Rape Culture Birthed the Neovag July 16, 2010
Posted by FCM in authors picks, feminisms, gender roles, health, PIV, race, rape, trans.Tags: irony, neovagina, rape culture
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what is a “vagina” in a rape culture?
if we were to abbreviate the narrative of rape so that even a rapist of below-average intelligence could understand it (because they all apparently do) i think we would be left with this: men: ejaculate into a womans vagina, and leave. wouldnt we? a rapist of ANY INTELLIGENCE understands this. rapists who are developmentally disabled understand it. so i think its time that we understand it too. to a rapist, a vagina is nothing more than a sheath for a dick, and a semen receptacle. right? thats all it is. again: a developmentally disabled rapist could get this right, and does. (oh no, am i not supposed to talk about developmentally disabled rapists? is that being ableist? oh well.) speaking of made-up words…
thinking that womens vaginas are really just extra-large condoms for mens dicks is a very, very old tradition. its a problem thats embedded in our language, if that tells you anything. as has been noted elsewhere, “vagina” literally means “sheath.” its so embarrassingly obvious a metaphor that even the editors at medterms.com caught on (well kind of):
The word “vagina” is a Latin word meaning “a sheath or scabbard”, a scabbard into which one might slide and sheath a sword. The “sword” in the case of the anatomic vagina was the penis. Love and war, it would seem, have been connected in the minds of people for millennia.
love, you say? people? sure. the millenia part they got right. this fucked up, reductionist, rape-fantastical thinking about vaginas has been around a long, long time. but we all knew that already. enter transpolitics.
as much as transwomen and transactivists love to pretend otherwise, they just dont get what rape culture is all about. they say they are “against it” to gain feminist cred, but what are they “against” really? they are against born-men having to use mens toilets when they would prefer to use womens, is about all thats to be gleaned from that discussion. oh, and something about poor, transwomen of color sex-workers (which NONE of these internet transactivists actually are, and they dont know any either) who are raped and killed by men. you know, because men thought they were women. they passed! which is exactly what the internet transwomen want for themselves. to pass, i mean. not to be raped and murdered, by men. but therein lies the rub, which born-women know all too well.
because the fact of the matter is that unlike born-women, who have everything (literally, everything) to lose from rape culture, transwomen have at least something (everything?) to gain. to a transwoman, cutting off her dick and turning it (inside out) into a fuckhole between her legs makes her feel better. from transwomens own mouths, we know that these fake fuckholes alleviate transwomens suffering. turning their dicks into extra-large condoms for other men to penetrate (or not, whevs…thats my hat-tip to the internet “lesbian transwomen”) actually tamps down their anxiety, and feelings of dysphoria.
but surgical transition of born-men to MTF transsexuals would not exist if every single goddamned man in the world (including transwomen and their doctors too) didnt already believe that vaginas were just fuckholes, for men. if it werent for rape culture, in which men ejaculate into womens vaginas, and leave. this, in point of fact, is what transwomen have to gain from rape culture:
i've got wesson-ality!
the neovagina! so while teh menz are consumed with making everything all about themselves, (as usual!) and taking advantage of rape culture (duh) to make themselves feel better, what noone seems to get (and dont care to) is that born-women are actually passing as MTF transsexuals. yes, they are. this is what men see, when they look at us: castrated men with a fuckhole between our legs, who feel more feminine than any born-woman ever does.
and men theorize from here, when they theorize about us. doctors treat THIS, when they are treating us. men are fucking THIS when they are fucking us. this is what men are raping, when they rape us. this is what a vagina is, in a rape culture. this is rape-culture in one fucking frame. ONE FRAME! a political cartoonist couldnt abbreviate it any better, or more concisely.
we are passing as them. hows that for “delicious irony?” (thats my hat-tip to the fucking internet drama-queens who get off on trite, privileged bullshit such as “irony”). its so delicious i feel like i just ate a pound of shit, then threw it up, and ate it again. if i really wanted to give myself heartburn, i would continue on about the narrative of PIV being identical to the narrative of rape (dont believe me? watch this). but i will leave well enough alone, for now.
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Hey, willfully ignorant lady:
I am a lesbian. Lesbian means, I don’t fuck men. Unlike you, Ms. All-practice-and-no-theory.
I hate PIV. I don’t like pentetrative sex with something so clumsy as hips. A finger and a caring lover, or a tongue, well sure. The only time someone really really wanted to try PIV, I backed away whimpering, not wanting to hurt her.
I’m non-operative, you know, like about half of trans womyn if you’d read Lynn Conway’s statistics? I like my estrogenated, sterile, outie womonhood. It’s not a source of unending pain because unlike you, I’ve managed to internalize that Buck Angel is a dude and does not become a womon with the magic yoni. I get, unlike you, that most of the world is never going to see my genetalia, and those that do, and those that love me, are going to care a lot more about six-and-a-quarter feet of womon than four-and-a-half inches of lesbian cock that I wouldn’t want to do anything more genital to genital with than tribadism. (for a more thorough discussion of lesbian cock, read Dirt’s blog.)
But your arguments are all predicated on never actually having these counter narratives published, never having trans dykes spoken of, and falling all over yourself to bring up ways womyn have tried to prevent pregnancy and disease and having men use them as fuckholes, because really, you need the following:
To make the gender policing we had with male figureheads look so terrible that womyn will run to your brand of gender policing. Slut-shaming and whore killing (by making them as ilicit and easily exploited and trafficked-by-necessity as coca) and dyke-bashing are NEVER radical feminist acts.
I know that won’t sink in but you ought to hear it once.
Sincerely,
An actual man-hating dyke.
Reading comprehension FAIL!
Yes, transwomen do say they are lesbians. A bi-woman I know is now living with one. The transwoman has a lot of money, the bi-woman was almost homeless; it’s a good trade off for her I guess.
This above piece is largely incomprehensible, and doesn’t address rape culture at all. It is once again, about men’s sexual access to women, whether they are pre, post or non-op, it is still about sexual access to biowomen. I think that’s all men are capable of, and if they call themselves lesbians and have a penis, geez, I’m a goldfish pretending to be a human. It’s pure nonsence.
OMG, dude. If you hate men then you hate YOURSELF!
Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.
Sorry to get all kindergarten on that ass, but come on.
Goldfish pretending to be human, LMAO
Is it not somewhat dichotomous to believe that a vagina doesn’t make you a ‘woman’, but oestrogen and a mysterious invisible floating non material quality called gender do?
Clue: there are no ‘women’. Only adult human beings – female variety.
In other big news if lesbian means you don’t fuck men, then whoa, Eminem is a lesbian!
I knew it.
But your arguments are all predicated on never actually having these counter narratives published, never having trans dykes spoken of, and falling all over yourself to bring up ways womyn have tried to prevent pregnancy and disease and having men use them as fuckholes, because really, you need the following:
So your counter narrative just got published. And?
HAHAHAHAHAHA @ polly. excellent. straight women who dont “do” PIV must be lesbians too. as an FYI, this appears to be valerie keefe, posting here YET AGAIN under YET ANOTHER handle, after shes been banned like a dozen times. i “published” it (good catch there) to show another example of a transwoman with a rape mentality: she can just go any old goddamned where she pleases, even when women say NO. also, if it is valerie, now shes saying that she still has her dick, even though before she claimed to have had her fake fuckhole implanted. it doesnt matter though really. either way, shes just a straight man, who STILL FUCKS WOMEN.
by the by, a non-op straight man who still fucks women with the dick he still has…is really just a man in a dress. HELLO. or, as i have seen it described recently: if this sounds like you, then you are a transvestite. its what you are.
ol’ valerie has about 6 new comments in the spam queue. if anyone wants to read them, i will “publish” them. if not, i wont.
it *is* pure nonsense sheila, but it does kind of address rape culture…IT COMPLETELY DISMISSES IT. valerie believes (because she was born male) that the specific ways in which men dominate, enslave, and kill (yes kill) born-women, on account of our sex, is unimportant. and that my bringing it up is a political ploy, when my agenda is really something else. you know, other than the eradication of these specific ways that men dominate, enslave, and kill born-women, on account of our sex. THAT *IS* my agenda. its my ONLY AGENDA. its fucking hilarious to me that anyone would think otherwise. what “other agenda” would that even be? to give myself more to do? to be a “leader” of an essentially nonexistant political movement that rejects formal leadership, has about 12 followers and doesnt pay anything? its nonsense. absolute gibberish, as you say. and blah, blah, blah, SEXUAL ACCESS TO FEMALES. absolutely right. what a bunch of shit.
And also, “her” basic point is, she’s a dude who wants to have erotic encounters with “lesbians,” or women looking to sleep with self-identified women. Men wanting to sleep with lesbians is not a new thing, or in any way a non-sexist one. It’s just another example of wanting to invade women-only space.
If you want to do something for females and against sexism, speak out against patriarchy as a man. that would do some actual good.
yup its so common that truckers wear the logo emblazened on their chests, trucker hats, and bumpers. yet these asshats think they are super special snowflakes (and feminists!) for wanting to fuck lesbians. DUH.
pffft LMAO I had forgotten about those.
Good luck with the laydeez anyway Valerie. You’ll need it.
damn these asshole are fairly successful at derailing the discussion arent they? and detracting from the subject matter of the post. thats BECAUSE THEY ARE MEN, and THEREFORE do not want the focus of any discussion to be on male privilege, misogyny, or rape culture. i posted the comment, which was perhaps my mistake. i was making a point, and its been made, with a little help from other posters, as usual. so thanks!
this post was made largely in response to miskas latest, and some asshole who left a comment making it COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that he didnt understand what rape culture was, at all. miskas point was that the transgender house of cards depends on the unprovable assumption that everyone experiences feelings of “gender”. and i think shes right. theres no way to prove thats true, and yet its the foundation of any belief that someone could be “trans” with regard to gender.
and i think this vagina-as-sheath or vagina-as-fuckhole is clearly the foundation of the medical transition industry/process. and since transwomen are men, they are going to buy into the fucksheath rape-fantasy about women, just like all men do. so medicine saying to them “we can give you a fake fuckhole!” sounds very much to them like “we can make you a woman.” the fucking doctors are pretty much telling them as much, because they think thats what makes a woman too.
heres a link to miskas:
http://fabmatters.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/this-gender-identity-business/
one thing i can always count on is that transwomens comments, when they are published, inspire new material. oh yes they do. heretofore unimaginable misogny and reductionism suddenly becomes imaginable, and nameble, and dissectable. i would say “bring it on bitches” but i think i have had enough from transwomen on this thread already.
That dude missed a critical point. A lesbian isn’t merely a person who doesn’t fuck men, but a WOMAN who only has sexual/romantic relations with other WOMEN.
“doctors treat THIS, when they are treating us.”
That gave me chills. Thanks.
@Six feet
FAIL comment is FAIL. Transwomen =/= lesbians. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, castrated male a womon does not make. “trans dykes” is a complete oxy-moron. Like Microsoft Works or Military Intelligence, the two terms are pretty opposing. Dykes are womyn-identified-womyn, and I don’t buy into a male’s masochistic fantasies of what “womonhood” is like.
@FCM
I’m always up for the lols that reading transwomen’s comments will bring. Also, as always this post is fucking brilliant. I’ve been reading Mary Daly at the moment, and I love what she has to say about transgende – that it’s an attempt by men, to recreate womyn but hideously unsuccessful. And that the fact that transwomen need hormones to maintain their “womanlyness” is a sign of how artificial they are. And like you’ve said it’s the ultimate violation of female-only space.
I might just throw in a chunky quote from Gyn/Ecology which I’ve been reading lately and loving.
“Like whites playing “black face,” he incorporates the oppressed role without being incorporated in it…the majority of transexuals are “male to femae,” while transsexed females basically function as tokens, and are used by the rulers of the transsexual empire to hide the real nature of the game…The surgeons and hormone therapists of the transexual kingdom, in their effort to give birth, can be said to produce feminine persons. THEY CANNOT PRODUCE WOMEN” (emphasis mine)
From Daly’s Gyn/Ecology
Most trannys don’t seem to grasp the concept that MAN and WOMAN are MAN MADE concepts. That is, they a) don’t exist and b) are a direct creation of men, and have NOTHING to do with the lives, interests, attitudes and values of REAL female-born-womyn.
And also, “her” basic point is, she’s a dude who wants to have erotic encounters with “lesbians,” or women looking to sleep with self-identified women. Men wanting to sleep with lesbians is not a new thing, or in any way a non-sexist one. It’s just another example of wanting to invade women-only space.
If you respected women Valerie, you’d stay the fuck out of their way when they said ‘no’. Otherwise you’re just acting like a normal, entitled MAN.
Woman isn’t a man made concept BerryBlade. Mary Daly says right there in your quote that men cannot produce women. Woman means adult human female. That’s all. Whatever values and beliefs men have attached to it we have to resist but it doesn’t mean we erase ourselves by saying woman doesn’t exist.
Sorry to jump straight in to be contradictory, but I think it’s part of deep self-directed misogyny to accept that men created women and that the concept means nothing to us. I am a woman, I feel like a woman, I know I’m a woman. I also know that men can’t become women. And I know that men didn’t create me or my concept of myself as a woman.
It’s also very politically problematic to on one hand be saying that we are part of a women’s movement, we want women’s liberation and almost in the same breath to be saying that women only exist as a concept as created by men. Where does that leave the foundation for our politics? It actually destroys it. Our power does come from our womanhood, that’s pretty much what the whole of Mary Daly’s work is about.
“Otherwise you’re just acting like a normal, entitled MAN.”
He is a normal entitled man, that’s why he acts like one. He’s a bloke not a woman.
delphyne, this is the hardest thing for me to get my head around about dalys work. out of all the radfem work i have read (not nearly enough of course, but more than most probably) hers stands out as being the most essentialist, the only one really. but i know there are those who say she wasnt essentialist. how so? how do we take or have power “as women” or do anything at all “as women”? everything i do, i do as an “adult human–female variety” as polly says. “woman” is a loaded concept, and no other species has a word for this, about themselves (of course, since they dont speak) and we havent really named them either. for example, “female snake,” “female skunk” etc. we dont have a name, or a common name, for these things. domesticated/breeding animals notwithstanding of course (cow/sow/bitch). (!). and everything a female skunk does, she (IT) does as a skunk. i dont get how anyone can do anything “AS” anything, really, except for “AS” a member of your own species. snakes are known to do this, buffalo are known to do that. you just do what you do. if theres anything distinctive about it at all between female and male variety, its because its socialized behavior or biologically determined.
women need “liberation” from what men do to us, due to our born-sex. because of men, our bodies are timebombs waiting to go off. thats all. we dont need liberation “AS” women. we need liberation FROM men, and from male abuse.
i am not even making an agrument here, or a contradictory point. i just dont really get mary daly.
i should add that i have never attempted to read a whole book of hers, just excerpts. which could easily be the problem.
Definitely read Mary Daly. She’s where it’s at.
I think the problem here is that the postmodernists have fucked things up with their claims that if you use words as if they have real meanings rather than “words mean anything I say they mean” you get called an essentialist. Back in the day when words were used correctly, when feminists understood they were women, an essentialist was a person who attached a set of behaviours, beliefs attitudes and roles to women or men. That’s all essentialism means – thinking that women are born to act out our submissive sex role because it’s part of our essence as a woman. And that’s what feminists fought, not the idea that women actually existed as an entity. We’re looking for freedom and liberation of women, not of destructions of a fundamental part of our identity. I mean I see feminists saying “I’m not a woman, but I’m human”. Now why is the human identity seen as more valid than the woman identity (apart from the fact that men share humanness with women)? Why don’t we claim that describing ourselves as humans is essentialist – becauase if you’re using essentialist in the postmodern way, calling yourself a human being is definitely essentialist.
The erasure of woman as a real entity coincides directly with women realising we are a political group with political interests. It is not a coincidence that this has happened. Do you not see how woman-hating it sounds for a woman to say “I’m not a woman” (subtext: “let’s hand it to the trans”). TBH it scares the hell out of me. It’s a massive political retreat.
Regarding animals, animals don’t have words for their sex, but they definitely have a concept of sex. An animal understands that there are male animals in its species and female animals. They do it by smell and react accordingly. As humans use words most of all to communicate rather than scent, it’s our words that reflect these concepts. But these concepts do exist.
Just a point of anoyance here– you can’t comment on a complex and nuanced radical feminist like Mary Daly unless you have read her body of work. NOT excerps! She is a serious thinker, and will reward any woman who DOES THE WORK, the hard work of reading a visionary.
Transwomen try to derail her all the time, they are genuinely afraid of her ideas, and attack her endlessly. They also attack Jan Raymond as well.
You also have to be well versed in Medieval Catholic theology to understand a lot of what Mary Daly writes about, because she dug into the origins of patriarchal thinking in the West. She gets at the root of how these ideas of women’s inferiority developed and provided a very workable plan of action for women to break free.
Her tactics work like a Swiss watch, and I have valued her work for well over 25 years now. What I see with younger feminists, is they don’t do the hard work, and Mary Daly requires serious dedicated intellectual effort. She had one of the greatest minds of lesbian feminism.
She alerted women to the danger of the transinvasion long ago, so she was right on target. I often wondered how she was able to figure out their game so quickly, and the reason is, she did a thorough job in understanding what patriarchy does to women’s bodies through medicine and worldwide. She was one of the first radical feminists in the U.S. that wrote extensively about female genital mutilation, and compared this to footbinding, to psychiatry… because she documented patriarchal attrocities worldwide, she was called a racist, that was another derail.
Someone who so scares the transwoman establishment should interest women who should get at the very foundations of western patriarchal thought. But she is not for the dumb, she is not for the intellectually lazy. You don’t summarize Daly, although her quotes are pithy and hysterical. But you can’t “get” her in Reader’s Digest version, sorry Gen X,Y and Z– she’s not textmessagable.
@delphyne sorry, I didn’t phrase my comment very well, I think what I actually meant was more along the lines of femininity than woman.
@sheilag
Yeah, until I’d actually read gyn/ecology ( still waiting for her other books to arrive In my post ) like most members of my generation, thought I could get it through just reading excerpts, but when I read the first paragraph of it, I realised that it’s infinitely more enjoyable in the whole, makes more sense and it is a very full on read. Hell, I usually “get” books first read, but I know I’ve only glossed the surface of the fantastic depth and understanding and wealth of knowledge that is Mary Daly. I think somehow I’ll be reading her works over and over again, because IMHO her works inspire a lot of deep thought and deep self questioning that for me didn’t happen until I read dworkin.
Her work is so utterly amazing, and I dream of becoming so proficient and on the ball like she was. It’s a shame i’m the only person I know my age who has even heard of her and in a way it makes me ashamed I didn’t read her earlier.
I hope my choice of quote of hers isn’t offensive or misused, and to be honest I wanted to just write like that whole page in because it’s all fucking brilliant and spot on.
P.s hope this comment makes sense cos it’s like 4am and I just got home from work. Hahah I’m so tired =[
sorry, but this made me LOL. who the hell is “well versed” in medieval catholic theology?? i mean really. thats not exactly feminism 101, and i am not sure that a writer is doing her job if someone has to be well-versed in medieval catholic theology to understand what you are saying. this sounds like elitist bullshit to me, and i think that sometimes writers are just too fucking lazy to write clearly, thats all. i am not saying that mary daly was guilty of that, but sheila, honestly, your assertion made me laugh. dworkin isnt exactly kindergarten-level reading, but i got through it fine and dissected it to my personal satisfaction in 3 posts. could i do the same with daly? could i? because i am not the dumbest person i know, and i am not so sure i could, as i am not “well versed” in everything, and medieval catholic theology isnt my specialty. its also not my thing.
I get so frustrated with the lack of serious reading in radical feminism these days. Every time some lesbian mouths off about Daly being “transphobic” I always ask, “Did you read her body of work or just excerpts or quotes” and everytime they admit they’ve never read her.
I’ve even asked transwomen this SAME question, but of course I don’t want transwomen to understand Daly at all. The material is so powerful, keep it out of enemy hands!
But this stuff is very hard work. Like any serious study of history, philosophy or civilization, there is hard academic work. Daly takes decades to understand; that is how subtle her arguments are. She writes explicitely for her tribe, and never made any bones about. She spoke to her people; women who would get it, or could connect with that vibration. I’ve had the best discussions of radical feminism a la Mary Daly with catholic nuns, for example. They’ve read Aquinas, for example, so they know the references.
If you want to eliminate patriarchy, you are going to have to know in detail its philosophical underpinnings. Mary Daly provides the tools to get at “deep patriarchy” to connect with women across time and space. You could compare her to a physicist.
This mental laziness is going to kill us as radical feminists. The patriarchy really feared Mary Daly, deeply feared her. Transwomen go crazy trying to derail her. Believe me, she was such a force that the catholic church was on the run too. Clearly she had a source of mental power and brilliance above and beyond what most women settle for. Just her life story alone is worth reading, because her will to freedom is so great.
I took her theories and applied them to a lot of things in my life, with spectacular results. Even Daly was amazed at my applications of her work when I wrote to her. You can hear her as Rosanne plays an audio tape of a conversation they had. Her voice is gentle and sure.
She always had women’s back, she never once disappointed me.
Other feminists flaked or side stepped or turned into these dreadful dumb fun feminists. But Daly was the real deal. She was a lesbian’s lesbian and a radical feminist’s radical feminist. Even some man said she was “the gold standard of radical feminism.” You won’t have a shot at being the greatest radical feminist on earth unless you truly read Mary Daly. In my opinion, she is far better than Andrea Dworkin, even thought Dworkin is the best too.
Daly could out think the patriarchs– the power she had in a room was something I’d never seen duplicated in a crowd of women before.
Wow, I just can’t encourage radical feminists to read everything she wrote more strongly. You have great hope as you reflect on Mary Daly.
She had a poetic voice, an Irish storyteller’s wit that was razor sharp, a grasp of the Medieval mind, science, literature, 19th century American women, battling men in the work world and winning time and again. I used her tactics in my own job life, again, with brilliant results. The example of her life is just something special.
Again, you have to sit down and really READ her. You have to devote countless years to the study of Daly, and most women won’t do that kind of work these days. My main compliant with a lot of women is that women can be so mentally lazy in feminism. Now I know men are lazy idiots, that’s a given, but it hurts more that women aren’t taking their own scholars seriously enough.
Remember, you can count the value of radical feminist writing by the pile on of enemies, and she made BIG enemies, and they were on the attack her entire career. Very few women could have gone into that den of patriarchy to become the pirate, who at great risk, stole back our knowledge. I’m going on way too much here, but I have got to say this.
READ MARY DALY…. she had many answers, if you want to study and do the work. She is not for lazy or dumb people. She doesn’t apologize for aiming for the highest levels of scholarship.
That was a glowing review Sheila. Really, I feel inspired. One thing that’s sure to irritate me though is subtlety. I mean really. The use of words to obscure information instead of convey it is a fucking evil IMO, and an abuse of power. I fucking loathe poetry too and poets, if that makes my position more clear. If she was trying to hide from her enemies though at least she would have an excuse. I do feel inspired by what you have said though. Thanks.
I am reading mackinnon at the moment. It’s kind of slow going.
You just have to read her for yourself FCM, and you be the judge.
As I said before, you have to really be committed intellectually to fully get Mary Daly. I think she may have created as many new words in the English language as did Shakespeare and Milton.
She’s not a poet, but she believed that the spoken word had a powerful incantory power to it. I love reading some of her stuff out loud, and had the pleasure of going to many of her readings and lectures. Gather a group of radical feminists together to read and discuss her work, and you’ll sail out to a different dimension. Her later work got wilder and wilder — a galactic journey, as she always described it. Perhaps fitting for someone born in 1928 who had the first feminist commentary on NASA and the space program. The times have not caught up to her yet.
“If you want to eliminate patriarchy, you are going to have to know in detail its philosophical underpinnings. Mary Daly provides the tools to get at “deep patriarchy” to connect with women across time and space. You could compare her to a physicist.”
pfft. just ridiculously true-
She’s not that hard to get. I literally became a radical feminist overnight after reading Daly, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Daly presents her decades of scholarship and knowledge about the patriarchy and the ideas that hold it together in a way that is fairly straightforward to understand if you aren’t tied up with lying about men and the patriarchy. There is a massive amount to be investigated further if that interests you, but she’s writing for women, not a closed elite audience. In fact there’s a story in the forward to Gyn/Ecology by a woman who ran a battered women’s shelter, who wanted to read Gyn/Ecology with the women there, but was told it was far too difficult and intellectual for them. She went ahead anyway, and the women who had been battered understood it straight away. This stuff is written on women’s bodies, Daly brings it into words and speaks the truth. Everybody can understand the truth.
And who couldn’t love her neologisms – academentia for example, or misterectomy, the operation every woman should have. It’s fantastic stuff.
Totally agree about reading her out loud Sheila. I think Daly’s work is a spell and by speaking it (be-speaking it) you make it real in a whole new dimension.
ok i just placed an order for 3 used books…looking forward to their arrival. pretty soon i am going to have a whole shelf full of the masters, tanned pages and all. i kinda doubt they are available on kindle.
this is making me LOL, it really is. the only person who is going nuts over this post is valerie keefe. other than her burning up my spam folder, its crickets in here. i wonder why? was it the developmentally disabled rapists–was that too much?
“its crickets in here. i wonder why?”–fcm
Speaking just for myself, I was kind of rawly thoughtful after reading this post–not at all “talky.” I went off (in the depths of my mind, haha!) thinking about what I had read here and other places about neo-vag’s and their medical maintenance, brooded over what I think is your accurate assertion about the horrible conception that the medical establishment and many men in general have about the nature of women and their lady parts–just thought a lot. I did’t feel like I have anything to ADD to the post in the way of insightful comments. I just think (a) you’re right and (b) that’s appalling. Maybe a tangent we could discuss is how to we dissuade the doc’s and the menz from this crazy idea about us?
Hey level best. That’s interesting isnt it? And its kind of what I figured. Born-women getting thinky, and men getting talky, about issues that affect us, and don’t affect them at all, except to expose their privilege, and the horrifying (HORRIFYING!) rape culture we are navigating every single goddamned day, because of them. I am very pleased that it was a thought-generating post actually. I think thats teriffic. And to answer your question, I really don’t know where any of this leaves us, or how to dissuade men of anything. Do you?
“I really don’t know where any of this leaves us, or how to dissuade men of anything. Do you?”–fcm
What was I thinking? “Dissuade” men? A lot of them are notoriously resistant to backing down from anything that profits them, and women-as-receptacle is a concept wherein ALL of the profit accrues to men. I had a naive attack there!
Well, your blog is kind of mind-blowingly informational for women who read it, so I am hoping a lot of lurkers got all thinky, too, just like I did, and had their eyes opened. Awareness of how upside-down and wrong everything is in the patriarchy is the first step towards women making some decisions to alleviate their situations wherever they have the power to do so. For example, if they are exposed to frank information about how things really are, as opposed to only being exposed to religious and “romantic” propaganda about the inevitability and desirability of compulsory heterosexuality, AND have the options of choosing NOT to have PIV, and NOT to marry, and to get training so they can support themselves, all of those things are good. I realize some girls and women are practically captives, however, even in First World countries–for example FLDS and Quiverfulls. Fundamental religion of any kind is bad news for women and used all over the world to rope them in.
Thank God I had a frank and fed-up mother who told me the truth. I’m pretty content with my day-to-day life, because I had the information to opt out early on in life.
And remember, you discovered some young’un’s are reading here!
Yay young uns! And look at me, being all offensive and ableist, I am going to harm their virgin ears with this shit. Heh. But seriously, sometimes even I am shocked at the things I say. Thing is though, its all true. As long as its the fucking truth, I will say it, no matter how horrible it is. In one of her books, Dworkin talked about men raping infants. It was so fucking horrible, I wished I hadn’t read it. Talk about a trigger warning, that should have come with a shot of bourbon to numb yourself, before reading it. But there’s no way to talk about it without, you know, saying it. Not talking about it is exactly what they want.
I don’t know if even I will ever be able to discuss baby raping though. It’s so fucking horrible, i feel like I want to die, just thinking about it.
I remember being taught that sex is penis-in-vagina (eww…), and that rape is sex. Of course, neither idea is true, but both ideas are pretty widespread in this society, and that’s probably where the rapists are getting the idea that rape is penis-in-vagina.
Rape is coercion. It is violent and dehumanizing regardless of what parts are involved. It can’t really be sex at all. And this misogynistic culture leaves us blaming ourselves for what others have done to us. I just think it’s more important to focus on issues of consent, including the right to set boundaries or withdraw consent, and to point out the absurdity of calling things consent when one person has power over another.
Sorry, but consent is a men’s issue, because its a legal fiction that has the purpose and effect of keeping men out of jail, for rape. The fact of the matter is that anyone would tend to confuse piv and rape, because the narratives are identical. Which is a huge fucking problem. Huge.
I just read this….
Scientists held out the hope of a breakthrough in the prevention of HIV/Aids today with the results of a study showing that a vaginal gel used by women before sexual intercourse halved the numbers who became infected.
Scientists have been hunting for years for something that will allow women to protect themselves, and the excitement of Aids campaigners will be hard to contain, even though further research is needed to confirm the findings.
Women fall victim to HIV/Aids in disproportionately large numbers – 60% of new infections in Africa are among women. Many in the poorest countries have little education and suffer from very low status, so are unable to negotiate safe sex, using a condom, with their partner.
How predictable that it is supposed to be the ‘low status’ women’s responsibility to ‘negotiate’ safe sex in these circumstance. And if you can’t do it, don’t worry, we’ve got a miracle gel, which will slightly reduce your chances of becoming infected with HIV! And this is a great breakthrough apparently…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/19/aids-infection-risk-women-halved-gel-study
Sorry formatting went astray there….first three paras are quotes.
heres what noone has addressed so far, although we have a double-fail from valerie and her girlfriend regarding what the post was about. (note: its not about lesbianism. and its not about consent). i didnt use the example of a developmentally disabled rapist to be a smartass. i used it because its fucking TRUE. a rapist with a point-negative IQ probably isnt thinking too deeply about what he is doing, when he rapes a woman. i seriously doubt he is thinking about hating women, or dominating women, or about how he was sexually abused as a child, or being an agent of the P, or any of the bullshit excuses and/or fancy theorizing that everyone seems comfortable using when it comes to rape. instead of excuses, or rationalizations, or over-thinking it (or attributing all these things to men who rape, without ever even asking them why they do it) the fact that developmentally disabled men rape women too shows us that there is a NARRATIVE there, and its a pretty fucking simple one. doesnt it? DOESNT. IT.
rape culture is this: ejaculate into a vagina, and leave. A FUCKING RETARD COULD GET THIS RIGHT, AND DOES. (yeah i am being ableist, get over it).
someone show me that i am wrong. SHOW ME. if you cant show me i am wrong, then watch this video, which spells out very plainly that the narrative of PIV is also: ejaculate into a vagina, and leave.
they are the same. someone show me that they arent.
polly, i am deeply torn on this hiv-gel thing. its something i have thought about alot. sure, noone (NO. ONE) is challenging the whole PIV entitlement problem…but thats not going to happen in our lifetime, if at all. in the meantime, i think the vaginal gel is an acceptable damage control. how could it be otherwise? it makes me so, so sad, but its damage control, and its necessary. women shouldnt be dying over mens entitlement issues over PIV. but the fact of the matter is that they are, by the hundreds of thousands.
these gels are also apparently favored by “low status” women for whom motherhood is required, and condoms are therefore not an option. of course, if it were up to me, the partner of any woman for whom condoms were not an option should have his dick cut off immediately.
and what does this even mean?? lemme guess…valeries girlfriend is a fucking transwoman too? because this is a complete and utter reading-comprehension fail, and a nonsensical response. gee, where have we seen that before?? (could be from a fun-fem too, but seriously. this looks waaaay too familiar).
or, you know. its just valerie.
I’m sorry I dragged your thread off course with the “what is a woman” stuff earlier FCM.
I can’t stop looking and thinking about that picture of that hole to nowhere. It’s actually really disturbed me and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the nihilism of men and their holes, wanting access to some, and the ones they think they can create. It seems to demonstrate the complete nothingness at the heart of men that they think that creating something like that hole thing in another man could be worthwhile. That and the fact that they think that thing is female, which of course is what your post is about.
dont apologise delphyne! it inspired me actually. i am now anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new used books: outercourse; gyn/ecology; and one more i cant remember the title of. i hope it turns me into a radical feminist. heh.
I don’t know if we can advertise here for other sites or associations, and maybe a lot of you there know it already, it is Feminism In London, feminisminlondon.org.uk, very interesting!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“Sorry to jump straight in to be contradictory, but I think it’s part of deep self-directed misogyny to accept that men created women and that the concept means nothing to us. I am a woman, I feel like a woman, I know I’m a woman. I also know that men can’t become women. And I know that men didn’t create me or my concept of myself as a woman.
It’s also very politically problematic to on one hand be saying that we are part of a women’s movement, we want women’s liberation and almost in the same breath to be saying that women only exist as a concept as created by men. Where does that leave the foundation for our politics? It actually destroys it. Our power does come from our womanhood”
“I think the problem here is that the postmodernists have fucked things up ”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Delphyne, I like what you wrote earlier about the destroying accusations of essentialism done by most radical feminists to those, like myself or you, who will still call themselves women, assuming the truth of our identity (not the set of roles and behaviors that former so-called essentialists attached to women)
And it is the precise point that makes me not willing to define myself a radical feminist lesbian (but a separatist one), because indeed I really like radicalism when analysing the society and scanning our brains deeply to destroy the roots of wrong enculturation or to protect us from it, but I can’t believe that only culture or politics would explain the male supremacy and that culture or say society as it is now is likely to change.
To me there is a rape culture of course, but there are major signs as well showing that a majority of men would rape anyway even if this society was overthrown.. unless men would be in numeric inferiority and heavily taught and watched 24 h/24h, and this makes radical feminism as it exists now dangerous because ineffective, at least the time this *essentialist* question about the nature of men and men domination would not be addressed as it should by radical feminists.
Indeed what do you think of this *essentialist* theory below?
Men have shown their ability worlwide, even in the most remote places, to combine what remained of male animal sex pulsions, aggressivity, domination instincts, physical coercition (by the help of their strength).. to superior human negociation skills in order to manage their interests at best and create male supremacies.
They have imposed the male supremacy everywhere because human intelligence development led to an exact sex-ratio balance between human males and human females in adulthood (because there was no more real predators and a cooperation amongst men), then they could more easily beat, dominate or/and rape children and women – which male animals in most species try to do all the time anyway, this even on youngsters and outside of the reproduction seasons.
These possible sexual abuses in human species soon after intelligence development or even just the possible harmonious heterosexual interactions but present there all the time because of the unusual balanced sex ratio, could have led to a precocity in sexuality of women (it has been proven that raped girls develop a sexual maturity earlier, and that has nothing to do with their sexual orientation or with the sexual attachement to their rapist that none has of course, it is scary biological details for abused persons, but it exists and we have to question everything).
The rapes and sex-ratio could have possibly led to a non-stop *heat* time, but women were not dumb and were not happy of the violence and pregnancies and men could have then negociated with women and children things like cooking, obedience and their subordinate status in exchange of some regulation in beating, rapes or coïts.
The HIV gel is better than nothing FCM, what bothered me was that it was prevented as a MIRACLE! SOLUTION! when it will reduce infection by up to 50%. Not eliminate, not even substantially eliminate but reduce. More likely figures are 30% so out of a million women who would currently get HIV 700,000 still will. Oh and of course, no doubt it will cost a fortune so will most women who need it be able to access it anyway?
Of course you will reply that humans have evolved since these ancient times were male supremacy possibly established itself that way and that since, rape culture – and only culture – became the powerful tool we know to help maintain the supremacy.
But then how do you explain that studies done on boys brought up by feminist activists in separated feminist communities have shown that a majority of these men turned out to be real misogynist and women-haters by time they became adult.
Or how do you explain the difference in aggressivity between little boys and little girls that has been proven as well, since as young as 2 years old.
And are you sure that you would be able to cope with that ?
What is a vagina in a rape culture ?
(I apologize for my 3 posts there, my bad English, and being sometimes outside of the post topics)
It is a bit of our bodies we girls don’t even guess the existence – except that 20 % of us have been raped when little girls, I forgot – until we are told it will be used for boys to introduce their nice little kiki (that most of us never saw and experienced as well, except..) in order to give us a nice real baby doll, when we will be old enough for that, it means you know when we will reach marriage legal age, slightly before adulthood and get finally finally rid of the submission to family and school. LOL.
It is a bait for freedom addressed to underage girls maintained in stupidity, absence of knowledge, and it is a key to adult slavery.
Now I don’t know how men get the message of the vagina.
Ok, I quickly answered your question, now I slept few and came back here to ask there 2 very important questions after my findings of the short night, and it could be the topic of an entire next post, Femonade:
1-
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR FEAR AND THIS QUITE AUTOMATIC LITTLE VOICE, SMILE AND HUMBLE POSITION WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO ASK A QUESTION TO A MAN (IF NOT BACKED UP BY YOUR WOMEN FRIENDS), EVEN NOW AS A FIERCE FEMINIST OR A LESBIAN ?
WHO WAS THE BEST AT TEACHING YOU THE SUBMISSION TO MALE SUPREMACY THAT YOU STILL HAVE APPARENTLY AND WHEN DID IT OCCUR ?
This question is addressed to women brought up in a mixed environment (father, brother/s, mixed school) like I was and to women who were not if they exist..
Was it your father, was it your mother, was it the teacher, was it the priest, your mates, your boss, your boyfriend, who ?
IN MY EXPERIENCE, IT WAS LITTLE MEN SINCE THE AGE OF 3 UNTIL THEIR SEXUAL MATURITY, THAT MEANS 12 LONG YEARS, SPONTANEOUSLY GANGING UP AND ATTACKING GIRLS AND BEATING THEM IMMEDIATELY IN PLAYGROUND !!!
I was a special target for little boys and had to fight all my school years, until I could finally get my breath back when the boys became interested to flirt with (other) girls in order to have sexual experiences.
Now you have to explain me how the culture produces spontaneous gangs in little boys who come separately at school and not in girls, and how it tells them to attack girls, because I never heard parents teaching their little sons to go attack the girls, but it always happens (I was not the only one, they were all attacked and resigned to it).
Ok you will tell me it may be because they are taught to consider us as different and inferior, and we are taught to be passive, but how can they still do it now in a culture that teaches them that girls are equal to boys and how come they don’t do the same with Blacks then ?
How is it that girls were not particularly passive, just peaceful and of course shocked by the violence and absence of reason for the attacks but always trying to fight back and defend themselves, although never ganging on that purpose ?
2-
THE MOST PAINFUL FEELING I HAVE AT THE MOMENT IS TO BE UNABLE TO HAVE A DEEP AND MEANINGFUL CONNECTION WITH AT LEAST ANOTHER WOMAN AND BE ABLE TO RELY ON EACH OTHER, EXACTLY AS I HAD NO FEMALE RESCUER TO HELP ME WHEN BEATEN BY LITTLE BOYS.
The targets the society is fixing me as only horizon will never fill this terrible absence. It is not by being allowed to be a spinster (because really what else awaits lesbians, couples lasts 2 years at most, is it because authorized-by-men lesbianism is new?), or by going in commercial gay venues, or by investing in a job which just helps maintain my isolation and wastes my time reg. my urgent spiritual need of deep connection with women, by integrating a society full of isolated women/lesbians investing in men or in goals the mens fixed them, but empty of the women I wish to find, that I have any chance to feel better.
JUST TELL ME WHY I FEEL SO MUCH PAIN, AM I ALONE AS A WOMAN TO HAVE THIS NEED ? AND HOW DO MEN MANAGE TO GET RID OF THIS IMPORTANT NEED IN WOMEN (IF I AM NOT ALONE THEN) ?
we are dealing in damage control only. and yes, all the damage control devices and methods in the world are expensive for one, and not entirely effective for the other. but as you say, up to 50% is a hideously low success rate. the miracle solution indeed…dont challenge mens entitlement to place women in harms way with PIV and dangerous male sexuality at all…just come up with dangerous, expensive and ineffective devices, gadgets and gels and then pat yourselves on the back for being so inventive.
what bothers me (and i realize my last comment didnt address this at all heh) is that i do feel obligated to pat them on the back for helping real women in real time…and these kinds of things are obviously doing more good for real women in real time than, say, this little blog that practically noone reads…and more than most of us will ever do to help real women in our entire lives, and our entire careers. so my question is: is helping real women in real time inherently “feminist?” how could it not be, right? it kind of makes my head spin.
The other issue is though – would this be thought acceptable if the women getting infected with HIV at such a startling rate were white women? I’m pretty sure that if we DID have the rate of HIV infection they have in sub Saharan Africa in the UK or USA, in the affluent/middle class white population, policy makers wouldn’t be sitting back going ‘Well what can you do?”
Re holes to nowhere, yes, this is incredibly disquieting isnt it? Its evidence that men are completely incapable of empathy, of imagining what anything must feel like, to another person. EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW BETTER. Men experience vaginas as a sheath for their dicks, by having piv with women. Therefore, a vagina IS a sheath. Not caring that actually having a vagina feels nothing like having a sheath between our legs, most hours of most days. Not caring too that we have known for hundreds of years now what women’s anatomy ACTUALLY IS, and what it looks like, and what it does. Not caring about any of this, caring only about men’s perception of something that they have never experienced except by sticking their dicks into it.
It makes me fucking sick. It really does. Try not to think about how men imagine the vagina of a 6 month old baby. Whatever you do, do try not to imagine that.
Polly, if it were white men giving all the white women aids, you better fucking believe that’s exactly what they’d do. Oh well!
ok i said i wouldnt talk about this, but its relevant to the article and its becoming relevant to the discussion (because i keep bringing it up). does anyone remember the “shiloh jolie-pitt countdown clock”? i am not going to link to it here, but this needs to be seen. the clock is framed side-by-side with a picture of the baby. its counting down the days until she is “of legal age to consent in most states.” meaning: men want to stick their dicks into her, and not go to jail for it. how long do they have to pretend to regard her as an inviolable human being, before this can be accomplished? huh? how long? how long?
shes a baby, maybe a couple of months old, judging by the picture. i remember hearing about this at the time, and it was just poo-poohed like “oh those boys and their humor!!!1!11″ meanwhile, i feel like i want to die, its so revolting. google “shiloh jolie pitt countdown”. its the first result. click at your peril (i hope i didnt pick up a virus my clicking on it. although i do feel the need to wash out my brain with bleach).
Thanks for giving me something worse than that diagram to fixate on factcheckme. That countdown clock is unbelievable. Normally they wait until they are at least teenagers before indulging in their rape fantasies about children. I can’t believe *that* has just become a consolation.
All the pretense is being stripped away at the moment. Porn and the internet are showing us the expressions of what is really going on inside men. Women always knew, it just wasn’t so clear it was pretty much every man.
And that thing about it being justified because it’s a laugh – humour is definitely a tool of the patriarchy. Say it’s funny and all can be forgiven. It used to be that you had to justify things in the name of god, now if people find it funny that makes everything OK. Even turning a baby into a sex or rather rape object.
yes, i believe this to be the case, although somehow they are still managing to obsfucate the truth? not quite sure how this is being accomplished, but the lies and illusions persist, despite all the evidence. humor is i think one part of it, for sure. being a “sick bastard” just makes you cooler to the doodbros, who all think this is really funny, especially when they are drunk. you know, or sober. “FREE SPEECH” is another tool. how dare you tell anyone they cant *say* stuff, or *watch* stuff. thats my right!!!11!!1 sure it is. because words and graphic depictions are harmless. and most of all, they *dont* communicate anything at all about the person speaking, viewing or creating them.
they are showing us what they are, and we arent listening. or something. i dont know. or we are letting them mansplain to us about why we should not believe our lying eyes (like the doctor who mansplained why porn is like eating a bag of gummy bears before dinner).
really, i think theres a lot of energy being put into maintaining the illusion, by women who literally cannot afford to see the truth. i know this to be the case actually, because i have done it myself. i had a bf in college who was in trouble all the damn time, and i was constantly getting him jobs and bailing him out of trouble (never out of jail though, the gf after me had the honor of doing that for him) so that he could work and pay me back the shitload of money he owed me after our being together 2 years and me being stupid enough to lend and give him money!! as if i had any! god it makes me cringe just thinking about it. this is a very literal example and there are many many more literal examples and some more subtle ones, about how much we have invested in bailing men out, and not letting the natural consequences of their anti-social acts play out, and not seeing and believing that they are worthless. just fucking worthless. or worse! because once you see that, you wish you hadnt, if you rely on him for anything, in any way.
“yes, i believe this to be the case, although somehow they are still managing to obsfucate the truth? not quite sure how this is being accomplished, but the lies and illusions persist, despite all the evidence.”
I hate to say it on a feminist blog, but a huge part of it is just women lying to themselves. Ourselves, I guess I should say. I’m getting really tired of playing the sweet sisterhood game with women who actively pull the wool over their own eyes and spend most of their time doing it. As it was pointed out, the internet is basically all the proof we’d ever have needed to justify telling men to fuck off once and for all, but all it seems to have done is intensify the need for bondage heels. fucking christ. It just makes me want to tell women to fuck off too, sometimes. how badly do you have to want to lie to yourself?
I don’t know how obvious the male hatred of women is going to have to get to wake straight women up. I have this feeling that women my age (50s) just don’t know what kind of porn is out there. There is kind of a wilful denial that this is the true inner life of men, that they hate women, and want to do everything in their power to pornifiy and objectify, and that this is really all that is in that vacant species.
How bad will it have to get? How toxic do men have to make the world? I had friends in college who had one idiotic boyfriend after another. I just couldn’t figure out what they saw in those obvious losers. It was weird watching hetero women going gaga over people I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. I’m not one to bail people out. I get annoyed at loser behavior and how this society coddles loser men.
I get sick of them getting free passes all the time.
Radical lesbians have always known this about men. We watch helplessly while straight women stay addicted to penis, addicted to the garbage and in complete denial about how men see women.
No amount of reason can get through to a lot of women. They can’t even see that prosituting women is enslaving them.
On another note, South Pacific is having a revival in town. One of the main parts of the story is about Nelly, from Kansas who falls in love with a handsome Frenchman, who admits to her that he killed a man.
Even though he tells this to her, she’s singing away about how in love with this stranger she is. She never bothers to get more information, nor walk away from a murderer. This kind of mindless propaganda is what conditions straight women to keep wanting this fantasy of the man.
Scary.
i said i wouldnt talk about this, but its relevant to the article and its becoming relevant to the discussion (because i keep bringing it up). does anyone remember the “shiloh jolie-pitt countdown clock”? i am not going to link to it here, but this needs to be seen. the clock is framed side-by-side with a picture of the baby.
No, how absolutely fricking unbelievable. I remember there was a similar thing with Charlotte Church here – a singer who became famous when she was about 11 (lots of ‘Charlotte Church is legal’ when she was 16. It explains a lot of the fuss about the child being a ‘tomboy’ though.
That is why SuperAwesomeWow.com has created the Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt Countdown Clock, so that us heterosexual men (and lesbians too if she turns out anything like her mom, lets hope!) can count down every last second until Miss Jolie-Pitt is of the legal age of consent in most states. (I would like to point out that in Shiloh’s country of birth, Namibia, the age of consent is 16, but for our purposes we shall stick with the good old USA age of 18)
A LOT of assumptions going on there (though that’s hardly the chief problem is it?). What is wrong with people? Apart from the obvious?
It’s wrong to hurt people.
So simple! It can be hard to practice, sure, but it shouldn’t be hard to understand.
Men can’t understand it because all they can do is hurt. Think about it: they take up more food, more space, more time. They kill. They have no skills in preserving life like women have, and wouldn’t want them anyway.
“Consent” just means hurting someone with their permission. That’s the best you can expect from men.
I watched a show today about a 21 year old woman with 5 children. one was hers, the other 4 she sort of inherited when her mom died. She loved them too much to let them be split up in foster care. She personally kept them all alive with the little money she had, it’s a common story I am sure.
What stuck out to me was a clip of her night job at a stripclub. Of the men who like to WATCH HER BEG for one dollar bills.
But that’s ok. It’s all legal. She’s a grown woman after all.
as i said sonia, many women literally cannot afford to see the truth, about men. when i had the PIV talk with my bf (more on that over on the slideshow thread) the thing that had my mind racing was that we had accumulated so much debt together, and i hadnt realized what a HUGE risk i had been taking with him, that it could all come crashing down after 8 years, just because i didnt want him to stick his dick in me anymore. and i would be stuck with all the debt, alone, if he left. thats a really good fucking reason NOT to have the PIV talk, and its a really good fucking reason to turn a blind eye to most anything and everything you notice about someone that you are dependant on, at all.
almost all adult men are sexually active, and eventually marry. and many of these sexually active and married men are raping and killing women and children, “on the side.” the BTK killer was married for decades if i recall, to a woman who “had no idea” her husband was a homidical fucking torturer and murderer that the FBI were searching for for many years (i think? i havent googled it, this is all from memory, and its a common theme in these things). she had NO IDEA. its hard to believe, because theres very little chance that its actually TRUE. or, you know, its highly unlikely that a person of normal perception would not have perceived the tiniest thing was wrong. but A PERSON OF NORMAL PERCEPTION is not a woman who is dependant on a man. obviously.
think about it, if you can stand anymore thinking on the subject: most rapists probably also have willing partners, when they arent out raping. imagine being a woman who is having “consensual” sex with a fucking rapist, or someone who has killed someone, or several people, or many people. ted bundy was a hottie, and a good catch, by all objective standards. except, you know, he was a serial murderer of women.
Polly, id say it explains a lot about why we get all upset about ANY girl being a tomboy.
Short-time reader, first-time commenter.
1) This thread has inspired me to reread GynEcology.
2) I’m tickled to bits at how quickly the first comment went from “I am NOT a man!” to “Respect the pow, pow, POWer! of my penis, which is exactly this long!” Nah, nothing d00dly there….
Short comment just with random thoughts for now, I have to head off to work in a bit and am still just thinking about this post (and the last one).
“I just think it’s more important to focus on issues of consent, including the right to set boundaries or withdraw consent, and to point out the absurdity of calling things consent when one person has power over another.”
You also think that because of the difference in social power between men and women it’s impossible for women to truly “consent” to sex with men? Somehow I doubt that’s what you meant, though.
Back on topic, tho, I really always was so confused by the needing-to-have-a-vagina thing. It’s not like I feel my vagina and other bits there all the time or am conscious of them. If it was some inner desire to be female-bodied (which I think is what’s argued, right?), then wouldn’t trans women want to have a period, produce discharge and have the ability to give birth? I’ve never seen those things brought up, though, even tho that’s a huuuuge part of being bio female. There’s no, “you don’t know what it’s like to feel like a woman and not have a period!” sentiment out there at all. And it disturbs me, because the only body parts and functions that trans women seem to want are the SAME ONES men think of as being our primary function (as FCM’s post outlines).
The same thing bothers me with trans men too-Buck Angel, some pornstar fuckwit, has PIV. Um, wouldn’t that be like traumatic if you feel like you’re not supposed to have a vagina? Since its porn, it could be that he just has no choice in the matter, but he’s lauded by sex-positives. And that still doesn’t explain the “pregnant man” case that happened.
I only thought of this because my FTM ex always complained about how “triggering” having a period was, because it reminded him he was female. So wouldn’t not having one remind trans women they’re male and be damaging too? It doesn’t seem to be as simple as a desire to be in a different body, then.
It’s definitely not as straightforward as transpeople and transpolitics claim it is, is it? It’s convoluted as hell actually, and doesn’t make any sense at all, or stand up to even cursory examination. Which is why the accusations of privilege and phobias always fly immediately, and its also why the immediately run off about their existences being challenged, as ms andrea and others have pointed out. It’s a bunch of smoke and mirrors, is what it is.
Also, re periods, what i have seen about that is some ineffectual whining about how they would, if they could. And how its exclusionary to discuss it, because it marginalizes transwomen who don’t have periods. Which is just like what the nazis did to the jews. Or something.
And how its exclusionary to discuss it, because it marginalizes transwomen who don’t have periods. Which is just like what the nazis did to the jews.
Yeah it’s completely like putting people in concentration camps, starving them, gassing them and doing medical experiments on them!
Look, people redefining a word changes jack shit. You are still not female. It may be painful to be reminded of that, but it’s a fact, live with it.
I don’t have periods, but I don’t jump and down screaming ‘stop oppressing me with your pre menopausal body’ every time somebody mentions them.
Two really good things to have: A sense of proportion and a grip on reality.
“You also think that because of the difference in social power between men and women it’s impossible for women to truly “consent” to sex with men? Somehow I doubt that’s what you meant, though.”
I’m not convinced either way. Of course, much of heterosex is rape, but I doubt that all heterosex is rape. It involves the intersection of sex, class, racial and other structures of oppression, and the people putting womyn in positions of dependency, are the ones responsible for it.
“It’s not like I feel my vagina and other bits there all the time or am conscious of them. If it was some inner desire to be female-bodied (which I think is what’s argued, right?), then wouldn’t trans women want to have a period, produce discharge and have the ability to give birth?”
AFAIK these are fairly common desires. The culture, the legal requirements, etc. all focus on “reassignment surgery,” such as vaginoplasty, and that may draw attention from other body-feelings.
Valeries girlfriend, your responses here are completely nonsensical. Aka, you don’t have the slightest fucking clue what you are even talking about, do you? Which is probably one of the things old Valerie likes about you. Compared to you, and I am sure he does compare himself to you every fucking minute of every day, he probably feels pretty smot. That’s right. It’s spelled S.M.O.T. Smot.
Also, re wanting periods and giving birth, its so hilarious to me to think of the very few transwomen who actually think they want to give birth. Not only is it exactly as effectual as me wishing that I was genetically bovine, but born-women desire wanted pregnancies too. Duh. That’s what makes them wanted! The act or sense of wanting them. What I haven’t seen any transwomen lining up for however are unwanted pregnancies. Which of course, they will never have to experience, because they are men.
Hmm, was I too harsh on valeries girlfriend? Reading comprehension challenged fun fems really chap my ass. They really fucking do.
and the people putting womyn in positions of dependency, are the ones responsible for it.
I’m wondering who these people could be? Anyone got a clue?
God no shit Polly. Thats exactly what I was thinking.
This is off-topic (except in the most indirect way, in the sense that any discussion of female bodies has to = sex), but I thought this was too amusing not to share: as of today, my employer (a federal agency in the US) classifies this website as pornography, and has filter-blocked it.
Omfg. Wow. I don’t know how I feel about that, eves daughter. Do you know what kind of filter they are using? Would anything that had the word pornography, or vagina, or intercourse get caught in the filter? Or is it possible that someone would actually consider this pornography?
Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that Dworkins pornography would be considered porn, because she gives graphic descriptions of pornographic scenes, in order to dissect and discuss them. There is something really fucking wrong with this system, is all I have to say about that.
It wasn’t filtered the day before, so I don’t think it’s a word filter. And I was still able to load FAB Matters and Undercover Punk’s blog, and I can’t think of any word here which would likely trigger a filter which wouldn’t also filter at least one of those blogs. So I think its most likely that the site was manually added by somebody.
There have been two others times I’ve tried to read a link to a feminist blog at work only to find it blogged as pornography. I wish now I’d saved those URLs.
eve, i cant tell you how disturbed i am right now. at least its not just me though. some other nasty feminists are shooting off their mouths and getting labeled as porn too. i wonder if the site that hosts the shiloh jolie pitt countdown clock is considered porn? this really makes me mad. it really fucking does.
is there any intelligent life on this planet??
laurel, i love it when people use terms like “inspired” and “re-read” in reference to my blog. it gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. thanks!
And I love it when I discover another of the few radfem outposts on the internet and get my thinking both validated and challenged. So thank you.
I also ordered the below anthology as a refresher course (my only women’s studies type experiences were very academic and very PoMo).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1875559388/ref=oss_product
Anyone read it?
Laurel – I checked the link, the book sounds great. Renate Klein is a stalwart.
Re, developmentally disabled rapists: is it really ableist to talk about it, or is it more ableist to pretend it doesn’t happen and all differently abled people are just like harmless children?
Twice in the past three months I’ve been harassed by developmentally challenged men. One was on a subway car, where he would not leave me alone. I was visibly frightened, and other women on the car told me, “He’s just challenged!” Like that was supposed to make it okay that he was saying lewd things to me and refusing to leave me alone. I changed cars and he luckily did not follow me.
Another time was at the punk rock house I almost moved into, grudgingly. The man cornered me in the kitchen and repeatedly told me I was pretty and should ride bicycles and go to Philadelphia with him. He could not understand that my body language and voice said, “I am not interested — no.”
(The difference with other men is that they see this and ignore it, or think “oh well.” This guy just had no idea. In his mind, I was interested in him in face of all the evidence. It’s the main reason I did not ultimately go live there.)
My mother worked with developmentally different people for ten years when I lived at home. I saw a man with the body of a 30-year-old but the mind of a child brutally punch my mother in the face when she tried to discipline him for exposing himself and fondling a 23-year-old woman with the mental age of 2.
The fact that some people with cognitive differences often have zero boundaries is not ableist. The fact that some people with such differences also have no aversion to violence, are very strong, and have apparently seen porn (despite their mental ages of 2-5), is a fucking THREAT.
A fucking HUGE THREAT. Because how do you protect yourself against someone who is that much bigger and stronger than you, who wishes to inflict himself upon you, and who does not understand ‘cease and desist’ -at all-?
The same argument can be made against all men, but hopefully you know what I mean in this case.
joy, thanks for that. i agree with everything you have said here, developmentally disabled rapists DO EXIST, women have been victimized by them, and more women will be in the future. it *is* a huge threat, and its a threat precisely because they seem to have adopted the default view of women that all men adopt, and its fucking terrifying. it really is. its also nothing that the fun-fems are probably ever going to discuss (we’ll just add it to the list) because its transphobic/ableist/whathaveyou-ist whatever, basically “we determine that theres a chance that it will offend minority men so its off the table!” it was really just a jab at them and a preemptive dismissal of that particular criticism, but also frankly theres something distasteful even to me about discussing it. but i did it anyway, because there is something there that needs to be discussed.
and you hit the nail on the head, with “why” it needs to be discussed, and how specifically these men are a threat. very young men are also a threat in some of the same ways, they have adopted all this shit too and have adult bodies but still very childlike minds. “ejaculate into a vagina and leave” is burned into their brains too. its like a nightmare, or a zombie flick. but its real. i dont think that they should be regarded any differently as any other man, and women should not have a sense of security around any boy or any man, for these reasons. i am on my guard, if the kid is much over 12 years old, and i dont think thats unreasonable. any older than that, and they are probably having PIV with girls and women, and know firsthand what the narrative is all about.
[…] = Holes Posted on August 23, 2010 by mscitrus| 2 Comments After FCMs post on neovaginas, I feel more horrified than ever at what men think of women. Even more so after doing some research […]
[…] these “individuals” are a part of the male class who seek to dominate, colonise and construct woMEN the way that best serves their […]
Anybody who works with developementally disabled adults knows that they (mostly the males) can be quite unpredictable and violent. I have been a volunteer for decades as well as have a couple friends in the field, and there is absolutely no delusion regarding their ability to rape.
But you know of course the most heartbreaking are the women clients, for some of them are victimized horribly by their family or facility care providers.
And that’s another thing. Sometimes women who are familar with disability say they are terrified to have a disabled child and other people immediately think the reason is selfishness. But knowing the huge potential for abuse and terrible suffering which is the disabled person’s fate, of course kind-hearted women would hate to be responsible for bringing that life into this world. It makes no sense to blame the woman for being concerned about someone else, but hey let’s do it anyway!