that I've been victimized. I just want to be able to talk about this shit, basically, and there's no space for that. So she's very brave, is what I'm saying.

SADY: Exactly. Because, the thing is, when you talk about Dicks On The Internet Getting You Down—or, worse, snap at one of them—people think you are just hypersensitive, and a whiner, and petty, and whatever. They think it's a personal problem. Whereas, me, I've talked to a lot of ladies who are on the Internet. I'm really into building Internet Lady Community, because it's not so easy. And here is the one way I have learned that you can start a passionate conversation with a lady who works on the Internet: MENTION MEAN COMMENTERS. Because we all get it! In super-intense ways! And at high volume! Every single lady on the Internet gets this thing!

AMANDA: Oh yeah. None of us is immune. And it's not subtle, either. It's obviously—just obviously—targeted at shutting us up.

SADY: Yes. It is not personal, it affects ladies qua ladies, it hurts and saddens, and I believe in ye olden tymes we would refer to this as a "Really Fucking Obvious Feminist Issue."

AMANDA: I know you recently quit the Internet for a weekend, and who can blame you? Because the real world is pleasant? But actually, people who aim personal attacks at us know that it makes us turn away and shut up, even for a little bit.

SADY: Exactly! And you can tell, because it tends to get more intense the larger one's audience is. I feel like I, full disclosure, have been relatively privileged insofar as I do NOT get mean commenters all that often, largely because they can tell I am WAY MEANER than they are. I have developed this Massively Uninhibited Bitch Who Will Cut You Persona. And as much as that might alienate people, I feel like it was a smart decision. Because when posters OTHER than me are at my blog, they DON'T have a rep as someone who will cut off your balls and feed them to you, perhaps in a delicate white wine sauce, and the assholes feel a lot safer.

AMANDA: Well, I know a lot of women who fucking love that persona of yours because we sort of live vicariously through it. But we shouldn't all have to adopt extremely defensive strategies in order to just ... speak.

SADY: Right. You should be able to post a picture of your new hat on the Internet without having to have built up 9,000,000 defensive strategies for when someone calls you ugly. Because they will call you ugly! They just will! Or a slut, if they can't call you that. "WHY ARE YOU SHOWING OFF YOUR PROVOCATIVE TORSO IN THIS FASHION?"

AMANDA: Because can I tell you? This woman on my blog the other day posted a comment about how the arguments that I make are less valid because of how my voice sounds. Because of how words sound when they leave my mouth. And because it sounds kind of like how a lady sounds.

SADY: Hahaha. So, she is just LITERALLY TELLING YOU not to speak. "When you speak, I can't help but notice that you are speaking," is what she says, "and that makes it harder for me to pay attention when you speak."

AMANDA: Right. Like could you perhaps get a surrogate voice, a more manly and patronizing one? Perhaps then my voice (but not my voice) can truly be heard.

SADY: Right. I mean: I think that, when people talk about blogs, they talk about the democratization of voice, and how it allows everyone to be heard. But what they don't talk about, so often, is how (a) We also re-iterate the same structures of rewarding or punishing voices that you see in Actual Real Life Not On The Internet, and (b) How the possibility that ladies might be TAKING to the Internet, and thus might have finally found a forum in which you literally CANNOT SHUT THEM UP by refusing to publish them or listen to them at your party or allow them into your fancy organizations or whatever, scares the shit out of dudes, and thus amps up the harassment to a truly scary degree. Like: I get harassed on the street, told to smile, have my tits pointed out to me, whatever. But on the street I don't TYPICALLY get told that someone should rape me to death. Thanks to the Internet, I can in fact have just such an experience!

AMANDA: Oh agreed. And I certainly don't get the degree of vitriol that some other people get, who are not cis, and not white, and not straight. But good golly do I still get a lot of it! There is just so much vitriol to go around!

SADY: That is the thing! And I feel like, you know: We can talk about the New Niceness, and whether it is a thing (it is probably not a thing) or "Internet harassment" in general, but looking at it: I've written so much that is mean about ladies in the pop culture! But I have NEVER gotten it as hard as Annaham has. And I have to think that it is because she has not one, but TWO marks against her in the Things I Can Dismiss A Person For column. She's a feminist lady, and she's a lady with a disability. And making fun of "feminists" is a time-honored Internet Pastime, but "disabled feminists?" Boy howdy, is that ever an excellent punchline for Amanda Palmer and her delightful comedy routines!

AMANDA: Oh God, I know. International televised harassment for ... what? Not particularly enjoying the way a particular musician she likes is appropriating disability?

SADY: Right. And then, the Internet Douches, well-accustomed to not listening to ladies, ESPECIALLY not listening to feminist ladies, and ESPECIALLY not listening to people who talk about disabled folks getting the short end of the stick, are like: YES. TARGET ACQUIRED.

AMANDA: One of your commenters (you have some really great commenters, along with the bad ones) made a really good point about the difference between criticism and harassment, and how Amanda Palmer and her legion of defenders have failed to recognize the difference. And I feel like that's a common trait of all trolls—just flat out refusing to engage in any kind of subtlety or empathy.

SADY: Exactly. I mean, I did not read the Male Studies Scholar Conference that happened on Sexist Beatdown two weeks ago IN ITS ENTIRETY, but I do vividly remember the gentleman who requested that, next time we spoke, the other one suck his personal dick, that he might be able to tolerate our lady jabber. That is not, "I think the political underpinnings of your work are flawed." That is not, "Okay, good post, but here's the line I have an issue with."

AMANDA: Oh, well I live for this man to tolerate me!

SADY: I forget. Is it your turn to fellate this gentleman? Or mine?

AMANDA: It is what feminism has been striving for all these years. Tell Gloria Steinem that it was just as easy as a blow job.

SADY: I mean, it's so easy to dismiss everyone who criticizes you as a hater or a bad person. So easy! But I've been CRITICIZED, from a lot of different angles, by a lot of people. And it might irritate me. But none of it is people just flat out saying, "fuck or walk, bitches." And that's what the Internet is, for women, a WHOLE STINKING LOT OF THE TIME. Like, maybe if they are Gawker commenters they might wrap it up in some clever allusion to a Baumbach movie, or whatever. But you can still feel it seething, a lot of the time.

AMANDA: Yes. And this is one of the reasons why I love, love, love Feministe's Next Top Troll series.

SADY: Is it not the best?

AMANDA: Because the comments? They never change. It doesn't matter what woman is talking or what she's talking about or what the tone of her argument is. The vitriol is across the board just exactly the same as what I get. And it's fucking hilarious, and I take comfort in it.

SADY: Exactly. In summary, for Troll SEO Purposes: Male studies. Male studies, male studies, male studies. Women tell the truth sometimes about rape. Circumcision! DIVORCE. There. That ought to get them started! Oh, and also: I dislike prog rock, and dudes who make prog rock, sometimes. WHAT DO YOU GOT, INTERNET? WHAT. DO. YOU. GOT.

AMANDA: I can't wait to hear the troll perspective on this. Oh please! Yes. Explain the various ways that voluntarily reading and commenting on my blog oppresses you! Go on! Or perhaps you'd like to argue as to why you are doing me a service, and why I ought to be praising you for your volunteer work in the comments section? I am interested in considering all of these possibilities.

SADY: "One time I was on the Internet, and someone disagreed with me! I politely explained why she was a stupid little girl, and then, she YELLED at me. My oppression, it is intense at times. And yet, I soldier on!" — A Commenter.

AMANDA: In conclusion, BONERS.

SADY: It is a regular BONER PARTY, out there on the Internet. And it makes my lady boners wither away in despair. Though not really! Because also, I keep blogging. At this point, mainly just to piss them off. Do you hear that, Feminist-Blog-Hating Internet? YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR FEMINIST BLOGGING!

AMANDA: The world will never shrink this feminist boner!

Photo via EraPhernalia Vintage, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This week, Tiger Beatdown presents "LADYPALOOZA: The Tiger Beatdown Lilith Fair Experience, But If Lilith Fair Didn't Suck, And Also Were a Blog." In other words, it's ladybloggers talking music, both listening-to (check out this rumination on the "Cuomo/Phair conundrum") and playing it (find out why being in a band with capital-D Dudes can turn you into a man-hating feminist!) In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle and I exact revenge on the boys with Kurt Cobain haircuts, wonder why Ren Faires are always located within walking distance of the Train to Gropetown, and discuss how smokin' hot St. Vincent is, am I right fellas? Plus, a bonus gallery of male-dominated subcultures!

SADY: Well, good morning! Are you prepared... TO ROCK??? I myself am underprepared to rock. But, for those about to rock: I do, in fact, salute them!

AMANDA: Same here! I have to admit that I'm perhaps not the best lady to be standing up for the rights of ladies to rock, because I actually really suck at playing music. The question is whether this is on account of my being a lady or not? Discuss.

SADY: Well: Here is the thing. When I was a wee young pre-blogger, of about the age of eleven or twelve, I discovered a variety of music! Such as the Juliana Hatfield (DON'T YOU JUDGE ME) and the PJ Harvey. And I was like, "ladies who are in bands get to yell about things that are personally offensive or troubling for them! A lot! Surely, this is my career path."

AMANDA: Hahah. Almost!

SADY: Yes! So I got a guitar, and I told all of the boys in school with Kurt Cobain haircuts that if they wanted to help me learn this "guitar," we could be in a band together.

AMANDA: Sounds reasonable.

SADY: And then one of them, the cutest one, the one that I liked best, told me why I was not getting any positive responses. He sat me down, and he said: "The thing is, we don't play girl music." And now I am a blogger, and still cannot play guitar, although my brother can, because I gave it to him, THE END. So, like: The question of ladies in music is one I like to think about, because (a) FUCK YOU TYLER FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE KURT COBAIN HAIRCUT YOU WEREN'T THAT CUTE, and (b) I feel like, as a venue for angry or self-obsessed or confrontational expression, people have a VESTED INTEREST in barring ladies from the field of rock music, really!

AMANDA: I see the same sad sexism in a lot of different subcultures, and I think women are often drawn to these spaces because they're outside of the mainstream – because the mainstream marginalizes them, but perhaps in a different way than it does sensitive rocking Kurt Cobain haircut boys.

SADY: Agreed!

AMANDA: So on the one hand, you'd think the subculture would be totally interested in accepting women – how rejecting of mainstream values is that! – but on the other hand, the subculture is also about building a culture around the primacy of the sensitive rocking Kurt Cobain haircut boy's particular flavor of marginalization, and when women come in with some other shit to talk about it tends to threaten that dynamic.

SADY: Right. I mean, not to re-iterate an old cliche, but: The guitar is a tried-and-true way, not only for Wussy Guy to become Charismatically Sensitive Guy, but for men to sort of build hierarchies outside of the gym class where they are all getting wedgies. And I think women are drawn to rock or indie rock or whatever the kids with the cool haircuts are doing these days – and I'm not even trying to exclude other genres, this is just the genre in which I have the most experience – because, they think, "a-ha! Outsiders! As a lady, I am kind of BY DEFAULT an outsider, in that I am not a dude!" But the dudes are like, "you don't get it. We WERE outsiders. But we built a WHOLE NEW INSIDE, for us specifically, so that we wouldn't have to be outsiders any more. And now you are not invited."

Male-Dominated Subculture B: Weed.

AMANDA: Exactly. But the same thing happens time and time again, which is that women are used in a very mainstream way in these subcultures, as a) prizes to show just how powerful the subculture has become, because these weird boys fuck all the hot girls now, b) uncool people that must be excluded in order to maintain the outsider vibe or c) tokens.

SADY: Right. I mean, who doesn't like St. Vincent? Or Neko Case? Or that girl from Rilo Kiley who was in the Fred Savage video game movie?

AMANDA: Well, if you don't like them, at least you think they are hot.

SADY: Yes! For also, who has not visited a publication of review for music, and seen the reviewer dedicate a substantial amount of time that could have been spent talking about music to, instead, talking about the lady's sexual charisma and appearance, and/or the comment section devolving into a mass vote as to whether or not the male commentariat would Hit It? But when it is time to talk about these women musically, folks get shifty and bored and start derailing the conversation so that they can get into a conversation about folks who are doing this "better" and also happen to be dudes.

AMANDA: Yeah, it's sad. And it's not in any way confined to the world of music. You can find the same patterns with pot, and with comics, and with goth, and sometimes in the gay community (D.C. has like one lesbian bar and a jillion gay bars, and gay men are much more visible, perhaps because they don't even require the girlfriends), and can I tell you about the awful things I've heard about what happens to some women who are into Ren Faire stuff? GROPE-CENTRAL, for when the male and female nerds congregate for their yearly olde-tyme fantasy shindig, the misogyny, it is also olde-tyme.

Male-Dominated Subculture C: Nerd.

SADY: Oh, man! And, yes: I think we even did a Ye Olde Sexist Beatdowne, about this, in Oldyn Tymes! My experience of lady-nerds is that they tend to be huge and fairly hardcore feminists. And I was like, "that's funny, I never thought of feminism as a particularly nerdy thing," but then I realized (a) I was on the Internet, and (b) male nerd subculture tends to be like INTENSE in its misogyny! Lady-nerds seriously grab on to feminism like it is a buoy and they are drowning, because it is! And they sort of are! And women in music sometimes do the same thing, see: Riot Grrrl, duh. Formed in reaction to dudes with floppy Kurt Cobain haircuts, at least one of whom was ACTUALLY KURT COBAIN. (Though he was a huge feminist, God bless.)

AMANDA: Yeah. It's not that I don't appreciate and understand men who are alternative in appearance or interest or values or whatever needing a space that's outside the mainstream that's their own.

SADY: Maybe they could all become Male Studies Majors?

Male-Dominated Subculture D: Male Studies.

AMANDA: BUT. I wonder if some of the disconnect here is in these guys thinking that their asymmetrical haircut or interest in Magic: The Gathering is like the most intensely othering experience that a human can have? And are unaware that there are some other people around who may have that experience of being othered no matter which subculture they attempt to access.

SADY: Right. Exactly. And, on that note, I think we've been talking about how women are viewed as Objects of the Male Gaze, or how they try to fit in to male-dominated subcultures. BUT, I think we should also note that women in rock music have been some of the most enduring models for female rebellion? Like, as in many cases, I find that the solution for not liking the scene you are in is to (a) make your own scene, which is (b) comprised of girls. Which is why we keep talking about Riot Grrrl in 2010. Or ladies who were never really IN a scene, like PJ, or Liz Phair, who wrote an entire album about how sick she was of the dudes in her scene, or Tori Amos, who was like, "well, I can't play your fancy guitars, gentlemen, but I did take some piano lessons!" And the extent to which the ethos of Tiger Beatdown is informed by the PJ Harvey song "50 Foot Queenie" is NOT TO BE UNDERESTIMATED. Hey: I'm the king of the world. You wanna hear my song?

AMANDA: Haha. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

SADY: Yes, no matter what PJ Harvey had to get through to become PJ Harvey, she did in fact record the sound of herself playing guitar really loud and screaming the phrase "YOU BEND OVAH, CASANOVA" and thus, I think, became a model for A Certain Variety of Conflict Management for many a lady person.

Emo shot by xJasonRogersx; sexy stormtroopers by RyanWelshPhotography.com; both Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Two important developments in the World of Men this week:

1. A group of scholars, led by a man with the almost suspiciously masculine name of Lionel Tiger, established a new discipline of gender studies: Male Studies. Male Studies differs from the already existing discipline of Men's Studies in that it is devoted to studying the "male as male," as opposed to the "male as Easter Bunny" or whatever Men's Studies is passing off as scholarly research nowadays. Also, Male Studies really fucking resents Women's Studies. Cage match, anyone?

2. Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, the preeminent scholar in the field of Lady Business Studies, invited some men to talk about their experiences for once. Sady's Visions of Manliness series (see A, B, and C) has addressed stuff like the simultaneous marginalization and privilege of trans men, ironically homophobic sports blogging, and how deeply Valentine's Day truly blows. Strangely, none of the posts are about how feminists have stolen their male identity, trampled upon their masculine phenomenon, and overall been super mean. In other words, this is total Men's Studies shit.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady and I YELL ABOUT THESE THINGS AND ALSO bell hooks SO JOIN US!

SADY: hello, Fellow Lady Person!

AMANDA: Why hello! I am prepared to speak about the experiences of . . . Men People.

SADY: About which I know, I will tell you, not a whole lot! Like, I have known Men People throughout my lifetime. Sometimes in the sense that they are related to me! Or friends! Or I have known them BIBLICALLY! But also, like, pursuant to the Liz Lemonism critique of Times Past, I feel like I am privileged in 99% of the ways that people can be privileged on this our planet Earth. And it frustrates me — and has been a schism in The Feminist History — that, as a lady who is so very fucking privileged, I'm allowed to concentrate so much on my own Oppression By The Man and not notice that some of The Men are going through their own bullshit.

AMANDA: Right. In the Oppression Olympics, I would not qualify for the finals. I would be disqualified in the first heat. I also am really no good with sports metaphors!

SADY: Well, The Man has staked his claim in those. BASICALLY WE NEED TO TAKE THE QUARTERBACK OF DISCOURSE TO THE GOAL NET OF DISCUSSION TO SCORE A HOME RUN HAT TRICK OF ANTI-OPPRESSION THEORY! Is my understanding.

AMANDA: I plan on blaming all of my deficiencies in forming metaphors, drawing conclusions, and overall making sense on my Oppression today. For the record.

SADY: I intuitively understand you, due to my woman's intuition. But, like, this is a long-standing Beef within the feminist community, in fact. Like, bell hooks covered it along with approximately everybody else.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, a distinction must be made between men and The Man.

SADY: Right. We oversimplify. And a ton of feminists have needed to clarify that "when we say 'men,' we mean the Platonic ideal of 'men!' The way 'men' are encouraged to behave and act and such!" And as a person who types the words 'dudes' and 'men' a lot, I am sympathetic. Because we DO need a word to denote all that junk. But, to revisit bell hooks for JUST A SECOND, here is how that works out in practice: Some white feminist ladies walk up to some ladies of color, and are like "join the cause, sister!" And the ladies of color are like, "sure, I've experienced sexism, let's go. On the way, can we talk about how you white ladies are enacting some bullshit that hurts me and also the men in my community?" And then the white ladies are like, "YOU ARE SO MALE-IDENTIFIED. WHY CAN'T YOU JOIN OUR GLORIOUS SISTERHOOD AND IDENTIFY AS A WOMAN FIRST."

AMANDA: Allow me to flip that dynamic around for a second, as I think the distinction between "Men's Studies" and the totally brand new discipline of "Male Studies" helps to illustrate that point. So, "Male Studies" just had its first conference on Wednesday, to declare "Male Studies" a thing, even though "Men's Studies" already exists and is welcoming of all who study men and masculinity. And the reason "Male Studies" has decided to branch off from "Men's Studies" is that Men's studies thinks too much about Women's Studies.

SADY: Oh, dear.

AMANDA: When there is just no reason to segregate these two studies, of course.

SADY: Well, unless you want to teach an entire seminar on barbecue grilling!

AMANDA: And I think feminism suffers from the impulse to segregate the experiences of people and treat our cultural systems (patriarchy, masculinity, femininity, race, class) as separate fields, and I think my work often suffers from that distinction, actually.

SADY: Well, I mean, to be honest, mine does, too. Mostly due to my vast narcissism, and the fact that I write mostly about my own experiences!

AMANDA: Right.

SADY: You could run over my foot with a shopping cart at the Costco, and I'd write this very ideological post that was like, "SHOPPING CART PRIVILEGE: Does It Lead You To Run Over My Foot, and Are You A Monster? Yes."

AMANDA: But it's a very tricky thing to attempt to write about the experiences of others, and that's why your masculinity series is so great! TIGER BEATDOWN PLUG!

SADY: Which is why I try to bring other people into the discussion.

AMANDA: But what about, in addition to bringing in these voices, also writing about issues that don't directly affect us and which we can't talk about from personal experience? I think it's important to do that too, but I think it's a lot trickier.

SADY: Right. And also, you have to be open to getting yelled at! Is my experience!

AMANDA: Agreed!

SADY: Because there's a big difference between "speaking about these things that do not affect me directly" and "speaking FOR these people who are having these experiences because I am A GENIUS and get your experience way better than you do." But, like, it is easy to cross the line?

AMANDA: Yeah. It is. And that's where the productive yelling comes in.

SADY: So you have to be a good listener, ESPECIALLY when people are yelling.

AMANDA: But, so, then I also sometimes get yelled at if I write about how something affects men? I get the "O but what about the menz!!!!!" comments. I don't know why it's written like an Internet cat is saying it, but it is. Even though I write about women a whole lot!

SADY: They are all basically internet cats, those dudes, though. Like, if you write a post about Vajazzling, to use a totally fictional example, and people are like, "did you know some dudes get CIRCUMSIZED??? Monstrous! Your vagina post has inspired me to talk about the ill fates of penises, instead, and at length!' Like, at a certain point, the "WHAT ABOUT ME" posts from dudes are just blatantly obnoxious, and blatantly intended to keep women from writing about their OWN experiences of manliness, ill or well.

AMANDA: Yeah. I have a good friend who is hurt that I don't write on the expectations on men to move furniture for girls.

SADY: OH MY GOD. OPPRESSION! I too am disappointed that you have not covered this topic Amanda! Also: Being asked to open pickle jars. WORSE THAN DEATH???

AMANDA: Well I'm waiting to roll out my big investigative series. On the possible lingering lower back problems.

SADY: "Once I Had To Carry Your Books Up Some Stairs: A Post About Traumatic Experiences, By A Dude."

AMANDA: But, I write about a lot of really minor shit that women are expected to do and about how these very little things are reminders of society's expectations of men and women. And a lot of times men get really pissed when I do that, too! For it is annoying to be forced to think about.

SADY: Right. I mean, here's the thing: I'm a lady who gets called out on my privilege. A lot. As I see it, my job description is: Write about lady stuff, try to remember not all ladies have exactly the same life as I do, listen when ladies with different lives are like "uh, you missed something." So the plague of dudes on the Internet who are like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN LADIES EXPERIENCE THINGS DIFFERENTLY THAN I DO, SOMETIMES NOT WELL?!???!" Like: I try to listen to people EVERY SINGLE DAY, dude, and I haven't actually had an aneurysm and died yet, so maybe it's not actually that fucking hard. You know? The Internet is not a thousand little knives stabbing you in the face. The Internet is some people talking. In conclusion, calm down.

AMANDA: Yeah. And that's when things get tough, for me, when we start talking about the experiences of men like that. Because it's so obvious how our culture is constructed to make guys like that never have to—and to actually avoid—listening to a woman's experience, just as it's constructed to help white people avoid listening to anyone else, and straight people, and cis people, &c.

SADY: Yeah. But then you have things like "Male Studies," where "The male as male will be permitted to appear in all his complexity as new values are being forged and traditional values that have proven the test of time are affirmed."

SADY: And I get the feeling those traditional values that have proven the test of time kind of involve OPPRESSING THE VAST MAJORITY OF MALES???

AMANDA: Yes. And that traditional man has always been permitted to appear. It's all the other men who haven't. But Male Studies cuts them out of the picture when it devotes itself to "males as males," as if we're only talking about one very clearly defined and biologically determined type of person.

SADY: Right. Because "the male as male" means cisgendered. It means straight. It means white. It means, like, a lot of shit! Actually! As it is commonly employed! Everybody else, if they can even get recognized as dudes, is treated in the discourse as, "well, okay, you're a dude. But a SUBSET of dude. We have trouble imagining you as a character on 'Mad Men,' so, like, clearly you're not a part of the glorious history of The Male As Male to the same extent." But here's the thing. The ominous thing that I always phrase in a manner that brings to mind, like, the James Cameron movie 'Aliens.'

AMANDA: Okay.

SADY: All of those dudes excluded from the discourse of Traditional Old-Fashioned-Swilling Wife-Cheating-On Empowered Non-Chest-Waxing Masculinity? And all of the ladies? Add it up. THERE ARE MORE OF US than there are of anyone else. Which is why we need to start fucking talking to each other more.

AMANDA: This reminds me more of that Beyonce song than Aliens, but I see what you're getting at.

SADY: Like, if we start looking at "masculinity" as this very exclusive concept that has all of these other concepts and privileges packed into it, then we get to my I Went To Liberal Arts College And Have Simplistic Ideas Place where, like... we can create a discourse without you, substantially, Ultimately Privileged People. If we can get over our own bullshit and have each others' backs, we can do a lot. And maybe this conversation needs to take place on THOSE terms. Provided you're okay with getting yelled at when you fuck it up. Also, I have had three beers, because it's hot. THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE SOBER!

AMANDA: NO IT WILL NOT. And I will fight to the death for men to gain the right to drink as much as women do without being labeled irresponsible sluts who deserve whatever is coming to them.

SADY: Yes! Also, that person who ran over my foot in the Costco: A MONSTER. I think we need to centralize this issue. Because that hurt.

AMANDA: Kumbayah!

Photo via George Eastman House

In this edition of Feminist Dream Phone Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I help all the hetero feminist ladies out there find a man! There's been some very Serious Feminist Literature written on the subject of Feminist Dating as of late, covering such important topics as establishing a feminist litmus test and learning to sarcastically accommodate man-children. What is this discussion missing, besides more hamburgers? Personal information about Sady and I, apparently!

Important Note: This Sexist Beatdown will make a lot more sense if you imagine Sady and I throwing sassy hand signals (such as "the hand") at various points throughout the dialogue, inserting the word ". . . girl" before and after each of our sentences, and exiting to the enthusiastic applause of hundreds of single women at the discussion's conclusion. Thank you.

AMANDA: Hellooo.

SADY: Why, hello! First, allow me to extend a brief litmus test to you, to determine whether we may chat.

AMANDA: OK.

SADY: My litmus test is: Rape Culture! Are you a fan?

AMANDA: Fuck, I know this one. I know this. I'm going to go with "not a fan"?

SADY: A-ha! We may proceed!

AMANDA: Great! Can I also request that we make this a speed Sexist Beatdown, because I reeeaaaally need to go eat this hamburger pretty soon?

SADY: Sure! The thing is, my own Litmus Test (which is not so much a Litmus Test as a Litmus GRE, I must admit) is not that much more subtle.

AMANDA: OK cool. So do you have an actual, like, question you will ask a potential boyfriend?

SADY: Personally, I just talk about feminism all the damn time. There are no questions! There are only answers! Answers provided by ME!

AMANDA: Right. Yes. That tends to be pretty effective in weeding out a whole lot of people.

SADY: I find myself a little unbearable. But I, like, hit on a guy and then transition into talking about Dworkin's thoughts on the Tolstoy marriage in “Intercourse” (ACTUALLY HAPPENED; TRUE STORY TIME) and if their genitalia withers at the mention of the name of Andrea D, well, that's when I find out!

AMANDA: And did it? Wither?

SADY: We are dating now! This man and I!

AMANDA: The genitalia doth not wither! I actually haven't been on the market since I became insufferably outspoken on the issue of ye olde rape culture, so I haven't been able to have that really fun experience yet.

SADY: Ha, yeah. Can I tell you it will be TERRIFYING? (Not that you are going to break up with your boyfriend. But! I am going to talk about me now, because that is my area of expertise and interest!) It is the worst part of breaking up. You are like, "but I can't break up with you! I became a FEMINIST BLOGGER! Now I'm NEVER going to get laid EVER AGAIN!”

AMANDA: I have heard, "You talk about rape all the time," from the significant other, who tolerates it. And he's not wrong. I feel like there are feminists, and then there are professional feminists, and if you are lucky enough to get within genital-withering distance of a professional feminist, then you're going to have to listen to a lot of theories about rape. But I imagine it's kind of like a lot of things? For example, I often have to silently log government acronyms in my brain that I will never understand, and it is something that I generally tolerate. But I feel like it's made out to be scarier or more annoying when the shop talk that is boring you to tears on your first date is of the Feminist persuasion.

SADY: Right. Because you have to navigate it. It actually has to be a topic of conversation, like: "Look. Look at me. This lady right here? Feminist. We can't avoid that. Let's talk about how I won't genitally mutilate you over a disagreement, as you may have heard The Feminists enjoy doing from time to time." But when you are not a Professional Feminist, when you are just Regular Feministing It Up, I feel like it is almost harder.

AMANDA: Because it's not necessarily the first thing that a potential partner knows about you?

SADY: Yeah. And because you can't be like, "but actually I know my shit on this topic, enough to get paid for knowing it from time to time." You are just a wacky lady with a cute little hobby of thinking she's a person and stuff, and people don't treat it with the same level of respect.

AMANDA: Oh word. God getting laid is so hard.

SADY: It really is! It amazes me that people ever manage it! And (FOR ME!) I didn't have the same level of confidence, Back in The Day, so I'd try to slip it in there on like the ninety-seventh date and in a very quiet way, whereas now I am like, "oh. Right. I got this."

AMANDA: The only thing I truly remember addressing in previous relationships is the pro-choice thing, which has direct and immediate application to having sex with a person.

SADY: Ha, right. I was very up-front about birth control. Still am! Still talk about it! Because, that is my own personal body we are discussing! But also I would go to ninety-seven Judd Apatow feature films with you and sort of quietly stew and not tell you what was wrong. You know what I recommend though? Is, like, looking around for dudes who do the feminism.

AMANDA: But where?

SADY: Uhhhhh... the Internet? I think a lot of feminist ladies who blog on the Internet date or have dated or are currently dating feminist or political dudes who blog on the Internet. Seriously like three separate feminist ladies I have talked to have been like, "and we met through work." Or, "and we met because of The Blogs." And I totally recommend that! Actually! Because like more or less all your junk is out there already, and that is easier than doing your Missionary Work (ZING PUN BLAM) and trying to convert anybody. So, Step 1: Start feminist blog. Step 2: Meet dude who runs feministish blog. Step 3: Scientifically determine dude is awesome. Step 4: PROFIT??? IN THE ROMANTIC ARENA????

AMANDA: I have this hilarious image of a single lady like walking into a Men Can Stop Rape meeting and being like, "well HELLO feminist allies," all sexy like. Kind of like That Guy who shows up at a pro-choice rally in a "This Is What A Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt in an attempt to get some ass.

SADY: Oh, dude. If they figured it out, it would be OVER. It would be like the weird guy who walked up to you after Women's Studies classes to say you'd Opened His Eyes, creepily, times a thousand.

AMANDA: I think I'm still at a stage in my Comfort With Internet where when I am going out with a person I met over the Internet, I'm really self-conscious about it. Like, "Oh, I'm going to get a drink with someone. YES WITH MY INTERNET FRIEND. WITH MY INTERNET FRIEND OKAY." But I'm realizing that the Internet is becoming more like Real Life now so it's not so tortured. And why not cultivate sex partners that way, I guess! I just wonder if being a feminist and dating requires more of a premeditated campaign than having some other particular hangups and dating... I mean, I think it can just happen naturally, like anything else. Not that the Internet is unnatural! Oh god! Oh GOD.

SADY: JUDGER. Yeah. I mean, I always want to meet people From The Internet if I work with them, to REMOVE that creepy "it's like a friendship, but on the Internet" feeling. Then it's just a friendship. But maybe there should be like a feminist J-Date! Oh, my God, I just became an online dating entrepremillionaire. Just by typing that sentence.

AMANDA: F-Date. F-Fuck.com. There are possibilities.

SADY: YES. GOOD. MARK THE DOMAIN NOW.

AMANDA: It is shockingly unclaimed!

SADY: NO TIME FOR CHATTING! GOT TO ESTABLISH ONLINE FEMINIST-EXPLOITING CAREER!

AMANDA: I only date other professional exploiters of feminism, personally.

SADY: And at last, we discover the true purpose of both feminism and the human desire for companionship: To Make Us Money.

AMANDA: Excellent! So now that we've solved the Feminist Dating Dilemma, I guess I can go eat a burger now?

SADY: You eat that burger, my friend. And I myself will be making some pasta and cashing in harder than you've ever seen. The next time you see me, I will be eating a burger made from a cow cloned for me personally. Because that's how feminism works.

According to Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown's ex-boyfriends, Sady Doyle bears a striking resemblance to 30 Rock anti-heroine Liz Lemon. "The popular television sitcom 30 Rock premiered in the year 2006," Doyle writes. "Since that time, each man that I have dated has made a point of saying how much I remind him of the main character on that show, Liz Lemon. They said this, in each case, while we were breaking up."

Doyle goes on to catalog all the ways in which the two have been compared: Being born to parents who enjoy gifting flavored popcorn; displaying marked difficulty in putting on clothes correctly; being a "shortish, thinnish, smartish brunette woman who writes, has fairly stylish glasses, and is a bit high-strung"; feminism. It's that last bit that inspires Doyle to "both hate and love Liz Lemon"—for Lemon's particular form of feminism, which Doyle coins "Liz Lemonism," works to awkwardly reflect back all the horrific failures of the feminist movement.

And so! In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady Doyle and myself as we discuss Liz Lemon's insufferable and endearing flaws; the perceived space between Tracy Morgan and Tracy Jordan; and the other women of 30 Rock—delusional Jenna Maroney, ditzy Cherie Xerox, and the perpetually absent Girl Writer.

AMANDA: Hi, Liz.

SADY: Why, hello, Fellow Liz! I have forgotten to ask you: Do you too suffer from Liz Lemon Identification Syndrome? It is a pervasive illness!

AMANDA: I look nothing like Liz Lemon. However, I do have some similar personality traits. For example, I am an annoying white lady who talks about feminism. And I'm really bad at eating without getting food everywhere.

SADY: Ah, yes. Such are the symptoms! I would say that you remind me, in face yet not in personality, of the other On-Screen Blogger Surrogate Of Our Times, Amy Adams. BUT THAT IS A DIFFERENT STORY!

AMANDA: I talk to my cat! (I don't have a cat). But I would talk to it. To my fantasy cat.

Exhibit B: White lady blogger Amanda Hess, with glass boot; white lady blogger Julie Powell, with lobster. I don't see it, but seriously, doesn't Sady look a lot like Liz Lemon? It's uncanny!

SADY: I think talking to an imaginary cat is even more Jane Sadwoman, as an experience, than talking to an actual cat that you own. So I would say this qualifies. Okay, SO. I have been watching 30 Rock a lot while I answer my e-mails this afternoon. And I was particularly fond of the recent episode "Anna Howard Shaw Day," which for me summarized the Lemonist problems really, really neatly. Because, like, Liz is all talking feminism and making up separate feminist holidays which coincide with The V, simply so that she will not have to deal with the fact that she does not have an—oh noes!—Boyfriend Who Loves Her. So that's one example of a pretty common form of feminist narcissism I fall prey to.

AMANDA: That episode was brilliant. I'm of the opinion that Liz Lemon is the best TV feminist hero that we could ask for, because she is just so awful in all the ways that feminism is awful.

SADY: Haha, EXACTLY. And there's a moment where she's talking to a receptionist, who's like a Caribbean black woman, and she calls her "sister." And then is like, "not in a black way! Or, in a black way because I'm also black! OH FUCK NO I'M NOT!" And, like, on the one level that's a really neat puncturing of well-meaning white lady racism. And on the other hand, LIZ FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

AMANDA: Yeah, but the amazing thing is that they manage to make her likable.

SADY: You are so right: She shares the sins of a certain privileged feminist lady, and that is why we love her, and that is why we sometimes want to throw things at her. She just means so well and often knows so little. But she also really likes Batman, so.

AMANDA: I mean she's racist, she is devoted to Oprah, she is adopting a baby for no reason, she has had sex to get ahead in her job, she blames her problems on other people, and she's awesome. What I'm interested in, though, are the points in the show where there are racist and sexist tropes that aren't employed simply to show how flawed the heroes are ... that are just racist and sexist tropes Tina Fey uses to make funny jokes. You know?

SADY: Yeah. Like, I mean: We can talk about Tracy Jordan. Because my understanding is that Tracy Jordan, the character, is very much like Tracy Morgan, the comedian. But the way plots are structured around him, as a crazy irresponsible childlike black man who these white people have to look after and keep on track, are just kind of . . . uncomfortable-making. And you've got other characters of color, like Jonathan and Dot Com and Grizz and Twofer, who DON'T fit stereotypes, and often serve to point up the racism, BUT. Tracy is the guy who gets the most focus.

AMANDA: Right, and I wonder how much of Tracy Jordan is really Tracy Morgan, and how much of Liz Lemon is really Tina Fey, & c., and how much the characters exist to comment on and poke fun at the people behind the show. I mean, I feel like everyone is a lot more eager to be like, "Tracy Morgan is JUST LIKE HIS CHARACTER!" than they are to do that with Tina Fey, who everyone sort of recognizes is this amazing writer, actor, and businesswoman and totally beautiful lady who is self-consciously commenting on her own character through this incredibly flawed person. Because Liz Lemon is none of these things. I mean, she's a terrible writer.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. The whole "Tracy Jordan IS Tracy Morgan" thing kind of serves to strip the actor of any credit for this character he's created. The idea is just that he's SO WACKY and they somehow manage to capture his innate wackiness on film. Through... carefully worked-out scripts that go through several drafts and are shot in several takes and probably take lots of rehearsing? Like, it's not like everyone else has a script and then Tracy Morgan just comes in drunk at three in the afternoon and says some silly shit and leaves. That wouldn't be as funny as what he's actually doing.

AMANDA: Yeah.

SADY: I would buy that Alec Baldwin does that, though!

AMANDA: It's interesting, because I think 30 Rock's great innovation was taking the idea of the Generic Stand Up Comic Who Plays Himself In A Different Situation and subverting that, so that Tina Fey is playing herself, but this completely bizarro version of herself. That's why I can get with the constant jokes about Liz being ugly, because I feel like there's a self-consciousness there. Although it does go overboard sometimes. But with Tracy, I feel like it's the opposite, and people really get a thrill out of thinking he is the guy, which, who knows how much of him is in that character.

SADY: Yeah. And, I mean, the dichotomy you pointed out fascinates me: actual Tina Fey is this huge celebrity who's happily married and has a daughter and seems like a very fulfilled lady and everyone in the world knows her to be pretty. Liz Lemon is none of the above, and maybe wants to be, but feels completely unsuited for it; it's like she's that girl who lives in your head, your worst-case scenario version of yourself, and that's why so many people love her. But I keep getting really frustrated with the way they write Jenna. I used to love Jenna! Liz and Jenna! That was a friendship that I would buy!

AMANDA: I know. Jenna has lately descended into ridiculousness.

SADY: Right. First they didn't write anything for her, and now they write shit for her, and it's the most shrill misogynist stereotyping. Thanks, but NO THANKS.

AMANDA: She used to have this really interesting relationship with ridiculousness where she would always come back to being humanized after, like, skating around and singing about her muffin top.

SADY: Right! And you could tell that, like, she was the girl who'd hold you hostage at a party by singing to you because she was insecure about her job, or her friendship with Liz, or whatever, and it was a more human insecurity. And now it's just, like, she has exactly three qualities: 1. Kinda slutty, 2. Kinda whacked in the head, 3. Vain, and 4. Stupid. There are four qualities, apparently. THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!

AMANDA: I have to admit that I really like 30 Rock's other misogynist construction, Cerie.

SADY: Really? Do tell!

AMANDA: I don't know! She's just so pretty and nice and her last name is Xerox. I like her!

SADY: And I actually think the actress is funny, though it's hard to tell because the character isn't supposed to be. That very chill stoner voice she uses in every situation: It's great.

AMANDA: Yeah, I think a lot of the pleasure I get out of 30 Rock is more about the performance than anything else, and the space between the character and the actor, and I just really like her performance. The character, on the other hand ... not so awesome. I'm waiting for the episode where the stereotypes are upended a little bit for her, like when Frank becomes a lawyer.

SADY: Yes! That would be great. On the other hand, we got a show about Girl Writer, and that one... not so great. That's what really peeves me. We've gotten several good Frank episodes, good Twofer episodes although only in the early seasons, Lutz gets his jokes, there was even a JOSH episode, and then . . . It takes four years for the girl to get a speaking part and it ends with her getting date raped and Tracy not caring about it? YIIIIIIIKES.

AMANDA: Yeah. What was that?

SADY: And that's where the whole joke of Liz, "oh it's so hard to be a girl Making It in a room full of boys," falls apart. There's a girl! A girl right there! Trying to Make It also! And you two never talk?

AMANDA: Haha, no, she does not give a shit about that woman.

SADY: I have no idea. I actually think that 30 Rock makes some not-terrible, not pro-rape-culture rape jokes. Like saying that Elizabeth Banks was in MAXIM's "I'd Rape That 100," which: a) I'm always down for a joke at MAXIM's expense, and b) I think Tina Fey is too, because they had beef when MAXIM wrote about her not being pretty or funny or something a long time ago. But then it veers right into some weird shit. Like, I thought the "Jenna and her stalker" plot was funny, but I've know some ladies were just NOT. PLEASED.

AMANDA: Yeah, I wasn't offended by that, but I wasn't really committed to the entire thing. I thought it was OK funny-wise. I mean, whenever we turn to Jack's stories it's a lot of jokes at the expense of conservatives, and when we turn to Liz's stories it's a lot of jokes at the expense of liberals, and there's never too much controversy there. It's just funny. When we get into the other characters' storylines it's pretty much a toss-up because there's not a particular ideology we're supposed to be laughing at.

SADY: Right. Although, for me, the joy of 30 Rock is often in those side characters. Like, if I had thirty million dollars I would use it to fund a spin-off about Dot Com and Jonathan being roommates.

AMANDA: HAHA.

SADY: And Frank being their super.

It's all female condom all the time this week on the Sexist. Female condom in a rubber vagina! Female condom in the anus! But despite the exhaustive orifice coverage (do not insert the female condom into your mouth!), questions remain. Like, what does illustrious ladyblogger Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown think about putting the female condom into her vagina? And so on. In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady and I as we wipe off our female-condom-pre-lubed hands (pictured), prep our vaginas for FC2 landing, and get down to ladybusiness.

AMANDA: Sorry I'm late: I was inserting my female condom in anticipation of having sex up to eight hours from now.

SADY: Amanda, you know how much I value our friendship. Which is why I want you to understand something. PLEASE NEVER SAY THE PHRASE "I WAS INSERTING MY FEMALE CONDOM" EVER EVER AGAIN.

AMANDA: Deal. But the next 30 minutes of this female condom chat are going to be excruciating for me.

SADY: It's hard for me to think of "female condom chats" WITHOUT thinking "excruciating." I know I am judgey and a poor former condom merchant and/or safe sex advocate for feeling this way.

AMANDA: Hey Sady, we're just two ladies hanging out talking frankly about our vaginas. The most natural thing for two women to talk about! (Actually we have talked a lot about vaginas, I am realizing, in this series).

SADY: Well, I guess we... have them in common? Okay, let's talk about something that is NOT vaginas. Let's talk about dicks. Because here's how I feel about dicks.

AMANDA: I'm listening.

SADY: HERE'S HOW I FEEL ABOUT DICKS! Dicks don't get pregnant. Dicks don't get their periods. Dicks don't get ANYTHING except boners, and also occasionally hilarious Hits in the Crotch on old episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos.

AMANDA: Haha, yeah!

[youtube:v=0zGLas2q31E]

SADY: Dicks have like one responsibility in the world, which is to put condoms on themselves when they are having the penetrative intercourse. AND NOW THEY'VE PUT THAT ONE ON US TOO?

AMANDA: Yes they have! And women around the world are as skeptical as you are. The thing about the female condom is that it's really great for women who can't force their male partners / clients whatever to use the male condom, and so they need a first line of defense.

SADY: Yeah. Fair enough.

AMANDA: For women who don't have that very terrible problem, though, I'm not seeing it really catching on? However, I have this idea that I would like to sell to the female condom manufacturers, which is that they give a grant to porn manufacturers who will work to eroticize the female condom in their work. So then one day like 10 years from now, old people will be like, "what are these 'money shots' and 'bikini waxes' and 'female condoms' the young kids are using nowadays?" And then there will finally be gender equity in condom sales.

SADY: Wow. Porn truly does solve everything! But can we go back to that "you won't put on a condom and we need a barrier/STD-preventing method" thing?

AMANDA: Sure.

SADY: Because here's my theory: You, A Dude, want to sleep with me. I, A Lady, am not sure if we are monogamous and/or STD free. You are like, "but baby, why can't YOU put this bag up your bits?" I am like, "this is the quickest I have ever lost interest in a sexual encounter. See you later, dude!" Like: If you are not responsible enough to wear the condom, you're not responsible enough to be having sex with me, basically.

AMANDA: Yeah. I have never heard of a man who would prefer the lady coat her vagina with a bag? But I did speak to one man who has sex with men who has used the female condom, and he had this to say about it: "When I’ve been a top—the insertive partner—what I’ve liked about the bottom wearing the device is that my penis wasn’t wrapped in plastic.” So, there's that.

SADY: I mean, okay. Sure. I get that. Did your interview subject mention the fit issues? I mean, I hear it fits well, but the thing I have always admired about condoms — the skinny jeans of the birth control world — is that they are so specifically tailored. Does the female condom, according to your journalistic research, share this virtue?

AMANDA: OK, so I'm not going to repeat the phrase that must never be repeated.

SADY: OH JEEZ.

AMANDA: But I did shminshmert the shmemale shcondom the other day, when I was, you know, just hanging out and bein' a lady, and it does, like shconform to the insides of your shvagina.

[youtube:v=mnyC_v0-DQ4]
How to shminshmert the female condom

SADY: Okay, so here's the thing: you like put it in and then hang out, though? Like, actually that might be a virtue! Because you don't have to go through that "oh crap where are the condoms rummage rummage rummage HANG ON additional rummaging" deal.

AMANDA: Well, you don't have to hang out, but you can hang out. (Up to eight hours before intercourse!) I mean, personally, I never really stopped feeling it so I wouldn't exactly suggest it. But maybe you get used to it. The thing is, nobody like, actually prefers sex with a condom, but it's a necessity in a lot of sexual situations, and it's conceivable that some couples might prefer the female condom. I just think it's really difficult to get that trend to pick up enough speed that those specific people a) actually try the condom and b) feel comfortable using it.

SADY: Oh, sure. And let me respond to your very serious and useful and responsible point with this: I am one of those people who occasionally gets all "OH WHAT THE CRAP WHERE ARE MY GLASSES," and looks for them for about fifteen minutes, and then looks at A MIRROR, and is like, "oh." I have looked for my headphones whilst wearing my headphones. If I ever shminsmerted the shmemale shmondom, basically it would be in there for life, is what I'm saying. I would seriously forget about it.

AMANDA: Yeah, the other thing is, like, peeing? You will have to pee at some point.

SADY: Oh, yeah, THAT.

AMANDA: Because it's really a full-coverage device, so I imagine it would get some pee on it? Perhaps there is some sort of accessory you can buy that aids in that process.

SADY: God. Somehow this ends with people getting like a female condom and one of those Shenis things you pee through and vajazzling ALL OF IT and... So yeah, I think we've established that I am one of those backward ladies that is like, "a FEMALE condom? Never!" Although, yeah, new barrier methods are good. That's undeniably true. And now, based on my reactions, I can see what it would be like to be one of those "I hate condoms" dudes. I HAVE BECOME THE THING I HATED.

AMANDA: And now I know what it's like to walk around with a condom in my vagina. Minimum rustling, I must say!

SADY: Okay, like, I have to say... Nobody is making these dudes put the condoms on over their lunch breaks so that they can come and have sexy dates with us later.

AMANDA: That's the weirdest thing about the female condom promotion, to me: They say that because you can pre-insert it, it "doesn't interrupt lovemaking." But it interrupts, like, other shit? Like my lunch break, or my peeing schedule, or what have you.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I think your idea for a line of Female Condom-Centric Porn is actually a good one. Because right now this is like the least erotic idea in the world. But... dude condoms weren't initially perceived as a great idea, EITHER?

AMANDA: Right.

SADY: Like, I read this old issue of I think Cosmo from the sixties or seventies once, for a feminist media project, and it had this "revolutionary" article about all the different kinds of birth control there were. And condoms were mentioned. And the article, AS I RECALL (I am not quoting) was like, "I know you think these are for prostitutes, but you can use them too," and also they interviewed a guy who had tried this Strange New Birth Control Method, and he was like, "OMG so unnatural! Like having sex with a garbage bag!" And now it's just like... condoms, you know? They're at Duane Reade, they're understood to be commonplace, and nobody wants to hear you whine about them. Like I said: The very NOTION of a condom that I myself might wear has somehow transformed me into a person who thinks like a gross-ish dude.

AMANDA: Yes. And either you'll look back on this moment 30 years from now and say, "That is the moment I officially became an old person who is resistant to change," or, "That is the moment I officially became an old person because I even know what a female condom is, and no young people have ever heard of that shit, in the Future." Time will tell!

SADY: Right. When we're all wearing our Holo-Helmets and having Virtual Sex on our Google Entire Fake Universe Dates, the female condom, and indeed the male one, will be unnecessary. I for one look forward to that day.

Vajazzling, the latest trend in Swarovski crystal vaginal bejewelment, debuted on the national vaginal stage this January. And somehow, it has not yet retreated to the dark recesses of minor celebrity Jennifer Love Hewitt's panties, from which it came. Vajazzling has reinvigorated Hewitt's celebrity ("It shined like a disco ball"). Vajazzle specialists are popping up everywhere ("Aww, c’mon, this is gonna be great by the time you’re all done Vajazzling!”). Vajazzling has even caused one man, who we will call Jason, to look directly at a vagina ("It’s mesmerizing . . . This is probably the longest I’ve ever stared at a vagina").

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I discuss the latest trends in Vajazzling (vajazzle your vagina in the shape of a vagina!), why some men who like putting their penises inside vaginas are adamantly opposed to any other aspect of vaginas, and vajazzling's inevitable male counterpart: Dickerating.

SADY: I have to tell you, to see you here today is as dazzling a sight as a gloriously bejeweled vagina!

AMANDA: Ah, yes. A butterfly bejeweled vagina or a kitten bejeweled vagina? For vaginas come in many forms of bejewelery.

SADY: I myself am having my vagina bejeweled with the face of Biggie Smalls.

AMANDA: From what I understand, the only shape in which you can not bejewel a vagina is the shape of a vagina, as I suspect the motivation of Vajazzling is to distract from the idea that the vagina is there, and it is in fact a vagina.

SADY: RIGHT? Like, I mean: I hate to be a jerk here, but if you need my vagina to dress up for this party, my suspicion is that it is not going to be much of a party. Not to be all second-wave, but the continuing impulse to make ladyparts look less like themselves and more like gifts you would get from your dingier variety of novelty shop, next to the lava lamps, bespeaks some ill to me.

AMANDA: The good news is that for the most part I think everyone believes this to be a ludicrous practice. Then again, I have not rolled with Jennifer Love Hewitt's posse, so I may not be aware of the full scope of opinions on how much a woman's vagina ought to look like the back of a 7th grade girl's cell phone.

[youtube:v=NnUloWnKjg4]

SADY: Right. I mean: I think "Vajazzling," much like Chat Roulette or the Sex & the City bus tour of New York, is one of those things that everybody writes about because no-one actually thinks it is a good idea. And yet... there are people on Chat Roulette? And I don't know, man. Like: I talk to girls about their Maintenance Routines, and it seems like there is always some new and trendy way to deal with what is going on there.

AMANDA: There are people who can write from experience: "Then we had sex, and none of the crystals fell off."

SADY: WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THAT AT SUCH A MOMENT????????

AMANDA: Yeah. And there's not a ton of self-reflection going on there. Even the most obvious of questions—like, Why am I bedazzling my vagina? And why has the dude I'm casually dating suddenly taken an interest in my genitalia?—are not being asked.

SADY: Right? Like, "Jason"—oh, Jason—is complimenting her with "this is the longest I've ever stared at a vagina." And given that Jason has grown up in our modern, pornographically-enabled age, I... doubt that this is the case, actually? But it might be the longest he's ever stared at HER vagina, and maybe that is the real issue here, you know?

AMANDA: Perhaps it is the closest he has gotten to like, putting his face close enough to maybe put his mouth on it?

SADY: "Sweetheart! I just noticed that there's something down there! Have you taken a look at this, because it's really wild!"

AMANDA: It is like people who bleach their assholes. How can you recover from an asshole-bleaching session and not wonder what the deal is with you requiring your asshole to be bleached?

SADY: Right. Like: I won't put bleach in my eye. FOR ANYONE. I don't care if you write me beautiful sonnets, if you are also like "and ah, the way you make me sigh / please stick some bleach into your eye," the answer is STILL NO. And I really don't think your asshole should be negotiable territory for bleaching EITHER. But what it reminds ME of, to take an even more extreme example, is that operation where you get your Business SURGICALLY CUT UP to be more attractive? "Labiaplasty!" It is a thing! And people do it! And then a year later their boyfriends or whatever STILL FEAR THE VAGINA so they have to make it look like a My Little Pony with vajazzling, I guess.

[youtube:v=25sW_f3Z_0k]

AMANDA: I just wonder why they still want to put their dicks in it? I mean, take the anal bleaching example—you're basically making your anus look less like an anus, so that your partner who enjoys placing their penis in your anus can do so without thinking about the fact that it's actually a real functioning asshole? Same with all these guys who claim to enjoy Tab-A-in-slot-B old fashioned heterosexual sex which includes sticking penises in vaginas, but who hate vaginas, actually, because they are icky. How do they rationalize those thoughts?

SADY: I have no idea. I mean: I do think it has got to be a fear thing. (JASON'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: "Okay, champ, this is going great, but whatever you do just don't look down! If you see the vagina, you'll panic! Play it COOL, MAN.") But also we need to note that although there ARE cosmetic procedures for penises, of the more or less invasive variety... nobody's really requiring dudes (with penises) to invest in them, you know?

AMANDA: Yeah. My theory: Sexual repression + Capitalism + Sexism = Vajazzling

SADY: Right. It's this very basic deal, as expressed by the fact that the Washington Monument is not an ovoid hollow in the ground, whereby penises are super and vaginas, although necessary, are basically H.R. Giger shit that would freak any reasonable person out. So you have to make them... like, really, REALLY infantilized, like to the extent of making them pink and sparkly and Lisa Frank binder-looking, to signify that they are female in the "harmless" sense rather than the "oh my God aaaaiiiiieeeeeeee" sense.

AMANDA: I am interested to know what a penis would look like if men were instructed to groom their penises so as to make them look less like penises.

SADY: Top hats? Draw a smiley face on it? I don't know. I know you're not putting crystals on that business any time soon. But when I start my new Dickerating business we'll find out.

AMANDA: I understand the crystals may not adhere to the male penis for a sufficient period of time. But there are places where our genital situations are not so different. So ... why aren't men encouraged to wax off all of their pubic hair?

SADY: Well, some are! But I've known girls who have expressed the idea that for a man to do so would be a sign of His Secret Gayness, and thereby a dealbreaker. I mean, why aren't men expected to shave their armpits? Hair is manly. For MEN.

AMANDA: So I just Googled the phrase "manlier penis"

SADY: OH GOOD. I ALWAYS KNEW IT WOULD COME TO THIS.

AMANDA: And I came across a Web site which suggests that men who want to visually lengthen the penis might want to trim their pubic hair, in order to create an illusion of sorts.

SADY: Wow. It's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat!

AMANDA: HOWEVER, "the ladies may want a manlier penis ‘ so to speak ‘ and this comes with pubic hair." Someday, when we achieve full gender equality, washed up male actors will write books about illusory pubic hair techniques.

SADY: You know, I don't necessarily NEED to have that much information about Freddie Prinze, Jr.? And yet, like you, I look forward to that day!

Photo via Dawn Ashley, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Hooking up: We know it's all the rage among kids these days! But for us Elderly Folk who are, like, three years out of college, questions remain.

For example: Sex is great and all, but wouldn't girls be happier if they consumed several meals paid for by men who clearly only want to fuck them before they gave it up? Would girls be better off if they just stepped away from the blow job, twiddled their thumbs in their parent's house, and waited until a suitor deigned to call? Hold on a second—don't different girls want different things out of a relationship? But more importantly, will hooking up EAT THEIR BRAINS?

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, these questions—and more!—will remain pretty much unanswered. But Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I will talk a lot about blow jobs, and other academic topics encompassed by the new field of Hook-Up Studies. Join us!

AMANDA: Well hello!

SADY: Hello Amanda. Before we go any further, I should let you know that I am not too "committed" to this chat. This chat will not buy you dinner! This chat will not visit your many relatives in Phoenix, Arizona! This chat is a "no strings attached" form of chatting.

AMANDA: Is this why I overheard you silently weeping throughout your college years?

SADY: And AT THIS VERY MOMENT, yes. Actually, I feel like the least qualified person in the world to discuss Hookup Culture! Since I have always been a visitor to it from my own home town of Serial Monogamyville.

AMANDA: And as such I assume that you have never had any boy problems!

SADY: Well, it's interesting. Did you know that if someone calls himself your boyfriend, and you are in a relationship in which there is substantially more emotional vulnerability in play, this person is LEGALLY AND MORALLY OBLIGATED never to hurt your feelings? Like, ever! To be fair, though, I think that the Simmons piece—and I have always really liked Rachel Simmons' work, so maybe I am partial – did have SOME interesting points in play. As did the amazing [Kate] Harding response!

AMANDA: And Amanda Marcotte's, too.

SADY: Oh, yeah. That did lay open some of the structural issues, in terms of what needs men and women are even allowed to HAVE, much less express. So what I think Simmons is saying is that if we have a "dating culture" where the obligation is to act like things are casual even if one or more parties would not like them to be, and if this is particularly based on the idea that the males are skittish creatures who will basically shit themselves and die if you are too affectionate or make it clear that you consider them boyfriends or whatever, well: peoples' needs don't always get served in this culture.

AMANDA: True, and I think one of the problems with most of the critiques about the "hook-up culture" is that they look longingly back on the "good old days," instead of admitting that perhaps there is a third option beyond accepting the "hook-up culture" as-is or going back to the 50s. Or the 1850s. People talk about it like it's "freedom to have sex!" or "abstinence," and forget that there are a lot of ways to have sex and to talk about having sex.

SADY: Right! Because, basically, sometimes people really DO want to just have some sex and not get too involved. And in a monogamy-and-courting-centric dating culture, THOSE peoples' needs (particularly if they be lady people) are shamed and hard to fulfill. So, yeah: I think Simmons is interesting, but (maybe inevitably) not really taking the WHOLE ENTIRE picture into account. What about shy dudes who see sex as this really intimate thing and get crushes afterward? What about them? They are missing from this analysis! They might also not be served by The Hook-Up Culture!

AMANDA: I've been constantly disappointed by the reluctance of researchers in the field of Hook-Up Studies to talk to boys about this stuff. I mean, I knew many guys in college who wanted girlfriends badly, and who were dissatisfied with casual sex.

SADY: Yeah. I mean: I have to tell you, that is one reason I am at the very least more charitable to the Simmons piece than I am to the many anti-hook-up screeds which I have delighted in tearing to pieces. Because a lot of them go so far as to MAKE UP BRAIN CHEMISTRY REASONS why a person who is a lady can never have casual sex, ever, without crying all over the binder on which she is compelled to write the dude's name 9,000 times.

AMANDA: Along with rough sketches of wedding dresses.

SADY: And plans as to what you will name your first baby. So at least Simmons is not gender-essentializing TOO much in that regard. But dudes and their vulnerabilities – and the problems with the idea that dudes want sex, nothing but sex, all the time, and that sex is therefore a good which women must trade in exchange for a dude agreeing to Totally Be Your Boyfriend OMG—always kind of get left out of these conversations, which is interesting to me.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, they tend to just support stereotypes. The women who are interviewed are all miserable about it, and the men are all just basking in the blow jobs. The End. There are no women who are getting what they want, and if we actually interviewed those women—I don't know—maybe we would come to a better model of sex?

SADY: Right! Exactly! I mean, I feel like a lot of OH NO THE KIDS ARE HOOKING UP is, like, just this weird hysteria over what are pretty common dating experiences.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, mistakes must be made. There's no use of us Elderly Folk attempting to make kids get it right on the first person they fuck.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. And, I mean: when you first meet someone, or even for a few months after meeting someone, you might be unsure as to what they want, and there's the potential that you might not know them that well (in fact, a certainty that you don't) and they therefore might turn out to be a jerk in various exciting ways. Like 97% of Jane Austen novels are about that! Except that nowadays, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy would have been banging ever since that first party they attended together, so you might end up having sex with someone while getting to know them. OH NO!

AMANDA: Oh, no. And it's not that I don't appreciate narratives about female sexual dissatisfaction. There are definitely a lot of structural ways that the dating culture values men's pleasure and devalues women's pleasure, and so if women aren't satisfied, I understand that! The problem is when you try to just stuff all women into another structure — well, maybe girls would be happier if they didn't give it up so fast — that also devalues them

SADY: Exactly. Like, that's the thing, and where I have to depart from "hook-up culture" critiques. If you, lady, will be sad if the guy you have sex with does not want to be Your Boyfriend, well... don't have sex with that guy? Like, conversations about consent and boundaries and why it is OK to have the needs you have without apologizing are a lot better, in my experience, than telling people to have sex or not have sex in these specific ways.

AMANDA: Right. The problem isn't with this "new trend" in sex, but that our sexual culture dutifully follows trends at all. I know this is not "cool" of me to say! But perhaps kids would be better off if we didn't crumple under the weight of hysteria over kids having sex and just emphasized that they should be having sex the way they want.

SADY: Exactly! And emphasized that you might want different things at different times, and with different people... like, it's not like I have never BENEFITED from The Hook-Up Culture. Sometimes you are just like, "okay, this dude and I are never going to run skipping through a field of daisies, but he is cute, though." And other times, you are like, "well, I don't necessarily want to be putting myself out there for someone unless I think that person and I have the potential to get along real well." And sometimes you are me! And you just don't care! Because you have one million other things to do!

AMANDA: Yeah. A recent study came out that said that abstinence-only education could be effective in delaying sex among young teens. And the headlines were like, "Abstinence-only education works!" I mean ... I guess it works if you think that the point of sex education is for people to just call the whole thing off because it's too hard? But really we should be focusing on what happens when kids DO decide to have sex—what that sex is like.

SADY: Yeah. And, I mean, that's where sex leaves the level of the biological and the health-related and the ideological and enters the realm of the personal. And, like... I don't think, no matter what "dating culture" we have, we are ever going to avoid the fact that girls are going to crush out on unavailable or unattainable dudes. Or dudes on the unattainable or unavailable ladies! I mean, we have basically explained the careers of Taylor Swift AND Megan Fox right here! But getting girls to the level where actual SEX is something they know they have options regarding and the right to say "no" or "yes" to depending on what is up at the moment... that probably should be the goal, yeah?

AMANDA: Right. Not just "sex" or "not sex," when you've heard that "sex" consist of "giving a guy who refuses to be your boyfriend a million blow jobs that are never reciprocated"

SADY: Haha, yeah. Let's just get to the point of "blow jobs should always be reciprocated." MAN, I have NO IDEA why I am not working in the public schools right now! "Ladies, blow jobs are fun... TO RECEIVE, THAT IS!!!!!" And that is the story of how Sady Doyle got sued by thirty sets of parents at the same time, the end.

Mistresses! Whenever a public figure takes one as a secret lover, Society at Large is obligated to publicly shame this woman for her untoward behavior. But just how much shame shall we pile on a woman accused of having sex with a man who has pledged to only have sex with one other lady? Use this handy guide to determine how much irrational hatred she deserves:

a) if she is a mysterious and beautiful Argentinian mother of two, leak romantic e-mails.

b) if she is a fertile campaign videographer, proceed with light mockery over musical tastes.

c) if she is a cocktail waitress, insinuate that she is actually a sex worker.

d) if she works in a strip club, lose all ability to refer to her as anything other than "stripper."

e) if she is a porn performer, release grainy video stills of her shaking her boobs in front of a fire truck.

f) if she is literally the Devil, insinuate that she is actually a sex worker.

In this week's edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I discuss why mistresses receive the brunt of all our projected self-hatred, wonder why the term "Mistress" has no male counterpart (I nominate "Mrstress"), and respectfully request that Tiger Woods set his Facebook statuses to private.

SADY: Mistresses!

AMANDA: Indeed. I have heard many sordid tales of their existence as of late.

SADY: sometimes, mistresses talk about being mistresses. At other times, they do not talk. In either case, it is fine to talk about them! For they are MISTRESSES, scourge of the "I am married to a cheater" world.

AMANDA: Can we talk for a second about this "mistress" business? Is there a word for the "mister" of a married woman? like a "Mrster"? Or something?

SADY: I prefer the term "Mister Mistress." Which is also the name of my new glam-metal band, in case you were looking for an update on that.

AMANDA: I think that was also a Hulk Hogan movie.

SADY: But really, we know that the appropriate word for "man mistress" is "totally rocking dude."

AMANDA: The only other term I can think of that is dismissive (dismistress!) in the same way is "pool boy."

SADY: Yeah. Basically, the only words we have for dudes who are being cruelly exploited for sex on the side by lady types are class (and often race) based.

AMANDA: Yeah. "Mistresses" (ugh) on the other hand, have to be cornered into this odd cultural Other Wife space, even though they are not married to this guy, and they actually have plenty of their own shit going on as well. They are still defined solely by this relationship.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, we have this strangely romantic Victorian version of the mistress, STILL. It is not just "I hooked up with a dude, he is married, sometimes I make bad decisions in my personal life," it is this strange thing where we still think of them as dissolute Women of Leisure who are sexfully attending to their patron's sexful needs while draped in diamonds which of course are the whole point. And I think, weirdly, though I definitely GET that intimacy and all of that are scary, and the fact that you could love someone and they could love hooking up with other people is really unsettling for just about anyone, our need to drag mistresses into the light and be like, "mistress! Behold ye alle this Creature, captured in thee most Wanton Abandon!" Well, it's people working out personal anxieties, sure. We WANT to hate them because then the people who are cheating on us are clearly choosing people lesser than ourselves. But also: it's a way of deciding which women are all right. A way of deciding what makes a good woman (being cheated on!) and a bad one (being cheated with!) if that makes sense.

AMANDA: Yeah, and I have found that to be a really weird part of the Sanford / Edwards ladies' narratives, where there is an attempt to make some sort of Character Coup out of being cheated on.

SADY: Well, but also, that excerpt from "Game Change," about the affair, went to great lengths to portray Elizabeth Edwards as a screaming, controlling harpy who clearly deserved to be cheated on.

AMANDA: But the thing that really disturbs me when people get to talkin' about cheating, is that we know that about 50 percent of married men and women (and men I think do it at higher rates than women, but not significantly higher) will cheat on their spouses at some point. And so all of this faux outrage tends to worry me, because either these people are just ignoring their own realities, or they are attempting to work out their personal issues by piling their hatred onto these women.

SADY: Right! And it is like: I would prefer people not to cheat on me. I am not a fan of cheating in general. I think it is a thing you should not do. And yet, affairs are such a commonplace part of human life that they form the basis of: much literature, much television, "Mad Men" specifically for like three seasons, many movies, music, and now apparently our salacious news headlines that are going on when also there is a huge recession which I find sort of important. So, when a marriage is found to contain cheating, and everyone panics gets all, "this is the worst thing! The worst thing that could happen! Ever! For marriage is a sacred covenant, united by God's holy tears of joy over the entwined bodies of lovers!" Well: but you know it happens all over, right? People just want to be clear that they are in the OTHER FIFTY PERCENT, maybe. Even right now, I am worrying that people are going to think I am a cheater because I am inappropriately freaked out by mistresses, strangely.

AMANDA: Cheater! Cheater! I think it's that people have always wanted to hold their public figures and role models to a higher standard than themselves, and that makes sense to me. But they also, now, want to bring them down to our level. Which is really easy! Because they have never been morally superior to us in the first place, and the news of their private lives has just been more strictly controlled. I think at some point we are going to have to just stop giving a shit, I guess? Because it is getting boring, to me. I don't think our 24-hour news cycle can endure the weight of all the revelations of cheating that will occur among the huge number of suddenly newsworthy people we're reporting on now. For example: I recently read a very large-fonted Huffington Post headling about Matthew Fox possibly cheating on his wife with a "stripper" (the most reviled form of Mistress!) How long can people keep clicking on that? Tell me it's not forever.

SADY: God. Okay, can we talk about this? Sex worker mistresses? One of Tiger Woods' mistresses was apparently a porn performer, and there is a lawsuit going on have been vague threats of a lawsuit which I don't clearly understand, but which has to do with her quitting porn for Tiger, and thinking she was his only girlfriend, and etc.

AMANDA: (I also don't understand the legal precedent here).

SADY: I think it is lost income? Because she stopped working due to their relationship? It does seem like a frivolous and fairly transparently mercenary deal, from all I can understand. And taking a dude to court over your failed relationship is a bit over-the-top. But also, people are just shocked, SHOCKED AND APPALLED, that a person who made PORNOGRAPHY could DARE to express hurt in public! Like: it is that, not the nature of the debate here, that is getting some I think unfair focus.

AMANDA: It ... has feelings?

SADY: She made PORNOGRAPHY Amanda! I do not understand it! I thought the pornography cameras stole your soul!

AMANDA: That is the rumor.

SADY: Like: that's the thing. Mistresses are always slutty, trashy, tacky, la la la. I think it is bad form to date a married dude, not least because what is the best-case scenario for YOU, Mistress, in this relationship? Dating a dude who hurts ladies' feelings? No. But when they are also sex workers—and there is always, if not a specifically Matthew-Fox-centric version of this rumor, a version of this rumor floating around— then they are basically the devil. Women get to be like, "and also, my husband cheated on me, and it was with Satan."

AMANDA: I think that the intensified shaming of the porn actress goes back to the idea of the Mistress as well being this woman who is committed to the married man, even though he is married. Tiger Woods has like a million "Mistresses" at this point, who are really just women he's seen at some point or another, and who were obviously not under any obligation to only have sex with Tiger Woods. But we are somehow encouraged to see them that way, because if you have sex with a married man, the only way to come out looking a tiny bit better in the public eye is if you were just so totally and hopelessly in love with him that you were sexually committed only to him, and all 12 of you thought he was the real deal, or whatever. Which is gross. Tiger Woods himself actually did get a little sensitive about his "Mistresses" seeing other dudes, from the literature I've read on the topic. So even Tiger couldn’t find a reasonable perspective on cheating with someone he was cheating on his wife with.

SADY: Right. Some mistresses get to be like, "well, but my heart and feelings were involved." And it helps if we can see them as not-at-all sexual outside of this relationship. But when a lady clearly engages in sexual activity elsewhere, people are like, "wait a minute! This is about FUCKING, isn't it? Gross!"

AMANDA: Right. Because if you're a porn star ... well, then, many other dudes who are not Tiger Woods have seen you, like, naked and stuff! Bad mistress! We grade Mistresses now.

SADY: Heart and feelings involved: A+

He really was getting divorced though and now also you have his baby: B+

Clearly having had sex with people not your Mistressifier: F. For Failure.

AMANDA: Being married to a guy who cheats on you with a woman who does porn: Priceless, or something.

SADY: Yeah. I feel for that lady. TO THE MAX. In conclusion, can we all just agree that sometimes DUDES who cheat are really the ones who Destroyed This Marriage, though?

AMANDA: Sure, but can we also agree that unless the dude in question is like a noted marriage advocate or some shit, I don't particularly want to see him stand on a podium and cry about it? Just go deal with your own business.

SADY: Yeah. Seriously. We are not Facebook friends, your Relationship Status Updates are not really my personal concern. TIGER WOODS IS IT'S COMPLICATED.

Image via Wikipedia Commons

After it was reported this week that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had used the phrase "fucking retarded" to refer to a group of Democrats, Sarah Palin took to Facebook to decry Emanuel's word-choice as a "slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities"—and to demand that Obama give him the ax. Prepare to get totally fucking deep into the philosophical import of a Sarah Palin Facebook update, everybody.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I parse the new Republican PC strategy, examine Palin's record on disability (it ranges from condescending to damaging), and propose that Palin's adoption of a far-left feminist talking point is a sign of the coming apocalypse.

SADY: Why hello!

AMANDA: Hello, m'lady

SADY: What shall we discuss on this fine morning? In my newly adopted 19th-century-dandy idiom, apparently?

AMANDA: Indubitably! Or something! I dunno: How about Sarah Palin's Facebook updates?

SADY: OH GOOD. I ALWAYS KNEW IT WOULD COME TO THIS. Yeah: What strikes me about this Facebook update, aside from the obvious "Oh God I am reading Sarah Palin's opinions on Facebook" feeling, is that her call-out of Rahm Emanuel is continually framed as being "not about politics." And yet, she is calling for someone in the White House to be fired? And going all, "the President is responsible for this! Directly responsible! WHY haven't I heard from him about it, hmmmmmmmm?" And that seems... political.

AMANDA: Yeah. Of course it is. Although the thing that struck ME about her Facebook entry was that she used euphemisms for two words: "F—ing" and "N-Word" but not for the word she was concerned with everyone banding about in this case. And another thing! It’s also kind of funny that Sarah Palin thinks that the President of the United States firing a member of his staff is, like, a reasonable result of a Sarah Palin Facebook update.

SADY: Well, you know: it is the POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA! But I mean, I keep thinking that the reason she's all, "this isn't about politics, it's about God's children and a patriot in Somewheresville and decency because life is precious, and God, and the Bible," is that she's playing kind of a rhetorical con game. In that disability IS a political issue, but it's one on which Sarah Palin happens to be on kind of the wrong side. So it has to be apolitical in her framing – even though her means are political – so that, you know, we don't get to politicizing it and figuring out some basic stuff like universal healthcare keeps disabled people from dying on the fucking subway platform where they live, and so on and so forth.

AMANDA: Right. Palin's concerns are clearly entirely political, and not at all about securing actual rights for the disabled. But even so: words are important, and Palin has gotten 13,841 people who probably do not give a fuck about this stuff generally to agree that using that word is offensive. She also got Emanuel to apologize, which I think is a reasonable expectation (compared to forcing him out of the administration).

SADY: Yeah. And, I mean, people are having a conversation about the word. People aside from the left-of-the-left people I'm used to seeing discussing the word.

AMANDA: However, now we also have people who hate Sarah Palin (and there are a lot of them) using that word in spite. Like this commenter: "Give us a break Sarah, the people he was addressing were acting retarded and that group didn't contain a single person you are defending. We all know he was not referring in any way to children or any other mentally challenged individuals." So, the way that we talk about this stuff is important. Starting this discussion in order to score an absurd political point—and refusing to engage in issues of disability beyond politics—isn't helping anyone.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. What kills me is that in the comments, people who are anti-Palin are starting to get really amped up about making "retarded" jokes to prove that they don't like Sarah Palin. Like, one guy just wrote "your baby is fucking retarded." Or there's this example of point-missing: "Come to think of it I believe Rahm Emmanuel has a mental deficit that he and his president fail to recognize or adknowledge." FROM A SUPPORTER.

AMANDA: Oh my goodness.

SADY: But I guess she said "mental deficit?" Because if she'd just said "Rahm Emanuel is fucking retarded," THAT would have been wrong? And that's where these language games get tricky. Because it's true: the only people I'm used to seeing discussing this are the left-of-the-left disability activists, often disabled feminists because that is where I roll, discussion-wise. But when it makes it into a more mainstream discussion, especially when it's tied to something this obviously disingenuous . . . You have someone who's making an ableist comment but isn't able to recognize it as such because she's only identified the PEJORATIVE WORD as the problem, not the attitude. Or people who now construe using the word "retarded" as a pejorative as a bold political act.

AMANDA: It's a can of worms. I do find it interesting that Sarah Palin, Republican darling, has taken it upon herself to become the queen of "PC" now, even though complaining about liberals forcing political correctness on the world is a treasured Republican pastime. And I think Sarah Palin does represent the worst kind of "PC," which is to be only "politically" correct, and not correct in your social policies, or the way you live your life, or your expectations of all people, but "correct" only in a way that sticks it to people you don't like.

SADY: Right. It's the use of certain, I guess we can call them "PC," actions to boost your own status as a righteous person rather than to make any change. And obviously she's always been selective with her PC—one of the great triumphs of Sarah Palin in politics is that she kind of, if not pioneered, then perfected the use of typically left ideals to shut down the left. Like, "sexism!" Which means not challenging my candidacy, but sticks because there is actual sexism on the left. Or, "choice!" Which... actually, I don't even know how "choice" applies to anything Sarah Palin has ever stood for.

AMANDA: Being brave enough to make the choice to keep a baby and then making the choice to force all other women make the same choice? I mean, part of the reason that it does stick is because us liberals are, like, interested in this stuff. We're interested in dismantling sexism and ableism and racism (OK: Sarah Palin does not seem overly concerned with racism), and we're interested in doing it from all sides, but Palin is only interested in doing it from her side. The amazing thing, to me, is making it stick among conservatives.

SADY: Right. That's the thing: She's coming at the left in the places that they care about. She's found the Achilles heel, which is – you can call us Commie pinko bleeding-heart pussies from now until Doomsday, and we won't really care. But DON'T TELL US WE ARE INSUFFICIENTLY SENSITIVE. Because we care about that stuff, and are trying hard (uh, some of us) and aiming that accusation at us forces us to slow down and self-examine and meanwhile you are whipping a crowd of racists into a hardcore voting frenzy. Which is why I think she's so beloved by certain Republicans; this is good "politics" even if it's not good politics. Although, on the topic of Emanuel's supporters, I have to say: Some of them are not doing themselves (or myself) any favors here.

AMANDA: Yeah. Also, I mean, I don't doubt that there are many people among Palin's fan base who do care very deeply about these sorts of issues, because, like Palin herself, they were brought into caring about disability through a child or other family member. And now, tragically, I think, Sarah Palin is there to tell these families that they can do just fine raising their kids without any sort of government "interference," which is probably true of a certain person who just sold a billion copies of a book that certain person didn't have to write.

SADY: Yeah! Government interference is totally unnecessary, if you happen to be a rich lady! Which is why it is so weird that disabled people only ever belong to families that are super-rich. God has a Special Plan for us all, truly! Also true: All disabled people HAVE families. Private wealth, which all disabled people have access to, is always and totally sufficient to their needs. Like: WHAT. I have no doubt that Sarah Palin cares about her son, but if she cares about the ISSUE, she's either completely devoid of empathy or just really, really stupid.

AMANDA: Now the only thing left to be cleared up here is Rahm Emanuel's mouth!

SADY: Dear Rahm: Your usage is unbecoming. I like to swear, just like you, and also I like to rant at people in a kind of mean way over issues, as I am aware that you apparently do also. I am here to tell you that you can be a big swearing jackass without using the term "retarded." Love, Lady Who Yells On The Internet.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

In last week's Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I discussed the great social dilemma facing girls today. It concerns, of course, "The Fat Talk," a ritual that girls of every size practice in order to keep their self-esteem firmly in check. Behold, the "Fat Talk" Model of Female Friendship:

Girl 1: I am fat.

Girl 2: Me too.

So, girls: Do you cement your spot in the social hierarchy of girlhood by engaging in this self-destructive chatter about how fat, dumb, and ugly you are? Or do you risk being cast out of girlhood's good graces by holding yourself with confidence?

Commenters to the rescue!

Julia, too, is vexed by the incessant "fat talk" of women and girls:

Wait no! I need more practical tips on how to handle fat talk! It is absolutely RAMPANT among my friends, and I have no idea how to handle it in a constructive and healthy way. It doesn’t help matters that I’m thin, and so any objections I raise are usually met with “well you wouldn’t understand, anyway.” Actually, when I was younger that used to cut me deeply, because it felt like I was being ostracized for being thin, and I SO BADLY wanted to participate in fat talk with a level of authority. I don’t even want to think about how messed up that is… I was supposed to want to be thin, but then everyone [female] HATED me for being thin, so then I hated me for being thin, even though I supposedly possessed something praise-worthy. Which was/is confusing, to say the least.

Anyway! Point being, does anyone have ideas/stories about how they have successfully navigated the fat talk mine field? I for one freeze in fear every time the subject comes up. (Because even more than a decade later, it still signifies being left out, in my mind). How do I effectively communicate concern about body image issues without coming across as condescending or dismissive? I love my friends, I think they’re all beautiful, and I love that we don’t all look the same! Why does self-esteem have to be some sort of messed up self-sacrificial zero sum game?

Em suggests getting it all out over a couple of beers:

Julia, a friend and I successfully navigated this by just being honest. We were up late drinking one night and I honestly said what I thought for years, that I was really jealous of her 5′11, 120-pound frame. She laughed and said she had always been jealous of my curves! From then on out we’ve always discussed our INSECURITIES, not our supposedly awful, ugly bodies, knowing that we’re being ridiculous.

Of course, I only have this sort of candidness with one friend, so I don’t know if that’s a really group-wide solution. But for the girls you are really close to, I think it helps to think of the real reasons you engage in this kind of “fat contest” and then to be honest about it. It usually comes down to jealousy—I’ve had to explain to my boyfriend, men look at women to check them out, women look at women to compare. Constantly and exhuastively. If we talk about this pissing contest and we’re all aware of it, sometimes we can transcend above it.

Of course, this assumes the maturity of all parties. Ha.

b-bop notes how frighteningly pervasive the "fat talk" is:

I have a friend who is extremely gorgeous and always turns heads wherever she goes….she thinks her teeth are a major embarrassment because they’re “too pointy” and is sensitive about her age for some reason…

I have known girls who were size 0 and model height claim to be fat…

Affects everyone I suppose.

Frankie explains how "fat talk" works as a cover for all manner of "insufficient talk":

I have an awesome group of close female friends. I don’t think a single one of us is the same height, weight or shape and yet we’ve all engaged in this weird ‘fat talk’ thing, where by one of us gets to feel guilty for being the skinniest/lightest/curviest/tallest/shortest or whatever is deemed the most awesome trait of that five minutes whilst everyone else feels terrible for not winning the contest to be most beautiful right that second.

It’s ridiculous because there is no way that my gorgeous six foot tall friend should weigh the same as I do, or that my girlfriend should be both proud of and embarressed by her breasts because they are somehow both something to be envied and ashamed of at one and the same time. We all know this but still engage in this behaviour. So we’ve been trying something new, something my therapist suggested when I was being treated for Anorexia.

When any one of us says ‘I feel fat/ugly/whatever’ we do our best to make the time to sit down and talk about what is making us feel bad. It’s not ideal but it seems to be working, enough so that I’m more likely to get a call from a friend now saying she feels low and could do with a chat than I am to be asked to reassure her that she’s not hideous.

One thing we seem to have noticed is that nine times out of ten, something which is unrelated to looks is going on but our self esteem is so tied up in how we see our bodies that we translate feeling bad about anything into feeling bad about how we look. So for example, if I forget to do something important aswell as feeling terrible about forgetting I ALSO feel fat or ugly, even though there is no way the two have anything to do with each other. What’s more, I will feel so bad about feeling fat that I am more likely to mention that as the reason I am upset. I did used to think this was just because I had an eating disorder, but it turns out that the same is true to a greater or lesser degree for all my close female friends.

Photo by SantaRosa, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This one's for the tweens. Say you're a typical seventh-grade girl. And so, as is typical for a girl your age, a good deal of your existence is devoted to self-loathing. You hate everything about yourself—your skin, your weight, your clothes, your hair, the way you eat, the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you look in a swimsuit, the way you look in shorts, the way you look in pants, the way you look to boys, the way you look to other girls.

Perhaps you are wondering when this hell on Earth is going to end? When you're going to gain a little bit of confidence in yourself? When you'll be able to do things humans do—eat, walk, talk, dress, swim—without hating yourself for it? Eight grade, maybe? Ho ho, not so fast, girl who doesn't want to hate herself anymore! As Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I discover in this edition of Sexist Beatdown, insecurity is all part of the social hierarchy of girl culture. Sure, a little bit of confidence might help you live a full, human life—but it just might make all the other girls in school hate you.

Sady has already laid the groundwork on this pervasive negativity of girlhood, in which  a social order is built upon this delicate balance between feeling like shit and making other girls feel like shit, too. Fast fact: according to Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, the no. 1 way to put yourself on the fast track to social hell is to be a confident girl. In order to avoid appearing too confident—while keeping other girls self-loathing as well!—passive-aggressive social strategies develop. Sady points to two particularly odious rituals of girl culture:

a. The Complinsult. Sady on the "complinsult":

Here’s one of the best I have ever received, which I keep close to my heart: “Your outfit is amazing! I think it’s so great that you can wear that out in public. I’d never have the nerve.” The words are saying “I suck and you are awesome,” and yet? That is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what it means.

b. The Fat Talk. Sady on the "Fat Talk":

For years, I thought this was some grody stereotype that you only found in male stand-up comedians’ routines about how women are awful. But then I met women who actually did it: the thing where, before ordering dinner at a restaurant, you all talk about how you should order this and you absolutely cannot order that, because you are so disgusting and you cannot stick to your diet and eating a cheeseburger will literally send you right straight to hell, and if you are the girl who straight-up says she wants some nachos so covered in cheese and guacamole and various meats that they might as well not even have any chips involved – just a big mess of meats and milk fat and squished-up avocados, that is the experience for which you are aiming, and also it would help if the entire thing had sour cream all over it – well, you just might have earned yourself a Complinsult about how brave you are with your dietary habits, young lady.

Any social order which denies girls the most delicious nachos of all simply cannot stand. So: How do we get out of this mess?

AMANDA: Before we begin this conversation, I should inform you that I am fat, and also that I think it's so great that you're the type of girl who could post a long, introspective essay on self-esteem and female relationships, because I would never have had the nerve to say such a thing in public.

SADY: I think it's really brave of you to admit that in public, Amanda, considering the sort of backlash you are likely to get from people who think it is stupid! Although I, myself, have a hard time concentrating on what you are saying, because mostly I am thinking about how ugly I am at the moment. Have we done the rounds yet? Do we need more backhanding?

AMANDA: I think we're fine for now. Until you start to get too confident! Then, I will commence with the outright shaming.

SADY: HA. This is something I have been thinking a lot about, the shaming! And it had two causes: one, the Clay Shirky piece I read [Quick plot overview: Dude thinks women just need to act more confident, and all the problems of women will be solved. -Ed.] and then used as a platform for my particular dive off the Deep End. And, two, the fact that I Googled myself.

AMANDA: Oh continue!

SADY: And the first thing I thought, after commencing the Googling, was—not that there weren't nice things and bad things and one bad thing from a guy who wrote a bad thing about me before and then had to list it in his top-trafficked blog posts of the year, I think because I read it 9,000 times—the FACT THAT I HAD A GOOGLE PRESENCE sent me into this weird shame spiral. I was like, "Oh, no! For every person that knows about me, there is ONE MORE CHANCE for someone to HATE MY ASS SEVERELY!" And this led a very strange series of reflections. Which I will not dominate the discussion with, because they are boring.

AMANDA: I'll reflect on something: I feel like for much of my adolescence, I was both repulsed by and unable to ignore the self-shaming hallmarks of female bonding. I hated myself, for sure, most furiously during the 7th-8th grade years, but I was also extremely uncomfortable with other girls expressing their own imaginary failures—the "I'm too fats" or the "I'm too uglies" or the "I'm too dumbs." I think I did realize at the time that this was an odd form of bonding that had to be engaged with in order to prove your friendship to the other person—"you're not fat! you're not ugly!"—but I never felt comfortable engaging in those kinds of proclamations.

SADY: Right. And I think this is something that I actually ran up against when I started to engage with other feminists: like, people would point out that I apologized for something trivial ninety thousand times over the course of the discussion, or couldn't have a conversation without being like, "By the way, have I pointed out that my outfit is horrible?" But it was very hard to get over, even though I could notice it when other women did it and provide support for them in that respect. And I think that it's interesting, in that those things can become social currency among girls—you have to apologize for taking up whatever space you take up—and is pretty clearly part of the Patriarchy deal which is that women aren't supposed to take up space. But it gathers a new level of nuance. Like, somehow, we're so caught up in this that it exists even when no dudes are present in the room, and we self-lacerate and lacerate each other to the same degree.

AMANDA: I agree, and now thinking back on it, I think part of me, as a kid, just wanted my friends to deal with all that horrible shit silently. I didn't want to talk about that stuff, so when my friend in the 8th grade who was stick-thin repeatedly complained about how fat she was, I got annoyed at her, instead of understanding what a fucked-up situation she was in and talking about THAT. I didn't have that kind of awareness then however, and I wonder where those kinds of conversations would have situated me in the female social group I was in.

SADY: Right. Like, allow me to present you with two ways I have handled this conversation in the past: "What are you talking about?! YOU WEIGH LESS THAN I DO." Which amounts to, basically: shut up, your body insecurities are not worth my time. Or: "What are you talking about?! THAT IS SO SELF-LOATHING." Which, while engaged in with a slightly purer intent, still translated to: shut up, your bodily insecurities are not worth my time. Like, instead of engaging women on their insecurities, I would try to shut them down. Which is clearly super feminist, right?

AMANDA: Right? I think the way that I handled those situations was to, again, put it in the perspective of this hierarchy where a) someone skinnier than me was saying she was fat, which b) implied that i was fat, which c) made me lash out at this person in some way. It's certainly interesting to see how boys in our culture at least have defined their social hierarchies by boasting, while girls have done it by passive-aggressively cutting themselves down in order to lift themselves up in another way.

SADY: Right. And I think that this is where "Odd Girl Out," the book I have been reading that I think everyone should read, and also the "Trashing" essay from forever ago [Quick plot overview: This shit that little girls do? Grown feminist women do it, too. -Ed.] comes into play. Because, the thing is, we are dealing with this excessively complex hierarchy wherein (A) Women aren't supposed to value themselves over and above the people around them, (B) Women, to demonstrate how not-selfish they are, are supposed to be nice all the time, and (C) Women find it easier to lash out at OTHER WOMEN for violating these tenets than to examine the fucked-up rules in the first place, but (D) You still have to win the Nicest Person in America trophy, so you can never express the lashing-out in a direct way. It has to look like something else.

AMANDA: The trick for me has always been staying out of that horrific, horrific structure without shunning other women.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. Like, shaming women for DOING this isn't exactly breaking away from the overall structure of women-shaming, you know?

AMANDA: that's one of the main complaints about the Rant About Women, which that it explicitly tells women that the way out of this trap is just to act like dudes. When the point is that we don't get to choose, actually. The pull-yourself-out-of-your-gender-by-your-own-bootstraps argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

SADY: Right. And I think we can agree that this is perhaps overly simplistic.

AMANDA: this is where we come up with a better solution. :-/

SADY: HA! Um, carousel rides for everyone? Overthrow the capitalist system? For me, I guess I'm situated at a weird place with this argument, which is the place I always wind up in with structure/agency arguments. Which is: YOU, by yourself, cannot singlehandedly escape the system. Your bootstraps are NOT THAT POWERFUL. However, you cannot say that there is no way to RESIST the system, in your own personal life. Like, even if I acknowledge that registering www.sadydoyleisthebestever.com will have more negative consequences than positive ones, being freaked out and self-sabotaging and constantly downplaying everything are ALSO not likely to have the most positive consequences. Does that make sense? Am I point-missing, here?

AMANDA: That makes sense to me. But I mean, I also haven't had significant issues with the typically feminine self-esteem stuff since I left high school, so maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. [OK, actually, in retrospect, this is totally not true! I think what has actually happened is that I have become so accustomed to the casual and absurd self-loathing that women experience (i.e. "I'm fat") that I don't even recognize it anymore, I just consider it a constant fixture of my life. Fuck! -Ed.]

SADY: I am building an escape pod from this whole deal where I basically surround myself with ladies who tell each other how great they are all the time, and are cool about ladies! That's what I'm doing. JOIN THE LADIES ARE GREAT PARTY, EVERYONE. That's my shitty little personal solution that doesn't fix everything! YAY LADIES WOOOOO.

AMANDA: Maybe we can all pitch in for a cruise ship or something.

SADY: HA! If there are any super-rich ladies, maybe they can help us build Self-Esteem Island. That seems like a solution! Yes, I think we've just fixed it. ALL BY OURSELVES. RIGHT HERE. YOU SAW IT HAPPEN.

AMANDA: well great! I'm going to have a nap then.

SADY: Okay! I'm eating a cheeseburger. Like, THREE of them. RIGHT NOW.

AMANDA: Oh shit I forgot. I REALLY want those nachos you spoke of.

SADY: Extra guacamole is a feminist act, dude. Enjoy!

Photo by bugeaters, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The death of feminism ain't news. Feminism has died a thousand deaths by this point. But wait a second: Today, someone is killing feminism in a totally new way, and this time it involves something called a "diamanté phone cover," whatever the fuck that is. This, according to Nina Power in her book "One Dimensional Woman." Power writes:

Stripped of any internationalist and political quality, feminism becomes about as radical as a diamanté phone cover. [Jessica Valenti] ‘truly believes’ that feminism is necessary for women ‘to live happy fulfilled lives’. Slipping down as easily as a friendly-bacteria yoghurt drink, Valenti’s version of feminism, with its total lack of structural analysis, genuine outrage, or collective demand, believes it has to compliment capitalism in order to effectively sell its product. When she claims that ‘ladies, we have to take individual action’, what she really means is that it’s every woman for herself and if it is the Feminist™ woman who gets the nicest shoes and the chocolatiest sex, then that’s just too bad for you, sister.

That's right, everybody. You know that sparkly, fun-loving, chocolate-coated feminism that's so popular among capitalists nowadays? Not familiar? Well: It is killing feminism! And how: By making it accessible to more women. Wait, what?

Valenti herself has already responded to Power's critiques on behalf of non-humorless-feminists everywhere, and her points are quite reasonable, particularly when you consider the fact that she's responding to a person who has just compared her to a yoghurt drink. "First of all," Valenti writes, "why anyone wouldn’t want feminism to be the latest must-have accessory is beyond me—because that would be awesome." Agreed.

Join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown as we draft an application for inclusion in the Real Feminists Club, bedazzle our feminist credentials, and attempt to get to the bottom of this feminist yoghurt drink analogy once and for all. I'll tell you one thing: There better be some fruit at the bottom of this sucker.

SADY: Hello! I have chosen to make myself accessible! In the name, of course, of FEMINISM.

AMANDA: On to it!

SADY: Yes! Are too many of the kids today into it? Should we make it harder for them? SHOULD THERE BE A WRITTEN APPLICATION? Such are the questions before us now.

AMANDA: I have to admit, I found the whole accusation that Jessica Valenti is not a serious feminist a bit ... puzzling. If Jessica Valenti is a fluffy feminist, then what are we? Are we like marshmallow feminists?

SADY: I am a pure spun sugar feminist made of glitter and twinkles. I am the feminist that floats upon the air, so lightweight am I. And this is the thing, the thing that gets me kind of so angry: For years and years and years upon years, people have been like, "Well, of course The Patriarchy will attack us for being humorless and dour, but that is a harsh stereotype and a lie!"

AMANDA: Hah!

SADY: And, yes: Yes it is. So why is this lady suddenly piping up to tell Jessica Valenti to keep it down over there and not have so much fun?

AMANDA: Well: I understand the general argument. If people accuse me of being "too serious" about feminist issues—which they do, whenever I write about harassment or assault or rape or whatever—the appropriate response would not be to just sexy up my sexual assault coverage. However! There are issues related to feminism that are, in fact, not depressing at all! Like, when feminism happens, and then we can all have sex with whomever we want to when we want to without being assaulted or called whores. This is, indeed, a sexy development! And I fail to see the harm in celebrating that.

SADY: Right you are! It is extremely sexy. And, I mean, I think there's a line between "feminism that is accessible"—let us say, YOU, for I am in a complimentary mood this evening—and "feminism that is so very accessible that it is even accessible to people who are not feminists because it is not actually feminism at all" —let us say, Sarah Palin. And I think that a lot of people are just trying to figure out where that line gets drawn. I understand the calls for more "seriousness," insofar as they are asking you to "seriously" think about the issues in question. But I do not understand "seriousness" insofar as it is like, "I am sorry, this must be written in some modern super-language, for I can read it even without a post-graduate education in Ladyology."

AMANDA: Right. Like if you're a teenager who happens to not identify as a feminist, which is the group Valenti was largely writing her book for. I think one of the arguments against the happy-go-lucky feminism was actually like, Oh No! If we pretend that feminism is a wonderful happy thing, these women will be sorely disappointed when they become feminists and realize that there are like, some serious issues to deal with as well. Again ... I fail to see why the soft pitch ends up being a bad thing. If a girl decides she's interested in feminism because she understands what Valenti has to say about the more "girl power" type stuff, and then she ends up realizing why it's important to support feminism for ALL women, what is the problem?

SADY: Right. And, I mean, there is something to be said for the gateway drug. The only problem is if the kids don't get past the gateway. Like, let's just point out that I am not talking about Feministing or Valenti here, because they have in fact always managed to cover the hard stuff as well as the basics—more of the hard stuff than I have, in fact, because my goal is basically to be the Skittles of feminism—BUT. There is, in fact, something to the idea of "consumerist feminism" or "lifestyle accessory" feminism. Which is, I do think there are some ladies whose involvement with feminism is exclusively confined to their own problems, which they elevate to the position of WORST PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD, even though they are like, "a guy won't like me unless I shave my personal regions" or "I worry that women nowadays are taking the pole-dancing classes, which is gross!" Which: nothing to be said against those problems! Mandatory bodily presentation or the idea that women are always sexual and that "sexual" equals "sex industry performance" at all times are things we can talk about! BUT, it's when we get stuck there, because then feminism becomes sort of obsessively, exclusively personal, and you're not thinking about anything else.

AMANDA: Agreed. I'll reiterate that presenting Valenti as the representative of that kind of feminism is whack, however. I mean, Nina Power compares Valenti to a "friendly-bacteria yoghurt drink.” What the fuck does that mean?

SADY: I have NO IDEA. It reminds me of those Activia commercials, though. And, on the overpersonalizing-feminism thing, can I say? I think that's a line everybody has to walk, and I fall on the wrong side of it sometimes. If by "sometimes" you mean "A LOT OF TIMES." But I think that this is the thing, like the core problem with the argument insofar as I understand it: she IS CONFLATING "accessible" with "shallow."

AMANDA: Yeah. I’ll tell you one thing that's not going to make feminism accessible to the masses: Feminist infighting! I realize I may be implicating this very Sexist Beatdown by saying this, but feminists arguing about who is the bestest feminist? Not particularly riveting to non-feminists.

SADY: BUT I WAS GOING TO GET THE BEST FEMINIST AWARD! WHY ELSE WOULD I BE DOING THIS.

AMANDA: But since Nina Power is concerned with feminism becoming too accessible, perhaps this was her plan all along! "I know. I'll write a book dedicated to feminist infighting that makes absurd claims about several well-known 'accessible' feminists. That's sure to throw them off their work of making feminism more accessible! At least for a few blog posts!"

SADY: True! Now we can all quote Serious Theory at each other until we fall asleep. Also, in the morning, there might still be some sexism? But whatever! I get Cixous!

AMANDA: I get Yoghurt.

SADY: Um, OK. Lightweight.

Photo via love♡janine, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Public sexual assault: I'm still fucking talking about it! But this time, I've got a little bit of help from the illustrious Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown. Join us for a Very Special Episode of Sexist Beatdown, specially tailored for Guys Who Grab Butt, and what the hell is wrong with them.

When our powers combine, we get to the bottom of your most pressing groping questions. Such as: Why doesn't Sady appreciate it when you comment on her jugs? If it's not featured on an episode of SVU, does it still count as sexual assault? And if the girl whose butt you grabbed responds by assaulting you back, is she going to get in trouble, or what?

SADY: well, HI! I am so excited to join you on the Train to Gropetown this evening!

AMANDA: Hi! The Train to Gropetown departs now.

SADY: Perhaps we should note that many ACTUAL gropings take place on trains, which is a bummer? Truly, Gropetown is a destination of the spirit, and not one of mere place and time.

AMANDA: Right. And that on these trains, and subway cars, and buses are dozens of other people who are not gropers or groping victims, but really just witnesses who are standing but feet away from a sexual assault. One thing I hear all the time is that sexual assault is so difficult to "prove" and to "deal with" because it happens in private, tucked away behind doors and in intimate relationships. But really, it happens all the time in front of people's faces, too! And most people still don't really give a shit about it.

SADY: Yes. Oddly, I think people have a problem conceptualizing public gropings as sexual assault—the same way they don't think of street harassment as sexual harassment. It's just supposed to be one of the many things that, as Ann-Margret would say, help you to Enjoy Being A Girl. Like, there is a "Special Victims Unit" concept of sexual assault that most people have, the kind done by scary dudes for dark and wacky purposes—and then there's getting your ass grabbed on the subway, which, CALM DOWN, sweetheart!

AMANDA: I, too, have noticed a big resistance to considering groping on the spectrum of sexual assault. Of course, I have all sorts of feminist conspiracy theories as to why that's the case.

SADY: Ha. The BEST kind of conspiracy theories! But I honestly think it's the same blanket denial of assault as reality that you find everywhere. Sexual assault is rare; therefore, if it's common, it's not sexual assault. I don't know anyone who would sexually assault someone; therefore, if I know someone who would do this – or if I MYSELF would do this – it's not sexual assault. I've never been sexually assaulted; therefore, if it happens to me, it's not sexual assault. It's a wonderful loop of logic that keeps anything from ever changing EVER!

AMANDA: Your arguments appear sound, forcing me to discredit you as a man-hating feminist. But seriously folks. One of the most interesting things I've discovered in doing this series is that a lot of women respond to being sexually assaulted by freezing and shutting up. But if you look at your other options—like, say, screaming—you find women who report being stared at like she's an annoying bitch for screaming for no reason, in public.

SADY: Allow me to submit to you some anecdote as data, in lieu of an explanation for why this might be the case!

AMANDA: great!

SADY: So: picture, if you will, Sady, a burly man-friend, and a not-at-all-burly lady friend walking up the stairs of the subway. The lady friend occupying the stair level in front of me, the gentleman and I behind. Lo and behold, I see before me a hand! And the hand is most definitely reaching out to grab – and subsequently grabbing – my friend's ass. I freeze. The lady freezes. The dude who is with us keeps on a-walkin' like it's no big thing, but, whatever. After about 2 seconds, I grab the butt-fondling dude's arm and shove him into the side of the stairs and yell at him, because, WHAT THE FUCK. But for a second there, nobody was prepared to deal with what was happening. And as soon as I took action, the first thing that came to my mind was, "Am I going to get in trouble for this?" Honestly, I think people are worried about getting in TROUBLE if they respond. I think that is part of the deal.

AMANDA: I actually have a request out to the D.C. police department addressing this very issue. I haven't heard back from them yet. But my question was basically, "So, women want to know, if men touch them on the genitals, may they respond by punching the men in the face?" And they've been working on it for, like, a week. SO, surprise ending to that conundrum to be revealed later!

SADY: Hahaha. Well! I imagine it would take some time to think that one over! Except that is the thing. When you get grabbed, or someone is masturbating in your general direction on the subway, there's no time to rifle through the bylaws. And I think you just freeze up because, what are you supposed to do?! There is no chapter in Miss Manners that tells you how to politely request that someone put his boner away! And there's the possibility of retaliation, too. Like, I can't tell you HOW many times a dude has gotten up in my face to be a dickhole, just if I ask him not to compliment my astounding jugs while I am WALKING, or whatever.

AMANDA: Bitch!

SADY: I KNOW. I am a total bitch; many a person on the streets of New York has confirmed this. Also, I am not in fact all that, and although they once thought I was attractive, further study has revealed that I am not so fucking hot as was once supposed.

AMANDA: And the scary thing is that real people—people who are not the scary dude who just yelled at you on the street—would probably agree with that sentiment.

SADY: Exactly. It's the culture of tolerance around it that is the real psychedelic freakout bad trip of terror. Like, people seem to believe the phenomenon of groping to be HIGHLY COMICAL.

AMANDA: Or that grabbing a guy's arm for touching your butt is such an overreaction! Silly, emotional women.

SADY: Or, for example, you can be telling a story about a guy who grabbed your boob in a bar, and male onlookers will weigh in to tell you that you have no idea how hard it is for the men, what with their having to initiate sexual encounters!

AMANDA: HAH. That one I haven't heard! “You don't understand—if I can't just reach out and touch your butt, what am I supposed to do? Talk to you?”

SADY: I KNOW. Perhaps they feel that the ladies will appreciate their forthright natures! And I'm not entirely sure that this is all coming from guys who grab butt, either. I think these are non-grabbing guys who are just, like, "oh my God, if ladies are talking about how OTHER behavior is inappropriate, perhaps someday they might interpret MY PRESUMABLY DIFFERENT BEHAVIOR as inappropriate as well! And then I will not get laid! When clearly the priority here is for ladies to make it easier for me to get laid."

AMANDA: By any means necessary. But if you end up not being able to get laid, hey—there are butts everywhere up for the grabbing.

SADY: Like, I don't think we're long past the stage when casually smacking a strange girl's butt was considered a cute and roguish flirting maneuver, rather than a reason for that girl to methodically snap off your hand like the head on a Barbie doll. And I think that people for some reason still conceive of gropers as people trying to "flirt" who are awkward and inappropriate and Go Too Far. At least, some people. So for a girl to respond with anger rather than, I guess... sympathy? Dating tips? A welcoming smile? That is just SO CRUEL.

AMANDA: That's the real crime. I mean, the other thing that has been striking to me is how open victims of groping are to consider how their groper feels. I've spoken with women at length about what they think was going on in that guy's head when he rubbed his erect penis against her back, or whatever. You know—maybe it was an accident! Maybe he didn't mean to, maybe he was abused, maybe he can't connect with women, maybe they learned it from their dad, maybe they don't have any other sort of social power and so they want to get it this way. Because they want to know why this happened to them. I seriously doubt that these poor, lost souls are giving the targets of their erections the same courtesy.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, the point at which you casually assault someone is the point at which we can determine, objectively, that you do not give a fuck about how that person feels. That's kind of the rationale: “I want this, she has no right not to give me this, I will therefore have it without her permission. And who gives a fuck about consequences! I'm getting off at the next stop!” But that's part of women being expected to bear the burden of empathy; the last thing you should do is be a person who doesn't TRY to care, so even when people act in an uncaring way, you try to figure out motivations or whatever instead of just dealing with their actions. And that's not necessarily a bad way to be, unless you're in the presence of someone who takes advantage of it.

AMANDA: I'm not sure I have anything else to say about groping right now. I've been kind of hitting the groping sauce pretty hard lately.

SADY: Lay off the sauce! Perhaps you can get on the Job Discrimination Wagon! Or enroll in a program for Pick-Up-Artist Methadone! Truly, I think we have delved far enough into groping. And for this, and for your excellent coverage, I thank you.

AMANDA: Does the Train to Gropetown stop anywhere near my house?

SADY: Let us hope not. I am less than fond of their preferred local entertainment.

Behold the final paragraph of Katie Roiphe's latest New York Times Magazine Book Review story on the lost art of freaky sex writing pioneered by the "Great Male Novelists" like Updike, Roth, and Mailer:

Why don’t we look at these older writers, who want to defeat death with sex, with the same fondness as we do the inventors of the first, failed airplanes, who stood on the tarmac with their unwieldy, impossible machines, and looked up at the sky?

In other words, why don't we sit around praising the "unwieldy, impossible machines" (or, you know, penises) of these white, heterosexual guys who are still writing masturbatory prose about lesbian threesomes involving strap-ons, after all these years? Is it because:

(a) The feminists! They have ruined everything!

(b) The pr0n on the Internets! It has made us more likely to watch a short video depicting lesbian threesomes involving strap-ons, instead of reading some white heterosexual dude attempt to describe it for us, in words!

(c) Those danged marginalized groups! People other than old, white, heterosexual men have taken a stab at the whole sex-writing thing, and it turns out they actually have some interesting shit to say about it!

(d) The impotence of old white dudes! Those old dudes can't get erections anymore, I hear!

Find out in this edition of Sexist Beatdown, featuring Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and myself, chattin'. After a brief holiday hiatus, Sexist Beatdown is back—and now with new and improved capitalization! Same amount of exclamation points, however!

SADY: You know, I believe it is time to discuss the DUDES OF TODAY! And more specifically, whether they are all huge pusses who refuse to write sexy strap-on scenes for Katie Roiphe's entertainment. The DUDES OF YORE (and ALSO TODAY, although they are older now) did not have this problem!

AMANDA: They did not. Though they do have a different problem, which is: They will not stop writing like it's 1960, and some females Katie Roiphe has observed are just livid over this!

SADY: Right??? I mean: first of all. I think SOME of Roiphe's concerns about the Dudes of Today, which have been repeated in many a forum and in my own personal mind, are valid. There is a creepy quasi-sensitivity about some of the DoTs she mentions, which freaks me out. I think of Kunkel's "Indecision," which has the dude protagonist making these big speeches about how the girl he's dating does not deserve him, due to his aforementioned Indecision about her, which does not prevent him from being, in fact, a douche. Or this Dave Eggers essay, about how he won't use the word "fuck" to describe the tender and glorious act of making love. Which sounds like THE WORST PICKUP LINE IN THE WORLD, actually. It sounds like a guy who TOTALLY wants to fuck, but tells you he will never use that word because it is so disrespectful, so that you will, you know, fuck him. Yes, sexism continues, even among the DoTs! But it is less overt than the Dudes of Yore, which (I think???) is why Roiphe is mad about it.

AMANDA: Right. The striking thing about this essay, to me, is that it outright states that its concern is with the "Great Male Novelists of the last century" and their male heirs. It’s also explicitly concerned with female readers, and feminists, who reject the sexual narratives in these works. But Roiphe never makes the obvious point that there are options beyond the Great Male Novelists ... like Great Female Novelists, who also do The Sex. She basically limits the discussion to, "Why don't women appreciate these classic male, heteronormative sexual narratives that treat women like cum dumpsters?" when the answer is ... pretty obvious.

SADY: Yuh huh. I mean: I think I mentioned this to you, when you were talking about it earlier in the week. And Bitch blogs (yay for Bitch Blogs) mentioned it also!

AMANDA: (Yay!)

SADY: BUUUUUUT: Did she somehow miss that ladies write sex scenes nowadays? Even FEMINIST ladies? The first person that springs to mind is Michelle Tea, who writes these very funny, detailed, daring sex scenes, about fisting and hitting people with the chain whips off bicycles and all sorts of nonsense. Or—this one was brought up by Bitch—Mary Gaitskill? You can find some sex in Mary Gaitskill! And this stuff is often interesting, and has new perspectives, in ways that the Great Male Sexy Time Authors stopped being a long time ago. Like: the problem with Roth's "hot lesbian strap-on threesome" scene is not that it includes lesbians, or a strap-on. It's that it is very obviously a straight dude's IDEA of how mystical and magical and shamanistic and pervy threesomes including strap-ons are. You can find better ones written by people who know a damn thing about it, these days! Thanks to Feminism, ruiner of sexy times. (For boring dudes.) [Note: Roiphe eventually explicitly acknowledged the sex writing of female and gay writers—in an interview after the fact. -Ed.]

AMANDA: Sure! And I think Roiphe acknowledges that to some extent—though she blames not the oppressively hetero male perspective, but rather the fact that these hetero male sex writers just can't get big erections anymore. Which is weird! But, you know, a theory! But my favorite part comes at the end, when she says this: "Why don’t we look at these older writers, who want to defeat death with sex, with the same fondness as we do the inventors of the first, failed airplanes, who stood on the tarmac with their unwieldy, impossible machines, and looked up at the sky?" So, basically, Roiphe is concerned that readers today don't bow down before the phalluses of the Great Male Sexy Time Authors enough. That we don't honor Updike and Roth and Mailer enough! I mean, given that she doesn't even deign to mention a female author, I think we honor these men quite enough, actually!

SADY: Okay, and here we enter the area that caused the MOST perplexity for me, which is: WHAT WORLD IS SHE LIVING ON WHERE PEOPLE DON'T FALL ALL OVER THEMSELVES TO PRAISE PHILIP ROTH AND JOHN UPDIKE??????????

AMANDA: A world ruined by feminists.

SADY: Or where criticizing DAVE EGGERS or BEN KUNKEL or, jesus, JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER is somehow taboo????????? People criticize those dudes all the time! Roth is treated like a national monument! WHAT HUH WHAT WHERE WHYYYYYYYYY.

AMANDA: I think Roiphe presents a really interesting (if extremely contentious) discussion, and then decides to end it with: "People are too critical of literature!" She basically just tells women to stop thinking so much and just honor the great works of men without comment. What?

SADY: Oh, yeah. And I really appreciated large parts of her argument. I forgot that one line in "The Corrections" about the lady being "still beautiful" at thirty-fucking-two, which did in fact cause me to throw the book across the room when I read it initially. Mostly from that book I remember the couch-fucking! Dude fucks furniture. It's kind of wacky.

AMANDA: Yeah. She's right about that stuff. And perhaps the part at the end where she tells us to honor these great pilots of Ye Olde Sexytime, she's speaking to the new crop of Great Male Unsexytime Writers, and telling them that they are more derivative of these earlier authors than they will admit.

SADY: But, I mean, the "sexual ambiguity" she seems to have such a problem with, the idea that people no longer believe key parties and talking about the naughtiness of watching a girl jack off or—shock!—jacking off themselves is, IN AND OF ITSELF, a symbol of Man's Ultimate Freedom From Social Mores, I kind of . . . don't have a problem with? I mean: the sexual revolution, it had Consequences! Including feminism, yeah. But also: a lot of fucked-up relationships, which, as DFW mentions in the very essay she quotes, men of his generation were probably witnessing as children. Or, you know, they were young in the '80s when AIDS became a rising concern.

AMANDA: Right, and we talked about this earlier in regards to college sex columns, but you don't have to be some sort of radical to talk about sex anymore. A lot of people talk and write about sex, and some of them are hyper-conservative, or worse, boring.

SADY: Ha, RIGHT. I mean, there WAS A TIME when talking or writing about sex—graphically, grossly—was actually a way of challenging rules about what writers, or people, could and could not do. Now, it is an art form practiced and cultivated by Tucker Max. Yes! You have sex! So do the rest of us! Say something new about it, other than the fact that it involves human lady vaginas, because otherwise I may get a case of the ZZZZZZZZZZs.

AMANDA: Yes! Our favorite. And the fans who defend Tucker Max, the college boys who are likely unfamiliar with the Great Sexy Time Authors of Yore, ultimately defend him on the basis of Freedom of the Press. They act like people who dare to critique Tucker Max are "censoring" his "opinions," and are therefore both dictatorial and prude. And that may have been the case in the past, but it's just not a relevant argument anymore. The sexual exploits of the late-20's upper-crust white American frat boy are not being censored by anybody! Tucker Max does not need to spread his literary seed in order to finally speak truth to power for all the man-children like himself. It has been done, people got over it, and now people like Tucker Max and Katie Roiphe are pretending like we need to pay attention to the "problem" of not really valuing this narrative as exciting anymore. Well ... as much as we used to. Because, of course, Tucker Max is a best-selling author.

SADY: Right! I mean, I think the age in which you could daringly place a smuggled copy of "Tropic of Cancer" or "Lady Chatterley" on your bookshelf, so that people would know you were a rebel and sexual and literary sophisticate, ended a LONG TIME AGO, actually? And now, I mean: the issue with Updike writing a scene where a dude delivers his special package all over a lady's face, or Roth and the mystical shamanic strap-on of power, is not that these scenes are shocking to us, and not that ANYONE would EVER try to censor them. It’s just that they are these very flowery, elaborate, pseudo-highbrow depictions of things that are just not that surprising because at this point everyone in America has seen them actually depicted, on film. It's the false daring that makes them boring. And they read like they were taken from studying film, not life. Although if Updike actually had a thing for face-jizz, I would prefer not to know.

AMANDA: I agree—it's the pretentiousness of it that makes you not want to just put it down but also throw it away, and I'm not sure that really has much to do with feminism, but rather just being a person who reads books.

SADY: yeah, precisely. I mean, Roth still has the power to get up my nose, which might in fact be evidence of why he's good at what he does, but also, I get these letters from fellow feminists that are like, "Give Roth another chance! He's great!" I think mine might be a minority vote, actually. And I think placing the entirety of the responsibility for why we seem to have moved away from this depiction of sex on Feminism, and mean feminists who want to take your literary weenie away, just places an unrealistic power in the hands of Feminism. We can't have done this all by ourselves! We're still working to get people settled on the "Ladies should be able to have abortions" thing!

AMANDA: Right. It's pretty hilarious that Katie Roiphe actually believes that the feminist position is more celebrated than that of the Great Male Novelists, or that our oppressive "feminist" anti-sex culture is to blame for churning out somebody like Dave Eggers. I refuse to take responsibility for that one.

Photo via flickr Commons

Here in ladyblogger land, my esteemed partner Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and myself know all about the lady issues. But we are just positively pickled by all things manly. Pickled, I tell you! We cannot seem to winkingly referring to our female employees as "perky," successfully manage a bromance, or understand what it's like to live in constant fear of having our balls shaved by militant feminists. That's why we're fascinated with one James Chartrand, the woman who took on a male persona to feed her kids, and managed to master these manly arts—and more!—in her tenure as the very masculine blogmaster at the aptly titled "Men With Pens."

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown: How DID she do it? What would you choose to be your absurdly gendered pen name? (Mine is "Chester der Schninkle Man Man," for some reason!). Are you prepared to reference balls you don't have, a LOT? And most importantly: Can you do it all, and still emerge as a feminist? All your imaginary ball queries, not quite answered, after the jump!

SADY: Helloo! How are you holding up? It is I, Sir Baron von Winkie!

AMANDA: Why, hello, bro! Me here, Chester der Schninkle Man Man. I feel comfortable conversing with you and possibly hiring you in a variety of work situations based on your hyper-masculine name.

SADY: Yes. I congratulate you on having the balls to hire me, and my enormous, hirstute balls, for this purpose! I know I am risking my balls, here, but: balls to that, say I!

AMANDA: I applaud you for putting your balls out in a world full of women ready to shave your balls at every opportunity! BALLS.

SADY: OY. Can I tell you, when I first read the James Chartrand piece, I was really sympathetic? I mean, I know what it is like to create something of a distance between your writing life and your private life! I know what it is like to worry about losing out on opportunities because you are being stereotyped! But one thing I DO not know what it is like is to not only worry about stereotyping, and create a pseudonym (this was seriously going to be a project of mine at one point! To adopt a dudely pseudonym and see how reactions differed from reactions to "Sady") but to TOTALLY VIOLATE ANY STANDARDS OF TRUSTWORTHINESS by creating an entire imaginary life, INCLUDING BALLS, for your pseudonym.

AMANDA: Brave, precious balls!

SADY: And make your imaginary man character a sexist, also. That was a fun choice!

AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, the thing about James, is that she probably was not aware that she was accessing male privilege when she wrote that balls-out post about how feminist mommy-bloggers with their sharpened ball clippers were being so MEAN by totally ignoring her when she posted balls-y comments on their Web sites under a male name. She thought, hey! I'm a single mom! I know exactly what this is like! Why am I not being accepted by them, JUST BECAUSE I APPEAR TO BE A MAN. She felt this was very sexist, and she decided to write a little ball post about it to right those wrongs. I just wonder why, knowing that the rest of the internet was so sexist it FORCED her to adopt a male persona to make money, she didn't work very hard to discuss sexism against women in her posts?

SADY: Ha, yes. Somehow, Imaginary Person James Chartrand, CREATED BECAUSE OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST LADIES WHO WRITE ON THE INTERNET, found himself compelled, on the basis of a handful of blog comments, to engage in the time-honored and ridiculous pastime of... complaining about discrimination against DUDES who write on the Internet? Even though Chartrand had concrete proof that such discrimination did not actually exist? I mean, I think on the "why don't you discuss sexism" front, this is the peril of people adopting individualist agendas and slapping the name "feminism" on them. Because Chartrand was getting ahead, even though she had to circumvent sexism in a totally absurd way in order to do so, the goals of Feminism had actually been accomplished and she didn't need to confront sexism or aid women in any real way.

AMANDA: Right, and you know, as much as I sympathize with women who can't get jobs writing, as much as I know that happens, and as lucky as I am to write for a paper where my voice is valued, I just immediately thought something was not quite right with this story. I suspected that Chartrand had some sort of fascination with creating another character for herself, on some level. And that's fine! As long as you don't then turn around and say, after you've been outed, "Uh – it was a feminist act. Had to."

SADY: Right. I mean, I don't know if the "imaginary character" thing sits right with me. At all. And, FULL DISCLOSURE: "Sady" is not the name by which my family and close friends know me. They know me as Sara PleaseDon'tGoogleMeOfficeJobEmployers.

AMANDA: Bah! How could you! You accessed the inherent privilege in having the name "SADY WITH A Y" which is a really cool-sounding name!

SADY: But Sady is also me. As much as I keep private, I think one of the basics of writing is that people can TRUST WHAT IS COMING OUT OF YOUR KEYBOARD. They believe you mean it. Writing things that are substantively composed of lies is not a good way to go.

AMANDA: I sincerely hope you have been privately donating to some sort of fund for Women Named Sara.

SADY: Screw 'em! I'm getting mine!

AMANDA: Yeah, the lying thing also disturbs me. Like, did sexism force you to to spin an absurd lie about how you came to be a man with a knitting hobby? And also, this woman is the owner of Men With Pens. She has several employees at this point. At what point does acting like a strangely masculine weirdo begin to actually directly affect other people?

SADY: Right? Like referring to defender Taylor as the sole woman on staff and getting all wink-wink nudge-nudge... does owning a company CALLED Men with Pens and making objectifying comments about the "only" woman on staff create a certain environment in which female candidates feel discouraged, you think? Because I think! I seriously do!

AMANDA: I also think. And I also really want to hear WAY more from James Chartrand about this, because the act of manufacturing male privilege is extraordinarily fascinating to me. Like, James: How many hours a week were marked away on the Men With Pens calendar to Manufacturing Male Privilege? "Well, Chester der Schninkle Man Man, one thing that most women don't know is that Manufacturing Male Privilege is practically a full time job." I mean, how much time did this woman spend devoting to how masculine she were?

SADY: I, Sir Baron von Winkie von Testicle-Schmidt, almost doubt that it was fully intentional. The male privilege thing, I mean. I think that Chartrand devoted herself to creating a "believable" man, and this guy ended up being almost like a cartoon of a dude (Maxim-y comments about women wanting to shave his balls included) and so the sexism became, maybe without Chartrand's conscious intent, a part of the performance. And certain people have drawn parallels between this and trans men, which I find REALLY OFFENSIVE ACTUALLY, because: the point of being a trans dude is that you were always a dude. You transition, you change your name, your presentation becomes more fully YOU.

AMANDA: UGH. I had not heard that, but that is offensive.

SADY: Chartrand is consciously creating "a dude," a Man with Pen, who is NOT her, and hence... the male privilege and corresponding arrogance, uninformed by life experience and almost reading like it was assembled by studying obnoxious male stereotypes.

AMANDA: And it was a grand success!

SADY: Right! That's the thing! When I first read the Chartrand story, not knowing much about this Chartrand person, I was like, "oh, what a sobering illustration of the continuance of sexism." And then I realized what she did to keep it up, thanks to your take, and I was like, "wow, this is SUBSTANTIALLY MORE SOBERING than I had initially thought, and in more depressing ways."

AMANDA: yeah, it is pretty depressing. i'm sort of putting myself on James Chartrand watch now to see where she goes from here. She doesn't seem to be retiring the pseudonym—she's keeping her given name secret for "personal reasons"—but I wonder if she'll relax some of the masculinity. perhaps it will be revealed to be a little bit silly, now.

SADY: Yeah. That is my hope, as well. I mean, I know having two feminists chat about you critically is often the gateway drug to writing posts about how awful feminists are, or whatever. But I would hope Chartrand would take this moment and run with it insofar as actually exploring the gender question a little more honestly. Or, at least, retiring the objectification and Michael-Bay-ified aesthetics.

AMANDA: And as a show of good faith, I will retire my pen name, Amanda Hess, and reveal my true identity: an olde-tyme prospector by the name of Seamus P. Flannihurtz, a man who could only make it in the sexist prospecting business by posing as a modern-day female feminist blogger. It is a cruel business, olde-tyme prospecting!

SADY: DECEIVER! I myself am motivated to new honesty by this disclosure. I am a long-time tailgater and appreciator of The Babes, by the name of Beefnachos Budweiser McGreenBayPackers. "Tiger Beatdown" is but a launching platform for my new venture, "BikiniInspectors.com." And now you know.

AMANDA: I feel so ... feminist.

SADY: As do I, my friend! As do I! When all female writers are replaced by more manly counterparts, then will the goals of our movement have been truly accomplished.

Photo via George Eastman House, Wikipedia Commons

We all know why women identify with the protagonists in romantic comedies: We are all pathetic, overworked, wedding-obsessed spinsters with romantic lives so complicated they could only truly be expressed through the peculiar talents of Jennifer Lopez.

But what of the romantic comedy's leading man? Who is he? Why is he nothing more than a cipher of himself? Furthermore, how does Matthew McConaughey's boner always manage to steal us from our boyfriends and high-powered careers in order to make us his wife in the space of approximately two weeks?

Your questions, answered, in this week's edition of Sexist Beatdown, featuring: The incomparable Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown. Sady has become somewhat of a connoisseur of Matthew McConaughey's boner as of late, as she's recently taken in to a steady diet of rom-coms—a purely professional endeavor, I am assured! (check out Sady's eerily fascinating examination of Billy Zane's work in Titanic for proof). But enough exposition: On to us using the word "boner" too many times!

SADY: well, good morning, my friend!

AMANDA: is it time to talk about cute boys??

SADY: indeed! boys who are cute AND dreamy! and also enormous jerks whom you will hate with a fiery passionate rage until you figure out that they are actually dreamy and in love with you and then everything will more or less work itself out. i saw "bridget jones' diary" for the first time this week. were you aware of this?

AMANDA: i believe i saw that movie in the theater, with my mother.

SADY: oh, good! did it make you want TO DIE?

AMANDA: if not that one, then the second one. i have seen both of them!

SADY: oh, my!

AMANDA: sadly, NO. i was more interested in how dreamy modern Mr. Darcy was. but then again, i was 16, i think.

SADY: really! i found him extremely boring! but then, i was instilled with deep hostility against bridget jones. because – i have to share this with you – there are these constant fat jokes? like, bridget is fat and unlovable and fat and a chain-smoker and unlovable and omg, SO FAT, bridget jones! and then they show her weight at one point? and she weighs four pounds less than i do. and smokes fewer cigarettes. and, probably, drinks less. it was a sobering moment which i reacted to by throwing something at the screen.

AMANDA: I KNOW

SADY: but back to modern-age mr. darcy! because he symptomizes, for me, a major problem of the romantic comedy version of Your Boyfriend, which is: he is boring as hell.

AMANDA: i think i remember being a thin 16 year old ... and seeing that weight show up on the screen ... and thinking, WTF, I am fat? actually, I do remember thinking that! my extreme discomfort with this movie is breaking through my residual attraction to Colin Firth! but ANYWAY. back to him. don't remember much about his character, actually. i suppose that's the point.

[youtube:v=2cpd4py3GuY]
In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend is simply a recycled version of the love interest in a Jane Austen novel, played by the actor who played said love interest in the BBC miniseries.

SADY: right. i mean, i know we are talking here about Masculinity in Pop Culture, particularly through the lens of romantic fantasies For The Ladies, but as someone who has seen a lot of these fantasies recently, one thing that bothers me is that they never do manage to create a believable human dude at any point. like, the versions of men presented for our delectation are either completely vague and dull and personality-free yet handsome (your Mr. Darcys, your Hugh Grant in early-period films, etc.) or charming and handsome assholes (your Edward Cullens, your Hugh Grant in this film, etc). Colin Firth in particular has built a career of playing these ciphers.

[youtube:v=nXVf2hAWRQM]
In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend mopes, over you.

AMANDA: Yes, and romantic comedies in general are sort of build on the idea of the Suspension of Unbelievable Dudes. consider any romantic comedy that is based around cheating and/or, for the lack of the better term, "homewrecking."

SADY: ah, yes. i invite you to consider these for me!

AMANDA: consider: the Wedding Planner, with the totally chemistry-less rom-com dream team of Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey, about a wedding planner falling in love and hooking up with the groom in a wedding she is, of course, planning. which makes both characters, in real life, scumbags. but on screen, they are magically transformed into ... simply boring.

[youtube:v=AkAwO5I-Tuk]
In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend is Matthew McConaughey's boner.

SADY: oh, my goodness, yes. sleepless in seattle, same deal. it is basically about a lady with a boyfriend who instead decides to stalk a dude whose emotional vulnerability she heard about on the radio one time... and her boyfriend/fiance just goes for it! in the scene where she's like, "sorry, yo, got to go meet up with this dude i been stalking," Boyfriend (who is the spectacularly vanilla-pudding-like Bill Pullman) is just like, "too bad for me, good luck!" i watched this with my mother, who commended Bill Pullman for doing the right thing.

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In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend is an anonymous yet sexily depressed radio voice.

AMANDA: Yeah, romantic comedies set up this weird alternate universe where cheating isn't bad, and is in fact encouraged, as long as you are hopelessly in love with Other Person whom you met about 2 days ago.

SADY: well, and also it provides... CONFLICT!!! like, there is always supposed to be this other dude in the background who is totally wrong for you but of course you don't know that yet. and that dude alwaaaaaays gets shafted. perhaps because he is basically a ken doll. he is there to distract you from realizing that you are Totally In Love with this other person until it is nearly too late! at which point you put him back in the box.

AMANDA: Right. And then, all of a sudden, totally after the fact, you realize that Other Dude is a jerk, or also cheating, or boring, or dumb, and this justifies the affair you have already embarked upon.

SADY: indeed.

AMANDA: Which brings us to the Other Other Dude in romantic comedies: the fancy "career" of the protagonist who is married-to-her-work! ... until a really boring hot dude drops into her life, which makes her realize that life is not all about planning weddings. it is also about having others plan weddings for you.

SADY: yes. often, in fact, she meets this gentleman through her career! consider, my friend, "failure to launch," which is about a lady whose job is to give apatovian losers boners and hence inspire them to better their lives. which is an odd job. but whatever. because one of the man-children she is hired to date is TOTALLY HOT! and he believes she must LOOSEN UP! and she does. or "how to lose a guy in 10 days," or... shit, this is all matthew mcconaughey. he is basically the dude who makes you hate your job with his boner. in every movie. I FIGURED IT OUT!

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In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend is Matthew McConaughey's boner, again.

AMANDA: I guess I like my job too much to let Matthew McConaughey's boner convince me that my boyfriend is a jerk? "Women are so complicated!"

SADY: we are! it's true! but if there's one thing we've learned, as a gender, it's that wanting something for your life other than a superdreamy boyfriend is misguided, and you need to Get Your Priorities Straight ASAP. with boning. illicit cheater boning. which is what women want, the end, i have solved everything.

AMANDA: but why is the cheater boning dude always so boring? Have you seen Made of Honor? I've heard that it is My Best Friend's Wedding but with a hilarious role-reversal. Is that dude boring, as well?

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In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend falls down repeatedly, because he loves you

SADY: um. he's that dude with the super-boring face? and i never saw the movie, because his face in the poster was so boring. so that might answer some questions. for all i know there's a third-act twist where he's a bungee-jumping heroin-dealing bad boy, but his face would still probably put you to sleep before you figured that out.

AMANDA: so ... yes. but it's not as if the women in these movies are terribly compelling, either.

SADY: well, yeah, but they're meant to be Us. ALL OF US. personalities get in the way of mass identification. and, to be fair, not all movie boyfriends are boring! some are also hateful and borderline-abusive. such as gerard butler, in "the ugly truth," where the entire point is that gerard butler hates women like poison and fire and snakes all combined, and he takes it on himself to teach katherine heigl how awful women are so she can date, and then you learn that he broke up with a girl once so it's all okay.

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In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend is a jerk who causes your panties to vibrate unexpectedly at dinner in front of representatives from your corporate office, causing you to orgasm.

AMANDA: and he's in his mid-30s? isn't that supposed to happen in college?

SADY: NOT FOR GERARD BUTLER. the wounds of gerard butler do not heal easily.

AMANDA: he has nice abs!

SADY: he also has a face like a pork shoulder. which is mean, but also bridget jones gave me bad body image this week so i will excuse myself there. okay, MAYBE I WON'T. sorry, gerard butler. but anyway, i think we've learned a lot about what women want from men this week. it is (a) boredom, (b) an excuse to quit their fancy jobs that they love with all the passion they should be reserving for matthew mcconaughey, (c) grace under being-cheated-on, and (d) ????

AMANDA: Um ... have you ever seen a romantic comedy that does not do this?

SADY: "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" is a romantic comedy! and i liked it so, so much! but it's never mentioned in our recaps of the genre. because if a movie is GOOD, it avoids the "romantic comedy" label-of-death. also if it is focused on a dude, which a lot of them are these days. and then the ladies get to have no personality! equality! GIRL POWER!

AMANDA: yes, in the world of film, even women can be brainless objects. this is truly progress.

SADY: well, i'm just going to go and bask in the glow of How Far We've Come, if you don't mind.

AMANDA: I'm going to go watch What Women Want. I am told the answers to all of our questions lie within that film.

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In which your cipher fantasy boyfriend is psychic Mel Gibson OH GOD

SADY: ah, what is the point of chatting when mel gibson could be shaving his legs or something right in front of your own personal face? good luck to you.

AMANDA: it is what I want, apparently!

First, with the help of my Sexist Beatdown partner-in-crime Sady Doyle: a discussion about why men don't recognize themselves as victims of sexual assault, and instead dream up hilarious feline metaphors ("cheetahs"!) in order to discuss the phenomenon of predatory women. Then: a follow-up post on how we use anatomy to justify assaults against men (hint: an erection does not equal consent).

The examination of sexual assaults against men got an interesting response from some feminist commenters over on Sady's blog, Tiger Beatdown (Yes! This is a special guest edition of Sexist Comments of the Week!) Namely: Don't feed the MRA's!

MRAs, for the uninitiated, is shorthand for "Men's Rights Activists." These guys are kind of like feminists, only instead of focusing on reproductive rights, objectification of women, and sexual assault, they're more concerned with other systems of oppression—like divorce court, the Selective Service, and male circumcision. Because—say it with me—the patriarchy  oppresses men too, there's no reason that MRA's and feminists shouldn't get along. Except for one minor detail: MRA's tend to believe that feminism is the root of most of these problems that affect men, and we tend to see that's pretty much bullshit.

The unfortunate result of that divide is that feminists have sometimes discounted important issues to our movement—like violence and sexual assault against men—by relegating their discussion to the MRA community, where the issues can sometimes take on . . . interesting twists.

Kristyn wrote:

I think this article is very, very relevant, and totally true, but at the same time it definitely borders on the "fodder for MRAs" territory.

"See, you lying whore, you weren’t raped because WOMEN RAPE MEN!!! Like, ALL THE TIME!!! But men are just TOO AFRAID to say so because THE WOMEN have BULLIED THEM and WE ARE SO SCAARED like TIGER who got beaten BY A GOLF CLUB!!!! Who’s to say you horrible cheetahwomen aren’t going to HIT US with GOLF CLUBS because you HAVE MORE POWER blah blah blah blah WHITE GUYS ARE THE MOST OPPRESSED PEOPLE EVER blah blah people are too PC blah blah blah."

. . . So how can we talk about this type of thing WITHOUT breeding women-hating assholes who think all lady-people are sexually manipulative golf-club-wielding animal metaphors?

Helen added:

Further to what Kristyn said—Yes, and the legal system is going to take this meme and run with it re. proving any allegation of rape.

“M’lud. I put it to you that not only did Ms Z totally ask for whatever was coming to her by getting in a car with the defendant, but that she was planning to rape him.

Happy days.

Sady drafted a really well-reasoned and important response to those criticisms. I wanted to reproduce her thoughts here, because she really summed up my thoughts on this issue:

If we refuse to say things—things that we know to be true—because some MRA or whoever could take them and twist them into untruth, then we’re letting the opposition determine the terms of the debate for us. A particularly fringey and known-to-be-nuts variety of the opposition, at that.

This is actually something that drives me a wee bit up the wall, about feminist conversations: sometimes I’m afraid we oversimplify certain principles, or refuse to say certain things, because the actual complexities or truths at hand don’t feel “safe” or in line with our predetermined talking points and agreed-upon theories. Whereas it’s precisely those complexities and uncomfortable truths we should be focusing on, really, because that’s where we need to improve our understandings. We need to go out beyond the edges of what we already understand and feel comfortable with, in order to find anything new to say.

It seems like every time I write about some not-so-admirable thing that ladies do, someone weighs in to say that I’m not presenting the gender positively enough and/or giving aid to the enemy. And I don’t shitting care about that, to be totally blunt. For one, I don’t think The Enemy reads Tiger Beatdown, and for two, I care about writing the truth, because I don’t feel feminism is served or ever can be served by ignoring the truth and instead telling each other whatever is most uplifting or whatever we most want to hear. Writing this chat felt really vulnerable, for me, which I think is a good thing, because it was confirmation that I was being honest and that I wasn’t just repeating someone else’s lines throughout.

Plus, if some MRA ever decides that feminists. just. don’t. CAAAARE about bad stuff that happens to men, or will just never ever ever admit that women can be abusive, this is one concrete incidence – one of many – that someone can point to in order to prove them wrong. It won’t make a difference to them, of course, because they’ve already committed to ideology over reality. But for people who are committed to reality, it will be evidence against them.

Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can
Seldom found in woman, never found in man.

We often hear that "patience is a virtue." It's the second half of the sentiment largely goes unspoken: Patience is a virtue for women. What is patience, exactly? In Helper By Design, Elyse Fitzpatrick's guide to submitting to your man in the name of God, patience is defined as the "power to endure without complaint something which is disagreeable." That's right, ladies—our gender is number one in leading lives of quiet desperation.

Throughout history, this "power to endure" has proven . . . inconvenient. While patience has its perks in dealing with events that lie entirely outside of our control—war, famine, terminal illness—it becomes a bit of a bother when applied to the realm of romantic relationships. Wait to be asked on a date. Wait to be swept off your feet. Wait for sex—if not until marriage, then at least 90 days. Wait for him to bend down on one knee. Once hitched, wait on him. Then, die.

Why are women encouraged to wait around for major life events to just happen to us? Patience, my dear. These relationship milestones have been engineered and reinforced along traditional gender lines in order to test a woman's ability to shut up and sit pretty, while encouraging men of action to make all the decisions around here. But unfortunately for the patience lobby, us women have figured a few things out over the history of time. One: Our vaginas won't implode upon completion of premarital sex. Two: Our significant others can still love us without investing two paychecks worth of bling into one of our virtuous little fingers. And three: Waiting does not work. Ever.

In light of these developments, some have chosen to trash those pesky romantic milestones altogether, refusing to see virginity and weddings as indicators of our worth as women. Others have flipped the gender script they're based upon: Ask out. Initiate sex. Propose. But some just can't let go of the passivity thing, and they're going to try their hardest to make feminine patience work in the 21st century. For them, the ideal of passive patience needn't be discarded; it's just got to be re-coded and re-sold as proactive patience. Nowadays, getting men to come to you doesn't have to be a pathetic waste of time—it can be a subversive, brave, and even—yes—feminist act of empowerment!

Coincidentally, all of these people appear to be concentrated in our nation's record labels, movie studios, publishing houses, and newspapers. Behold, pop culture's vision of a feminism of patience: No need to abandon traditional marriage—just celebrate women who are strong enough to get what they want (that ring). Don't propose to your significant other—just subversively coerce him into doing it for you. Don't bother waiting around in your ivory tower for your prince to come—just make damned sure you're on the receiving end of that fairy-tale ending. Girl power!

—

Exhibit A: The works of Taylor Swift.

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Hoo boy, how are we going to reconcile this one, ladies? Taylor Swift sings songs about waiting around, being a princess, and crying for her "Romeo" to rescue her from her dad, who is so mean. Then, she makes videos for these songs where she is literally waiting in an ivory tower for her prince to come:

Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone
I'll be waiting all there's left to do is run
You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess
It's a love story baby just say yes

Okay. Breathe. Despite the traditional trappings—Romeo, waiting, prince, princess—it's not hard to find a girl-power lining in this song. Swift is coaching Romeo here. She's giving him exact instructions on where to find her. She's charting out their escape route. And she's imploring him to say yes to her demands. That is, until we get to the fairy-tale ending:

Romeo save me I've been feeling so alone
I keep waiting for you but you never come
Is this in my head? I don't know what to think
He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring

And said, marry me Juliet
You'll never have to be alone
I love you and that's all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It's a love story baby just say yes

Ooh! So close! Notice how Swift whiles away her time waiting, crying, wishing, hoping, praying, etc. while all Romeo has to do is . . . go over and talk to her dad. It's not exactly rocket science, folks. And yet, Swift expends a whole lot of emotional energy in order to goad the love of her life into performing the most basic of tasks, instead of just, like, dealing with her father herself, or realizing that her father is a dick and she's 18 so he can't tell her what to do anyway. But whatever—surely we can channel all of Swift's emotional energy into some sort of feminist reading of her work? Alyssa Rosenberg, noted critic of passivity in popular culture, sees Swift as feminist, in a way:

I am an enormous sucker for . . . Taylor Swift's "Love Story," which is an absurdly mature and lovely piece of pop songwriting. "I was a scarlet letter" spoken as a declaration of pride, devotion, and sexual desire is kind of amazing as a commercially successful act of feminist reclamation.

I don't see the phrase as a "feminist reclamation" so much as a mixed literary metaphor inserted into a song about waiting to get a ring on that finger. And "Love Story" is not Swift's sole offense: In "You Belong With Me," Swift passively spins elaborate fantasies that the boy of her dreams is dating her, and not his girlfriend. In the song, Swift is "Dreaming bout the day when you'll wake up and find / That what you're lookin' for has been here the whole time." Since Swift refuses to just ask him out or something, her solution is to aggressively strut her passivity in front of his face at every opportunity.

But let's be fair—while Swift's princess persona is a bit dull, Swift herself has been spending her pre-wedding days writing and recording hit crossover records. That's something, Ann Powers argues for the Los Angeles Times:

the authority these fledgling artists claim is a great sign of feminism's ripple effects. Swift might play a princess in many of her songs—in fact, the best parts of "Fearless" meditate on the princess myth and how reality subverts it—but in the studio she's her own boss, writing and producing those fairy tales.

This is the Sarah Palin theory of feminism. If she's a woman, and she does stuff, it's feminist—even if that stuff is writing songs about waiting around for boys do stuff to you. These women don't deserve our ire, but they don't deserve a cookie, either. Swift should be celebrated as a promising entertainer who writes catchy tunes I like to listen to on the radio. Feminist? Not so much.

—

Exhibit B: The cautionary tale.

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If "Anna", the central character in the upcoming rom-com Leap Year, is a "princess," it is in the urban dictionary sense of the word: She is a beautiful, well-heeled control freak with a serious thirst for a solitaire diamond. Anna wants to propose to her boyfriend, but she can't, because girls can't propose to boys. So our determined young heroine finds a patience loop-hole: Propose to her boyfriend on a day that only comes around once every four years, because it is socially acceptable to do so, in Ireland, on that day alone (?). Anna hops on a plane to secure the man of her dreams on her own terms.

But ho ho, no, not so fast, independent woman. You've still got to wait—for your plane to get re-routed, your car to get blocked by a sea of cows, your ass to fall down a muddy hill, and a charming and handsome Irishman to accompany you on your hilarious misadventures. In fact, our heroine has to wait juuuuust long enough for her boyfriend to realize that he, in fact, wants to propose to her—and for the charming and handsome Irishman to begin to aggressively court her also.

Moral of the story: There's nothing more irresistible than a woman who desperately needs to get married as soon as possible . . . as long as she doesn't end up doing the proposing. That would be pathetic.

—

Exhibit C: Team Bella

Bella Swan, the heroine of the Twilight series, gets a lot of flack for being a passive lump of femininity with no defining characteristics besides her tasty blood. (Rosenberg has penned an exquisitely written anti-Bella screed). By series end, that blood will catapult her into vampire royalty, making her a—you guessed it!—princess. But in New Moon, the second installment in the Twilight series, Bella actually takes on a ton of pretty sweet hobbies.

She fixes up old motorcycles! She jumps off cliffs! She goes on joyrides with dumpy bikers! She sees movies with her friends! She uses e-mail! Okay—so our expectations for Bella's extracurricular activities are pretty low. She actually spends the better part of New Moon staring out of a window, watching the seasons change as she "endures without complaint something which is disagreeable"—bad vampire break-up. But the motorcycle thing is pretty rad, right? Too bad she only does the more interesting stuff to prove how vulnerable and suicidal she is in an attempt to coerce her ex-boyfriend to come back and save her from herself.

Bella's empowerment of desperation presents the most difficult form of patience to re-cast as a new feminism. But let's give it a try—if we can't give up the wedding shit, and we can't give up the princess shit, and we can't give up the patience shit, then we have got to find some way to justify this to ourselves. Sady Doyle, in a brilliant turn, points out that Bella is passive in the way that men in porn are: They're faceless, save for one sizable talent (tasty blood = big penis), and somehow they've got tons of perky, tanned blondes servicing them for no apparent reason. This is exactly what happens to Bella—she does nothing, she is nothing, and hot guys fight over her. (Nevermind that one other thing Bella doesn't do: Sex before marriage). No, it's not feminist. But at least women aren't alone in this peculiar set-up. Plus, it helps religious ladies get off, apparently, so proceeds go toward a good cause.

—

Exhibit D: Feminist v. Princess

Last year, the Washington Post published Rachel Beckman's "One Ring Circus," a story about the years Beckman spent waiting, wishing, agonizing and flat-out fantasizing that her boyfriend Eli would propose to her. Beckman is more attached to the romantic relationship milestones than most—she began imagining Eli's proposal after their first kiss. A few years down the road, she had formed an "Engagement Watch Team" among her coworkers to chart Eli's every move. The obsession was not all white taffeta and seating arrangements; the anticipation of the proposal haunted her. One Valentine's Day, Beckman "carefully checked every dish of food for a diamond ring so that I didn't accidentally swallow it and become one of those proposals-gone-bad stories in the bridal magazines." When Beckman, then in her early 2o's, realized Eli wasn't popping the question that moment, she wept.

Unsurprisingly, the diamond fever left Beckman with some personal conflicts:

I felt like engagement was the one off-limits topic. I didn't want to pressure him or spoil the big, elaborate surprise proposal (that he hadn't even started planning). I was caught in a Catch-22. I could be hands-off and leave it all to him (feminist Rachel says no), or I could be hands-on and get what I want (princess Rachel says no).

I don't doubt that Beckman has been largely influenced by the feminist movement. But the distinction between the "princess" who waits patiently for her boyfriend to propose to her and the "feminist" who actively coerces her boyfriend into proposing sets up a bit of a false dichotomy. The main difference appears to be that the princess waits around for her prince to ride up on his horse, while the feminist pressures her boyfriend to man up and play his assigned role.

A desire to get married is not necessarily an anti-feminist one. The problem is when the decision to wed is left exclusively to the man, leaving the woman to waste years of emotional energy as she waits patiently for him to do so.  The whole point of the milestone is to set up a relationship based on feminine patience and masculine decision-making. Beckman's "feminist" solution is to micromanage the process—to talk openly about her desire to get married, open up negotiations as to the time frame, and instruct Eli on the perfect ring. In doing so, Beckman converts her private agony into proactive patience, but she can't go so far as to pop the question herself—in order to fulfill her lifelong engagement fantasy, she must submit to Eli's better judgment.

Beckman may see this subversive engagement planning as a feminist development, but really, women have always coped with a lack of institutional power by working behind the scenes. I appreciate Beckman's essay, because it's good to remember that achieving patience takes more than switching on your feminine tractor beams and waiting for your prince to come. Getting what you want while seemingly doing nothing is work. Even in 1964, Burt Bacharach knew that just waiting around and being a woman wasn't going to cut it. You have to strut your patience. You have to work your waiting.

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"Wishin' and Hopin,'" a ditty made popular by Dusty Springfield, instructed women to stop their traditional wishin', hopin', thinkin', prayin', plannin', and dreamin', and instead, get off their asses and do stuff: like "the things he likes to do" and wearing "your hair just for him." As the song demonstrates, aggressively pursuing what you want isn't always an act of female empowerment.

Photo via George Eastman House

Hello, world. The illustrious Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I were all ready to administer another of our weekly smackdowns on a very important topic like pulling out, bitchy musicians, or Megan Fox's fake boobies. But theeeeen, we both got the vapors in anticipation of the New Moon premiere!!!!! busy. So rest easy, people likely to piss us off—we're calling a truce today. The cat-fighting will resume next week.

Photo by ansik, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Megan Fox, everyone's least-favorite super-hot chick, gets the New York Times Magazine treatment this week. We all know Megan Fox as that hot sassy vixen who claims to be female-empowered (“I would eat Robert Pattinson”) as she poses in wet bikinis for men's magazines. And we know that that combination, uh, usually doesn't go over so well among feminists. But here's where things get trippy, you guys: Like, is it all an act? And what does it all mean?

Take one of Fox's most well-publicized stunts: Publicly comparing Transformers director (and noted wet bikini enthusiast) Michael Bay to Hitler. Could there by a lesson hidden beneath the headline? I'll bite: Why do feminists spend our time hating on the Megan Foxes of this world instead of focusing their efforts on the Michael Bays? Is dancing in a bikini under a waterfall for Bad Boys II empowering? It was pretty empowering for 15-year-old Megan Fox ($), and it was really empowering for Michael Bay ($$$$$). But it's probably not so empowering to women. Is projecting all of our hatred of entertainment-industry sexism onto one 23-year-old starlet empowering to other women? Nope, but it is empowering to snarky celebrity bloggers, who squeeze out their own ($) in mean-spirited Fox-based blog posts. Me? I like to empower myself by putting the word "boobies" in the titles of all of my snarky Megan Fox posts ($$$)!

So! On that note, join Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and myself as we embark upon another Sexist Beatdown. This time: What the fuck do we do with Megan Fox, then? Pray that she crashes, burns, and ends up managing a Hooters in Tennessee, even if she'll never bring Michael Bay down with her? Hope she has the strength to uglify herself just long enough to win an Oscar? Start a campaign to get that girl into some dry bikinis for once? We decide, after the jump!

SADY: megan fox has ARRIVED! PRAISE THE LORD!

AMANDA: and she has fake "boobies"!

SADY: I feel that I am not meant to like Megan Fox, based on this NYTM piece, which is all about how she is clearly (and candidly!) a market-tested persona product in the midst of rebranding. But (a) how many celebrities are not, and (b) how many public PEOPLE are not, and (c) the fact that she talks about the fact that she IS makes her weirdly seem to be less of one than, let's say, Zac Efron, and (d) BOOBIES! SHE TALKS ABOUT HER FAKE BOOBIES IN FRONT OF THE INTERVIEWER! SHE DEBATES WHETHER OR NOT TO INSERT THEM IN HER BRA! CAPSLOCK! I like this!

AMANDA: i like this, too. but i'm left wondering what the point of this piece is. half of it seems like a disingenuous way to get around the low-brow celebrity scoop on megan fox while still cashing in on that scoop. NYT isn't going all Us weekly and making the headline "MEGAN FOX USES FAKE BOOBIES," [Editor's note: But hey, I'm not above it!] but i'm not sure this form of pseudo-intellectual celebrity gawking is really that different from the tabloid version.

SADY: fair enough: the article does seem to hold her at a weird distance. like, it is supposedly about The Spectacle Of Megan Fox, and how she's got all this weird projection-based hate and love and whatever around her, but also invites us to take part in that and deplore her for her fake booby usage or frequent anti-"middle-america" statementing.

AMANDA: and her affinity for Hitler jokes.

SADY: she is fond of a hitler joke every now and again! it's true! but i also thought, after reading stuff like the Rolling Stone cover piece a while back, that it was kind of refreshing to read an interview that was not just asking her whether she drinks human blood during sex or which celebrity penis she'd prefer to keep company with.

AMANDA: yes. i agree, and i don't think this piece is bad. i just think it's barely there in terms of transcending the tabloid thing. but one thing i found really interesting in this piece was the idea of Fox manufacturing a persona of "female empowerment" for men's magazines. it's an old trick to give an interview to a men's magazine next to photos in your undies that talks about how you want to eat Robert Pattison, and how you're an empowered woman, and how using your body in Hollywood and being frank about it is better than the alternative, but it's interesting to see her quote at the end that, actually, she doesn't like men looking at her body.

SADY: well, i am kind of unclear on megan fox's personal philosophy of female empowerment. like, it seems to be not that well-defined! projecting myself into the head of megan fox, which i know only through interviews, and in which (as you note) she is always only saying what she has chosen to convey to the world at large, i THINK she thinks that being all sexy boy-eatery is not in and of itself the empowerment? that using that image to your own benefit and being a canny manipulator of that image is the empowerment? BUT, as you say, she does seem pretty sick of it and is maybe kind of trapped by that image to a greater extent than she once expected to be. in the Golden Years! when she put her underage self in a bikini and did a waterfall dance for Michael Bay's cinematic vision and got a whole FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS in extra pay for so doing!

AMANDA: yeah, and more than that, she fucking loved it! she felt that she belonged dancing in the waterfall.

SADY: like a bikini-clad nymph dancing in the fountain of Underage Youth.

AMANDA: but, since you are perhaps a more studied Fox scholar: is Fox's version of female empowerment any different from Joanna Krupa's statement that posing for Playboy is feminist? That, because this activity makes one super hot woman super rich, that means it's empowering?

SADY: well, that's the thing, right? that's the reason we get all pissy about this? because this is actually the divide that I most frequently fall into and die a thousand intrablogular deaths. there's one school of thought that is like, "no, it is not actually empowering," and another school of thought that is like, "no, it is not empowering, and also any woman who participates in it is BRINGING FEMINISM DOWN and must immediately run straight to the consoling zombie arms of andrea dworkin and claim that she was brainwashed into doing it whether or not this was actually the case." and i am of the "no, it is not empowering" school myself. i think the only people who think it is empowering are people who don't get structure, and are kind of libertariany and weird.

AMANDA: yeah. "i do something, and i am a woman, so that thing is empowering for women" doesn't really make sense

SADY: but i also don't think yelling at the actual women who participate in it is kind of weird, because: as a person without a steady paycheck, I get that you do what you have to do in order to get by. and one of the options open, if you look even vaguely Fox-like, is to do the Hot Girl thing.

AMANDA: and on the other hand, "i wear bikinis and hang out around cars" is not empowering to women, but "i wear bikinis and hang out around cars and point out what a skeevy hack michael bay is, and how weird it is that this is my job" is better, i think. and that's something Joanna Krup totally fails to recognize.

SADY: yeah, exactly. i mean, fuck the michael bays of the world. who come in many forms and at many pay levels. i've known girls whose main source of employment was dressing up in kind of sexy outfits and going to bars and convincing dudes there that this one specific kind of beer was superior to all others. the michael bays of marketing! but, yeah, obviously, part of our fantasy around those women is that they're totally thrilled and turned on by jobs that are about selling their sexuality – compliance is the biggest part of the fantasy, like that policy at hooters that you have to engage in "friendly banter" that is most likely about your titular Hooters – and so when girls complain, you know, they're subversive. and subject to the typical blowback. even if they're only doing what everyone else in the world does, which is bitching about the uncomfortable aspects of their jobs. sorry, SPEECHIFYING.

AMANDA: THATS OK. so, moving on to the virgin-whore aspect to all of this ... i think it's really interesting that Fox has been able to be in more control of her tabloid stories because of the fact that she dates boring Brian Austin Green and they've been boringly dating for five years. all the tabloid stories are like, "megan fox SAID THIS," not "megan fox fucked some dude."

SADY: yeah. BRIAN AUSTIN GREEN. a compellingly boring choice! because if she were out actually having actual sex, she'd be portrayed as a train-wreck.

AMANDA: it's really sad.

SADY: yeah, but it's another part of the narrative about Hot Girls: that they're out behaving like trollops and possibly crazy and messed-up and lost and blah blah whatever. like, female sexuality can't exist without us feeling the need to punish it, or see it punished. and i don't think women feel that need to the same extent that a lot of men do, or in the same ways, but i think it's disingenuous to say that a lot of us don't feel it. basically, I am using the word "lot" a lot, in an attempt to parse this. but Fox can always fall back on the old, "I have a BOYFRIEND! My sexy sexiness is merely an ACT" thing. which brings us to this whole Meta Fox level where admitting that something is an act may in fact be part of another, overarching act.

AMANDA: METAFOX. well, it's interesting, because we all know that the Jennifer Aniston Act about her being a hopeless spinster who can't find love is created by the tabloids. and we know that the Jessica Simpson Is A Stupid Bitch act is created by the tabloids. But whether or not those narratives are based in truth, those celebrities will not be able to escape it, no matter what, so it doesn't matter. with Megan Fox setting herself up from the get-go as being entirely fake, it may give her some more power to control that fakeness later on.

SADY: yeah. i mean, i think that coming from someone who was basically hired as a cinematic boner dispenser before she was even old enough to vote, and who really hasn't been hired for jobs outside of that context, she seems remarkably in-control.

AMANDA: well-said

SADY: but i do question how in-control anyone hired to be a cinematic boner dispenser actually is, in the long run. i mean, the weight of The Patriarchy and all of its various Deep-Rooted And Contradictory Sex Issues does not rest lightly on one's shoulders.

AMANDA: that's certainly true, but at the same time—and i really don't mean to insult megan fox here, because i don't know what she's capable of—what is she going to do, become a senator? be a mid-level manager? write? she has always wanted to be an actress, she says, and she's noted that the only reason she can do that is because she's hot. Fox isn't going to be getting many Oscar-bait roles (although Jennifer's Body was an improvement), but does she have to do that kind of acting in order for her to be acceptable?

SADY: uh, probably? i mean, i'm trying to think of someone else who's made this kind of transition. and, weirdly, the only people i can think of who have made the transition from Object of Desire to Serious Actor are men. like: johnny depp! he was once a mere hot dude! or brad pitt! he was that also! or george clooney! those dudes all started out being valued primarily for their hotness, and then later we were like, "oh, ACTING!" marilyn monroe tried it, but it didn't really happen. angelina jolie, maybe? oh, hey, here's an option for megan fox: retire at the age of thirty-four, and spend your entire life rolling around on a bed of cash money.

AMANDA: right. marry someone more successful than brian austin green. is it mean that i keep making fun of brian austin green?

SADY: uh, NO. fox needs someone with an eye for investments, and fewer anecdotes about that time he was on "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." it got CANCELLED! it was AWESOME!

AMANDA: it sounds awesome. but some women do do that. Halle Berry did that, and then she just kind of receded back into the boobie rolls. there's a short window of opportunity for Hot Girls to be Oscar-Worthy Hot Girls, and then they must retreat to the Elder Hot Girl Processing Area. I know what it is! Megan Fox hasn't gotten to her "purposefully ugly" stage yet. then she can really be an Actress

SADY: right? she needs to talk to Mariah Carey's people! they can de-Glitter her! i just used the phrase "talk to [X]'s people." without shame. that is a sad thing i did. i think i must leave now, and contemplate my sins.

AMANDA: haha. well i need to go put on my knee-pad leggings myself. dont tell the blogs about that one

Hey, ladies. It's time for another edition of Sexist Beatdown. Up for discussion this morning are girls who hate on other girls when a man gets in the way, and then write pop songs about it. As always, your hosts are that bitchy, popular ho Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, and the adorably geeky woman of your dreams—me! Join us: We promise to pretend to be your friends while we try to fuck your boyfriend and ridicule your skanky dye job.

Sady has already done the groundwork on the "girl-on-girl sexism" phenomenon. In this special genre of pop music, the protagonist ridicules another woman who is either a) involved with "her man," or b) involved with a man the singer wishes were "her man." The protagonist typically cites purely aesthetic arguments—But she's a cheerleader! But she has bleached hair! But she just sucks!—for hating that other bitch and attempting to convince the "man" that he belongs with her. Sady notes that this trend most recently surfaced in Taylor Swift's beloved hit single, "You Belong With Me":

It put my hair thoroughly on end, with Taylor pleading over and over again for a boy to just go ahead and dump a girl (who apparently has goals in life outside of obsessively working to please this one dude), in favor of Taylor (who doesn't). I mean, I know we're supposed to be rooting for Taylor, because GLASSES, but this whole thing whereby girls who do not conceive of themselves as traditionally attractive deal with this by hating on girls who they think are prettier is just really repulsive to me, and I can't stand it, especially when it's framed as "empowering" rather than just insecure and gross. You have a problem with how limiting the mainstream beauty standard is? Fine. TALK ABOUT THAT. I will agree with you. But slamming "ugly" girls and slamming "pretty" girls both amount to slamming girls. So, you know. Less of that, please.

Meanwhile, Notes on Popular Culture has already provided the counterpoint for Team Taylor: "Sady calls the comparison between the two girls 'girl-on-girl sexism.' What Sady forgets is that this is what people do. That is what girls do, that is what teenage girls do, this is what girls do when another girl has they guy they like. It’s tame, and pretty damn fair."

Or is it?

SADY:: let's talk about ladies who don't like other ladies! through the universal language of SONG! (the ladies who hate other ladies. not me, or, i would imagine you. let us conduct this discussion instead through the universal language of Gchat.)

AMANDA: agreed!

SADY: first of all, i think we need to separate the lady-disliking-lady song from the you-cheated-on-me-song (as sung by a lady). because both are venerable pop conventions. but one is pretty specifically about disliking a lady, and the other is more about being upset with somebody who cheated on you and referring to the co-cheater as a "tramp" or whatever.

AMANDA: so, you're saying there is a difference between your unnecessary "I Hate That Bitch" song and your Jolene rip-off?

SADY: i would argue, yes! although... maybe not? (BEHOLD, as i introduce and then disagree with my own points!) because, like, in "before he cheats," by carrie underwood, she mentions that there is "probably" a "bleached-blond tramp" in this dude's life before introducing some truly epic automotive destruction on the possible-tramp-liker.

AMANDA: oh ... "probably.” see, this is where it gets interesting. because doesn't carrie underwood appear to have bleached blond hair?

SADY: haha, and the hypothetical tramp sings "fake Shania karaoke" at one point. PROJECTION!

[youtube:v=fNzowNrhSx8]
Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats"
Woman: bleach-blond, wavy-haired Carrie Underwood
Other Woman: bleach-blond, straight-haired Carrie Underwood look-alike

AMANDA: and isn't it innocent-glasses TAYLOR SWIFT HERSELF, ladies and gentleman of the jury, and not bitchy-brunette Taylor Swift, that is the "other woman" in "You Belong With Me"?

SADY: RIGHT! or in "girlfriend," by avril lavigne, which is basically the same song: "hey hey you you i don't like your girlfriend hey hey you you i could be your girlfriend why can't you see you belong with me?" they sort of blur together into an identical message point in my head. also that "don't you wish your girlfriend were the pussycat dolls" song. there are a LOT of these songs!

[youtube:v=iT5Ez_qxpc0]
Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend"
Woman: Redhead glasses-wearing Avril Lavigne, who is "like, so whatever."
Other Woman: Brunette punk-rocker Avril Lavigne, who is a "mother-fuckin' princess"

AMANDA: practically the same song, except avril subs in "punky arm-warmers" for glasses. But let's go back to Jolene for a moment, shall we?

SADY: let's!

AMANDA: so, instead of trashy bleached-blond hair (or trashy brunette-died hair, depending on the version), jolene has got a smile like a breath of spring, or whatever.

SADY: right. there's a lot of lavishly detailed jolene-sexiness, which makes the song weirdly kind of ladyrotic, all about the power of another woman's sexuality.
AMANDA: right ... and it raises an interesting point about how these "other women" are romanticized and demonized in song. the "other woman" song is an interesting thing to talk about from a feminist perspective I think. for example, when Dolly Parton is begging Jolene not to take "her man," she exerts ownership over another human being and even attempts to control another human (jolene) in order to keep that ownership. instead of being like, "fuck it," which maybe would not have made for a very compelling song, i guess. and so, perhaps you could give a feminist reading to "Girlfriend" and "You Belong With Me" in that these are women reminding other humans that they aren't property.

[youtube:v=1plvBR02wDs]
Dolly Parton's "Jolene"
Woman: Can't compete.
Other Woman: Flaming locks of auburn hair, ivory skin, eyes of emerald green, smile like breath of spring, voice soft like summer rain.

SADY: welllllll... possibly? i think both are actually ABOUT competition over territory (territory = actual human dude). in one case you are trying to lure a dude away, and in another, you are trying to keep hold of him. but, weirdly, i don't think that is so feminist? because what a lot of these songs do is sort of make the dudes not responsible for who they cheat on you with / who they date, in order to transfer all of the animus onto another woman. women are always sort of the villains, even if it's a dude who is making the choices you disagree with. compare this to one of my favorite dude-finds-out-his-lady-cheated songs, "take a letter, maria," in which a dude rolls into the office, tells his secretary his wife's been sleeping with another dude. then, asks her to draft a divorce letter. then, tells her she's his girlfriend now. like, the dude just kind of keeps rolling on. the lady is STILL the villain, even in songs about cheating ladies sung from dudes' perspectives. not the guy his wife slept with.

AMANDA: so ... does any dude actually choose his girlfriend based on who writes the best song about why he should be their girlfriend?

SADY: i kind of wish they did!

AMANDA: i dont! i such at that shit!

SADY: well, i think the vast majority of dudes would get a case of The Creeps if we were all under their windows performing dance-offs about them. which DOES kind of make the whole "you belong to me" genre weirdly feminist: it's women being suitors, not desired objects. granted, it's in some kind of wacky "i could totally fulfill all your needs better than she can" way, but WHATEVS.

AMANDA: right, and weirdly enough, the guys are hardly humanized.

SADY: exactly. like, it's not about how dreamy they are or whatever. they're not singing the dude's praises. they're just like, "WANT DUDE! DUDE MINE!"

AMANDA: it's possible that these "empowering" other-woman songs are just co-opting the worst aspects of traditional male courting behavior. one of the things that irks me about both You Belong with Me and Girlfriend is the assumption that, well, the guy belongs with them.

SADY: yeah! exactly! like, Dude can't choose who he wants to date? MAYBE THE FACT THAT YOU ARE ALWAYS IN THE WINDOW MAKING MOONEYES AT HIM HAS CREEPED HIM OUT, Taylor Glasses!

AMANDA: it's the same old shit where a dude feels entitled to harass a woman because that's what is supposed to happen when you like a girl, no matter what she says about you—like, "no thanks," or "just friends"

[youtube:v=hAq4eKwfBPY]
Pussycat Dolls, "Dontcha"
Woman: Not hot like her.
Other Woman: Hot.

SADY: yeah, exactly. like, the whole "Nice Guy (TM)" bit of jargon we've coined to describe dudes who whine about how they're so awesome and girls STILL won't go out with them and the fact is that they're just kind of chasing the wrong girls around? that seems, weirdly, to be present in some gender-flipped form in "You Belong With Me." Taylor Swift is a Nice Girl (TM) and it is freaking me out a little.

AMANDA: or pretending to be friends when they're really trying to get a boner. full disclosure, I find that song catchy and I listen to it whenever it's on the radio, which is all the time, which is why I know enough about this song to have this weird reservation about one of the lyrics. you pointed this out, as well, but when Swift says that evil bitchy girlfriend "doesn't get his humor" and freaks out when he says certain things, it always seems obvious to me that the guy is saying something so monumentally douchey, and Taylor Swift is just lining up to be like, "I won't call you out on being a douche."

SADY: yeah, exactly. like, i have seen girls do this. the whole "i get boys" thing, that in practice always seems to be about siding with boys when girls call them out on being sexist and/or douches. and i don't know what it is – being known as a "guy's girl" can give you some power, or an illusion of power, in certain circles – but to me I always get post-traumatic Tucker Max flashbacks to when he's like, "but some of my FRIENDS are women! some of my FANS!" and, yeah, but maybe those girls are just biting the bullet and/or deluded enough to think that your douchiness will never affect them unless they laugh along. basically, i think "You Belong With Me" is a song about how Taylor Swift wants to date Seth McFarlane. that is what i think it is. i will never apologize.

AMANDA: maybe they would be cute!

SADY: he could talk to her in the voice of a mean-spirited british baby and/or laconic dog.

AMANDA: that other bitch just doesn't GET that like she does.

SADY: EXACTLY. you know, though, i have been forced to come to the conclusion that everyone in the whole entire world likes taylor swift a little bit more than i do. like, my over-the-top dislike of taylor swift may in fact be wrongheaded and the result of being hit in the head with a skipper doll as a small child or something. people in general don't dislike taylor swift as much as i do, so there is maybe something wrong with me. and i would like to apologize to taylor swift, for whatever i have written about her in the past, using a girl-hating-(i think?)-another-girl-song lyric. from destiny's child. it reads: "you know i'm not gonna diss you on the internet / cause my mama told me better than that."

AMANDA: i heard that song on the radio the other day. taylor swift has, essentially, said the opposite about her career: she's said that all her songs are about dissing people who have wronged her in some way.

SADY: OH GOD. SHOULD I BE WORRIED?

AMANDA: (Yes). But i can't help but thinking that—with all her deliberate high-school-band-geek-goofy-glasses image—taylor swift maybe has underestimated how much people were going to Totally Fall In Love With Her. she's the most successful artist right now, and smoking hot, and she's writing a bunch of diss songs, which probably won't play for very long. just a bit of career advice. because i know a lot about the music business. so ... you're doing her a favor, is what i'm saying, and i can't wait to see what wig taylor swift wears in order to play you in her upcoming single, "I Didn't Know He Had A Nazi Shirt On, You Bitch."

Earlier this week, we looked at the popular fear of date rape drugs, and how that fear helps distract us from acquaintance rapes that involve willingly ingested substances, like beer. Beer, you say? In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I talk booze—the most common date-rape drug, the cause of a shit ton of other problems, and a pretty fun thing to drink, in moderation. After the jump: we bemoan the double standard of passing out, yearn for a consentalizer test, and check in on how our femininity is holding up—it's tipsy, thanks for asking!

SADY: hello! good evening! it is time to discuss date rape drugging, or so i hear!

AMANDA: it is that allotted time!

SADY: first of all, i have to say that your take on the whole scenario was (AS USUAL!) highly impressive and nuanced.

AMANDA: well—some issues were perhaps underrepresented there. there are A LOT OF ISSUES. with this ISSUE.

SADY: well, this whole report – that date rapes involving date rape drugs are less rare than date rapes involving date drinking—is kind of set to be a highly polarizing thing. like, some people have been like, "see? the floozies are just out getting drunk! and making up accounts of druggedness!" and others are like, "there are, too, date rape drugs!" and what impressed me about your take was that you didn't (a) minimize assault, or (b) discount that date rape drugs might in fact be less common than acquaintance rape without that factor involved.

AMANDA: I saw that Broadsheet had already written a pretty thought out post that discussed why some women might report being drugged when that was not necessarily the case—and obviously, i read the Daily Mail's amazingly stupid take on it which suggested that women are big drunk liars—so i thought i'd focus on the media's focus on date rape drugs. which is so interesting, because even calling them "date rape drugs" is misleading—the narrative really suggests that when this does happen, it's mostly strangers swooping in with these drugs, and not "dates" per se.

SADY: yeah, exactly. and this is a terminology flaw which i myself have fallen victim to: using "date rape" to mean "rape that was not the stranger-jumps-from-bushes-with-gun" sort of rape, rather than "rape by one's date," which is what it should (and does) mean. i mean: i have to tell you. i don't doubt that date rape drugs are used. a friend of mine just told me a story about how she suspects she may have been drugged, and although she was not assaulted, all the details line up.

AMANDA: oh yes! that is a point that i realized after i wrote my piece! it's possible that druggings are more common than they appear in these studies, but they do not lead to assaults. and that can skew the data, and getting drugged is still an awful thing to have happen to you, even if it doesn't end in assault. [Note: Marcella Chester has since counted the ways that the data on drink-spiking can go awry. Read it!].

SADY: right, it's still a violation.

AMANDA: but the whole issue of rape is an issue of skewed data, because reports are so infrequent. but i would THINK—and i dont know this—that reports of drug-assisted rapes are higher than those that don't involve drugs. because the media is pretty clear about reviling dudes who drug women, and less clear about reviling men who rape women who are drunk.

SADY: yeah. exactly. like, if you're drunk, it just means you're a big old mess and/or tramp anyway, and probably you were just drunk enough to "have sex" and "regret it" and etc.

AMANDA: and i think that "reporting" difference is true anecdotally as well—they may not even tell their friends or their boyfriends or what have you, or they will tell them and they'll be discounted. Etc.

SADY: whereas if you were DRUGGED, you can clearly point to an outside agency in getting you to the point where you could not give informed consent.

AMANDA: right. there's a degree of "proof" that society accepts with those rapes.

SADY: yeah, and, i mean, i have to tell you: i like to drink. i'm having a drink as we speak! and i am a lady who's pretty smart about listening to my body, drinks-wise, and not having more than i can handle. but there have been occasions – whether i didn't have enough sleep the night before, or forgot to eat lunch, or whatever – where A Normal Number of Drinks magically became, for that night, One Too Many Drinks, and i ended up in a messy state. and I was always surrounded by people who cared enough for me to point out that i was a mess, and call me a taxi, and whatever. but HOW SHITTY WOULD IT HAVE BEEN, STILL for someone to assault me in that state? i mean, why the fuck are Drinks considered an extra culpability on your part?

AMANDA: i too love drinking! and perhaps that should be disclosed whenever i defend ladies who like to drink against charges of flooziness! so, FULL DISCLOSURE, drinking! but so: the researchers note that drinking can be sometimes unpredictable, and if your diet or sleep or mood is different it can affect how alcohol affects you. so when, a couple weeks ago, my boyfriend told me he "felt like he had been drugged" because his level of hangover way outstripped the number of drinks he had, i thought it was kind of interesting. but i didn't actually think he HAD BEEN DRUGGED. though i suppose that's possible. but i feel like, perhaps, when women are unexpectedly slammed with alcohol—and particularly if they are assaulted while in this state—they may be told over and over again that these experiences are a result of being drugged. i'm not sure if that actually ever happens. but i DO know that if a woman was ever considered unreliable because she reported she was drugged and raped, and it turned out she wasn't actually drugged, then that would be very sad.

SADY: yeah, exactly. and that's the thing: while saying you were drugged can be pointed to as an example of how you didn't exercise agency in the matter (which is important for rape survivors, because as we all know making Bad Decisions means you totally shouldn't have the right to pursue a criminal sentence for someone who had sex with you against your will) it is also a wedge that can be used to destroy your credibility. which is why women i've known who came to the conclusion that there must have been some drugging involved in their assaults have been hesitant to come forward, because they're afraid that would be used against them. which, in that case, what was your crime? having too many drinks? FALLING ASLEEP????? not to be a big old spoiler, but dudes get to have too many drinks and fall asleep all the time! i mean, a gentleman of my personal acquaintance had too many drinks and was wandering around and got – apparently – randomly beaten up by some dudes in his neighborhood, and as far as i know the police did not tsk-tsk him for wandering around all drunk and beatable.

AMANDA: i know. dudes get to have SO MUCH PASSING OUT without the consequences! and young dudes still binge drink a lot more than women do, not that you would realize that given the media attention given to the matter. male drinking tends to be a bit invisible, i think—it's just something men do, so there's no excessive fear about it. even though men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women are. i mean, there are fears about men drinking, but they are fears about literally drinking too much and dying from drinking too much. not fears about drinking too much and getting raped, or even drinking too much and raping another person.

SADY: which maybe SHOULD be a fear. i think this is an important point: these studies which say women who have been raped frequently have also been drinking? they maybe miss the point that women have been drinking while in an environment where everyone – dudes included – is also drinking. and i genuinely think that, if ladies have these regimens over watching their ladyfriends' drink consumption and making sure they are safe, dudes should also have people watching them to make sure that they don't get to the point where they are legitimately too drunk to even get what consent MEANS.

AMANDA: yeah. and, i mean, it would help if kids knew what consent means before they knew what "body shots" means. i think it should be on the driving test, personally.

SADY: yeah. that's a worrisome statement i just made, because it seems to remove some culpability from the rapist. but i suspect that (a) assholes who drink become bigger assholes, and (b) since we all recognize that a drunk asshole is liable to get in a bar fight or whatever, we should also recognize that a drunk asshole might be an asshole who is even more inclined to rape than he was previously.

AMANDA: yeah. it seems that while society's prescriptions for female drinking include "drinking correctly"—covering your glass, going with friends—male drinking is just defined by "drinking more." which—again—i like drinking. and if my drinking becomes a personal problem, that will be bad for me. but if my drinking becomes a problem for other people—like i end up raping women or hitting my kids when i'm drunk—then that's something that REALLY needs to be addressed by society.

SADY: yeah, precisely. and the reason i think this relates to date rape drugs (ha, remember those? HI, date rape drugs!) is that, you know, they exist. and even if they exist less than rapes which occur while the rapist and/or the victim were drinking, that's still a problem. one incident of someone drugging a person in order to rape them is too many, i would estimate. but the fact that rape occurs more often in proximity to alcohol – well: first of all, i can recall being pressured to drink A Bit Too Much by certain dates, so i think it's reasonable to state that alcohol can also be an agent of coercion. and, (b) people drink. Specifically young people who want to socialize. As an extremely shy person who is far less shy after drinking, I get the reasons for this. And the fact is that if alcohol coincides with rape, this DOES NOT MAGICALLY REMOVE THE FACT THAT RAPE IS BAD from the equation!

AMANDA: exactly. and i think a lot of it comes down to ladies drinking, because drinking is a dude thing, and when ladies drink it means they're, horror of horrors, ACTING LIKE MEN, or taking away dude-time, or revealing that drinking does not actually make you more masculine and / or awesome. but sorry, dudes, i'm not going to stop drinking!

SADY: yeah! i mean: i think the Horror of Drinking is the Horror of Unladylikeness, presented in vaguely medical terms. fact is: yep, when ladies drink a bit, they let down their various guards and DO NOT always behave in the manner in which society has accustomed us to expect from ladies. they get loud. they get a bit rude or wacky, at times. they EVEN make out with people that they would otherwise be constrained from making out with! (and oh, how I know that feeling.) BUT, with all the loud and wacky and unladylike behavior they are engaging in, GUESS WHAT? you still don't get to assault them! because we are not in Ye Medieval Tymes any more, and rape is not just something that happens to Virtuous Women of Goode Renowne. it can happen to ladies who are acting up, too. and, miraculously, it is still a crime. just like you don't get to rob somebody because you think he is a jerk.

AMANDA: yeah. ok, do you wanna break? i think i'm going to go buy some beer

SADY: do it, lady! ENJOY YOUR BEERS. YOUR BEERS OF FREEDOM.

Photo by jbcurio, Creative Commons Attribution License

Say, ladies. A couple of economists—Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics—have unearthed a most satisfying and lucrative career option for us all: Prostitution! There's only one problem: even though our two Steves are really brilliant economists, they just can't figure out why most of us women don't want to have sex for tons and tons of money. Why aren't more women successful prostitutes?, Levitt and Dubner ask. Is it because:

a) They don't like sex;
b) They hate men;
c) They're kind of dumb;
d) All of the above.

If you guessed D, you are probably either Steven Levitt or Stephen Dubner. (Thanks for reading, guys!) Yes: according to Levitt and Dubner, the main obstacle standing between a woman and loads of sexy cash is her dislike of sex, her disinclination to make men happy, and her failure to understand simple economic principles. So while the world's enthusiastic, man-loving, smarty-pants sex workers are rolling in millions from the comfort of their own homes, the world's poorest street prostitutes get the short end of the sex-work stick—only because they hate men, hate sex, and are—from the way the Steves tell it—kinda dumb.

Now, I'm no economist, but I'm betting that the overworked, underpaid sex worker who turns tricks on the street has got deeper systemic problems to deal with than not enjoying the work enough. But I digress: Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown has already laid the groundwork on this shitstorm in her excellent piece on the Guardian. Take it away, Sady:

Levitt and Dubner build their piece around a comparison of two prostitutes: Allie, who works from her bedroom and makes between $350 and $500 an hour, depending on the client, and LaSheena, who works on the streets and probably makes about $350 a week, based on statistics. . . . LaSheena and Allie are the Goofus and Gallant of sex work, at least in the warped little scenario laid forth in the Superfreakonomics excerpt. Arising, as Levitt and Dubner seem to assume they do, from absolutely no context whatsoever (the fact that Allie is probably white, and that LaSheena is probably not, is never once addressed, for example; neither is the personal history of LaSheena explored in any detail, though we hear about Allie at excruciating length) they are not actual women so much as they are flattened-out, hollow caricatures of Success and Failure. Allie is a good prostitute; she has succeeded. LaSheena is a bad prostitute; she has failed.

What has LaSheena done wrong, you ask? Simple: She doesn't like being a prostitute. "I don't really like men," she is quoted as saying. This is an interesting statement, which the authors fail to follow up. Why doesn't LaSheena like men? Has she been beaten? Has she been raped? Is there a man taking a cut of her money? Was she forced into this job as a child by a man, by a boyfriend she loved, by sheer poverty? And has she seen the ugly side of men too often in this job to trust any? . . . We'll never know, however, because Dubner and Levitt don't ask. They don't care to humanise her. She's the Goofus in the scenario. Her poverty—which is assumed to be entirely her fault—is only there to provide a counterpoint to Allie's shining example.

Boy, oh, boy, does Allie ever love being a prostitute!

Anyway: I highly suggest you read the whole thing. But enough dilly-dallying. Let's dive right in to every woman's second favorite pastime, after prostituting—chatting!

SADY: yo lady.

AMANDA: hello! wait ... shouldn't you be out, earning money for sex?

SADY: i know! i thought about it! but then i realized: i am probably not chipper enough for it. as per superfreakonomics, my disinclination to put your favorite song on the stereo and mix your favorite drink and smile gleefully about how awesome you are for paying someone to help you cheat on your wife would hurt me, probably, in the long run. PROFIT-WISE, that is!

AMANDA: right. which is why us curmudgeons have chosen a life of blogging, instead of the more obvious choice.

SADY: exactly. it's a wonder more women aren't out sexing for cash instead of blogging for dollars! oh, except that there are various disincentives to do that, actually? like, i am pretty sure there are women that choose to do sex work and like it, but what with the social marginalization, lack of protection by the law, health risks, etc. it is actually NOT a wonder that more women do not choose it.

AMANDA: there are so many things wrong with the treatment here, i can't even begin. you did a lot of the work in your piece, but i wanted to start off with this one sentence from the freakonomics excerpt: "There is one labour market women have always dominated: prostitution." hmm. really? i mean, i get that perhaps this is meant to be some sort of play on words, but given the amount of money men have made off of pimping out or trafficking prostitutes, i am not exaaaactly sure this is the case.

SADY: right? i mean, to frame the sex industry—not just prostitution, but other varieties of sex work in general—as "female-dominated" is just absurdly wrong. it's like calling starbucks "cashier-dominated." there are more women on the front lines, but management is by no means primarily or exclusively female. and given the exploitative relationship management has traditionally had with the service employees, that's something to worry about. not that there aren't exploitative female madams, etc. but you get where i am going, i hope. i think the entire article is so infuriating largely because it aims to present an "economic" analysis of prostitution by... talking to one sex worker, basically? and reading the work of one other dude? this stuff is insanely complex, and people have been fighting about it and studying it forever, and it DRIVES ME INSANE that people are going to read this fluff and confuse it with an actual analysis.

AMANDA: yeah. here's another little pet peeve of mine: pretending that "prostitution" is the same as "sex." I understand that prostitution is a lot different than it was 100 years ago, and a lot of that has to do with changes in attitudes toward sex. but when these researchers say that prostitutes now see competition from "any woman who is willing to have sex with a man for free," they're implying that tons of women are actually performing the work of a prostitute on a daily basis, which is absolutely not the case. the reality is that many prostitutes are not being paid to "have sex." they are being paid—as the researches note with the high-class prostitute—to have the kinds of sex that men can't get on a daily basis. and in reality, that doesn't mean "interesting sex" or "anal sex" or "enthusiastic sex" that these dudes just can't get out of their wives. it also means degradation. prostitutes are popular, to some men, because they can do whatever they want to them, and the appeal isn't in a particular sex act that they can't get at home, but rather in the experience of paying someone to be their sex partner. when these researches say you "have to like sex" enough to be a prostitute, that's bullshit. plenty of women like sex. you have to like PROSTITUTION enough. or ... be poor! and according to them, poor prostitutes are kind of fucking idiots.

SADY: well, this was somewhere i was heading in the piece i wrote for CiF, but there just wasn't room to talk about it there; even if we don't assume that all men are hiring prostitutes specifically to "degrade" them—and i don't know what goes on in all circumstances, i do assume that a lot of guys want to degrade women because they get off on the power imbalance and others do it for other reasons, from all the first-hand testimony I've heard—the nature of the transaction is fundamentally different than the nature of the transaction that is casual sex. at the risk of oversimplifying: in prostitution, a woman does what you want her to do, for money. in sex—even casual sex—a woman does some of what you want her to do, or maybe even all of it, but only in exchange for you doing what she wants as well. in casual sex, there is (unless you are a huge asshole) the expectation that you will be dealing with the desires and needs of the other party. female desire enters the picture. and i think THAT, we can say, is probably a big part of the "sex" vs. "prostitution" thing. even if the guys don't want to HURT the prostitutes, they're paying them to have sex that has nothing to do with their desires and everything to do with the desires of their clients. the only way you can miss that is if you don't acknowledge that women have desire.

AMANDA: right. so these economists are stumped—stumped, i tell you!—as to why more women don't spend their entire lives pleasing men and receiving no pleasure in return. they can't understand why this is, because outside of prostitution, women are lining up in droves to have sex! but instead of working through their obvious miscalculations here, they decide to tell imply that women are probably just kind of dumb. the kicker is when, at the end of the piece, this is how the researchers leave Allie, the "high-class" prostitute who ended up becoming an economist: "Several students said this was the best lecture they had in all their years at the university, which is both a firm testament to Allie’s insights and a brutal indictment of Levitt and the other professors." As if it's some kind of joke! when, in reality, these guys actually don't understand wtf they're talking about, and they're actually seemingly amused that a prostitute could not be a dumbass. so: why didn't she write this?

SADY: RIGHT! and that's the thing; i don't want to discount her insights or experiences—or those of LaSheena, the less privileged sex worker they interviewed for five seconds and then apparently forgot about because she wasn't smart enough to be a billionare sextrepreneur—but I think Levitt and Dubner kind of effectively discounted her already, by using her as a subject even though she IS GETTING A DEGREE IN ECONOMICS and simplifying her story, which has GOT to be more complex than the one we're reading, into this wacky quirky Happy Hooker stereotype.

AMANDA: yeah. and thank god she is getting an economics degree, because this is Exhibit A as to why more women need to be represented in the sciences. I'm sure that these guys are brilliant economists, but when you're attempting to form a theory as to why HALF OF HUMANS choose not to be prostitutes for a living, perhaps your own experience will be insufficient.

SADY: right. oh, and the lazy dumb hooker is getting a DEGREE IN ECONOMICS now! wacky twist! did you catch the part where they said she became a prostitute because she "just didn’t like working all that hard?"

AMANDA: oh yeah. i caught that part. the weird thing is that the premise of their investigation is: why don't women prostitute themselves out for cash, when the pay is so good? and they entirely fail to even begin to answer that question. they don't come up with one reason why she wouldn't! oh, they come up with one reason: maybe she's married. but i don't see another one!

SADY: i can't think of a single one! there's, like, one line where they acknowledge that it's ILLEGAL (being harassed, jailed, and potentially raped by cops: A DISINCENTIVE???) but that's only in the service of pointing out that its illegal status allows Allie to charge high fees.

AMANDA: haha right. now, i dont' know if Levitt and Dubner are heterosexual males, but let's assume they are.

SADY: assumed!

AMANDA: the only appropriate response to the ridiculous question posed in the article would be, "I don't know, why don't you suck cock for a living?" Why don't you suck cock, out of your fancy house, instead of being a famous economist? I'm sure that will be the pertinent question in "SuperDuperFreakonomics: The Freakiestonomics Yet"

SADY: yes, at some point. WHY AREN'T LEVITT AND DUBNER JOINTLY FELLATING YOU RIGHT NOW: A FREAKONOMIC ANALYSIS.

AMANDA: probably because they don't like sex?

SADY: i mean, jesus. sex work is complicated. i'm so sure—and i have to keep reiterating this, because i feel bad for assuming that allie's "i just happened to go on an online dating service and tell people i was an escort because, tee-hee, i just love sex" narrative is a Pile O' Poopy—that there are women who are very fulfilled in their sex work, or at least prefer it to the other jobs they could have. i'm SURE of this. but asking THAT ONE LADY to tell you what prostitution is like—hell, even what the MONEY side of prostitution is like—is massively misguided.

AMANDA: i mean honestly. LaSheena straight-up tells them that she "doesn't like men." And somehow, because Allie says that she LOVES men, this sample size of 2 indicates that women who like men make tons of money doin' what they love, and women who don't like men are poor street hookers. so really, women don't cash in on the obvious benefits of prostitution because they're ... bitches?

SADY: that's what irked me so much – they're so invested in this Ayn Rand fantasy of the fulfilled sex-liking happy safe rich sex worker that pretty much everyone else is left out of the picture, or else shamed as inadequate. Allie is like the John Galt of professional sex, in this equation.

AMANDA: hahaha

SADY: i also liked the fact that their response to LaSheena's statement of "I don't like men" was... what if there was more money in it for you? and she's like, "yeah! sure! what's that you say? I can get my degree from home in my spare time? And it includes a course in Air Conditioner Repair?" it turns into this weird sales pitch for sex workers.

AMANDA: right. it's like, why do you think she is doing this? because she DOESN'T want money?

SADY: yes. and even though we know pretty much everything about Allie up to and including what she ate for breakfast this morning and whether there is corn in her poo, we know nothing about LaSheena. none of the factors that have led to her having four more or less illegal, low-paying jobs, at least one of which she hates, all of which are dangerous. and am i wrong for thinking her story might be the more interesting of the two? then again, maybe she just didn't want to talk to the Freakonomics guys. can't say I blame her!

AMANDA: i'm pretty sure that she didn't want to talk to the fucking Freakonomics guys. They admit that they had to pay her in order for her to talk to them, which they think says a lot about how desperate for money she is. but i think it just shows how unpleasant it is to be recast in the lens of the Freakonomics guys.

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