For Apostate

Post: Gender Stereotypes

Commenter: Daisy Deadhead

I do despise religious people.
Just for being religious, even though you have not met me? Despite
the content of my character, or whatever else I do or say?
Where I come from, we call that "prejudice" and it is a sign of
backward ignorance.

I am careful to avoid the blogs of people who believe in that sort
of nonsense.
Sounds like someone who is still quite influenced by fundamentalism,
and afraid to leave their comfort zone.

It beats me why you keep reading me if I offend you as much as I
obviously do.
Ain't skeered to read stuff. I enjoy reading, have read all the major
atheists, Jews, Muslims, you name it. I live damn dangerously!
Also, I believe that nothing "offends" me in the way you use the word
here. I am "offended" by cops beating up a man until he is blind (as
I wrote about yesterday). I am offended by persecution, violence,
bloodshed, troops deployed, billions of working-class retirement
dollars down the shitter.
Bloggers disagreeing? Not so much.

Nothing I have read by Barzun has been explicitly or even
implicitly Catholic.
Are you kidding? Wow. Obviously, this is because you are not
Catholic. He reeks with it. As Flannery O'Connor's stories reeked
with it, although (in her fiction, not essays) she never once said the
word. As James Joyce reeked with it, although constantly trashing
it. It is the moral framework they write in, the delineating of
cardinal virtues, etc.

A quickie 2-second Google search on "Jacques Barzun Catholic"--turns up this quote about San Antonio:

Interviewer: So as a historian, the mixed nature of San Antonio,
both Mexican and Anglo Texas, must fascinate you.
Barzun: I like the effect a strong Catholic community has on thought
and feeling, and public occasions.

And that is a good deal closer to my sensibility than to yours
or Barefoot Bum's, wouldn't you say?

As for drawing a parallel between me and my personal likes and
dislikes and what goes on in the fem blogosphere - it’s pretty lame.
Try again. Lame, my ass.
You did drive-by insults against an entire demographic group of
feminists you have not even met. An insult based on prejudice. And
then you have the temerity to criticize other feminists as
petty, self-righteous assholes. ((shakes head in abject amazement at
the lack of self-awareness))
Fine, be as hateful as you wanna be, but realize, you are part and
parcel of the phenomenon you complain about.

I am not starting huge arguments about how much religious people -
moderate and radical alike - suck.
But you tried to, didn't you? You left a whole paragraph of derailing
hate speech on that thread, and fortunately, folks had the good grace
to ignore your traumatized-ex-fundie spiel. Good for them.
But that last comment, about the assholes... too amazing to ignore,
and I just couldn't.

I refuse to take responsibility for my hatreds, in other words.
Yes, that is obvious. Well, don't expect MEN or anyone else, to take
responsibility for theirs, either, then. (Time to fold your feminist
tent and go home!)
Colloquially, that is known as "talking the talk, but not walking the
walk"--and garners mostly guffaws and disrespect from serious people
who have been activists as long as I have.
Grow the fuck up and TAKE responsibility, like you expect the guys to
do.

And again, please stop reading if you are so offended, instead of
leaving snarky comments from time to time. Good christ, woman, you
MUST have better things to do!
Sorry, you need to hear it. You have the potential to be a serious
feminist activist, and I consider it my job to inform you of your lack
of insight, your hate speech and your continuous mistakes. Delete my
comments if they are too painful to deal with or read, as you
carefully protect your delicate eyes from blogs that might give you
the vapors.

But please, do not ask of other humans (men) what you admit is too
difficult for yourself. That is called hypocrisy.


(Comment copied, in case I need it for Lina’s blog, IN THE MODERATION
QUEUE.)


~*~


SECOND COMMENT, after banning:

An ATHEIST who resorts to censorship? Say it isn't so.
For the record, you cannot say you are a feminist, while also bragging
you hate most of the women in the world. You GET that much,
right? As Trotsky (real communist, not a fake one, like you) would
have said, that is an intrinsic contradiction.

The rest of the feminist blogosphere gave up on me a long time
ago.
Yes, and I finally get it now--it's because you aren't really a
feminist. In fact, you are proud of HATING feminists who are
religious and censoring feminists who disagree with you. And then you
self-righteously whine that feminists are petty assholes! You are a
fucking RIOT--you really should take this act on the road.
This is the first atheist blog that has ever censored me... I think it
is telling that you are an ex-fundie. Old habits die hard, yes?
Scratch the "atheist" and we see a cowardly fundamentalist underneath,
unable to debate, and afraid to read something that might scare her.
(But hey, ain't she a bwave, naughty wittle girl over on Professor
Whatif's!?!)

Daisy, take it elsewhere
If you insist.

For Laurelin in the Rain

Post: Moral Outrage

Commenter: SnowdropExplodes

Even though you've promised not to post any more comments from me, I will respond to a few of the claims made about me - whether you see this as fair response (and therefore worthy of being seen by others), or you see it as belligerence (and therefore not), I will leave to you.

1/. "...if you are called misogynistic (so far not by me as I do not know you) by feminists I’d advise you to reconsider your attitudes and behaviours towards women."

To date only people who don't know me have called me a misogynist. I am constantly reassessing my behaviour and attitudes towards women, and "examining". My understanding of the definition of misogyny from reading and listening to women makes me feel confident in my statement.

2/. "Funny how Snowdrop takes a post about moral outrages against women and our justifiable anger about them and manages to make it ALL ABOUT HIM because obviously he is the most interesting subject here bar none."

Well, maybe it wasn't about me, but there's some discussion elsewhere about the possibility that it was about me and others like me - some people are cynical about statements like "the misogyny of men who claim they are ’sex positive’." on radical feminist blogs, and (perhaps incorrectly) reach a conclusion that the writer meant ALL men who identify as sex-positive.

3/. "Snowdrop is the chap who reckons he’d rather be a prostitute than a cleaner, thus it’s OK for women to be prostituted for men’s use."

This is a distortion of my statement at The F-Word, and you know what, it would be nice if there were a link to my original post on my blog - where you'd find the sentiments "no-one beat me, nor violated the very boundaries of my body, nor did they call me names, nor did I have to pretend I enjoyed the cleaning, nor did I run the risk of being arrested should someone find me in my pinny." echoed pretty closely. As I said, I'm a sex-positive feminist. That means I think that sex workers should be able to do their work without fear of those things happening, too.

For Maggie Hays - Feminist Against Pornography

Post: Rape Increase in a Rape Culture

Commenter: Caroline

And this rape culture will get a hell of a lot worse with the anti-prostitution laws you support. Rape and assaults have DOUBLED this year following the changes in law in Scotland and it's set to happen in England and Wales. Maybe start reading these "pro-porn" blogs you dismiss so ignorantly and see how you can actually help.

For Rage Against The Man-chine

Post: BDSM (the sexual equivalent of being into Renaissance faires) Part 2: The Problem with Kink

Commenter: Snowdrop Explodes

The question that springs to my mind is, "what did these adverts say?" (that's both the male submissive and the female submissive ones that you mentioned).

Secondly, why did you not explore the responses to an advert as a female dominant?

Thirdly, as someone who would presumably fall into category 1 above, I must tell you that I do not in any way shape or form suggest that it is a "natural feminine desire", and to be honest, I've seen quite a few male dominants who take great exception to being tarred with that brush. I do admit that there are some who definitely do go down that route, but kindly afford them a separate category.

The other thing that seems quite rare is to describe sexual fantasies in a first contact message.

Furthermore, you appear to be unaware that these different types of responses are frequently discussed on BDSM community websites such as bondage.com and informedconsent.co.uk so you've not really "discovered" anything we didn't already know. The proportion of tosspots responding to BDSM personal ads is likely to be similar to the proportion of tosspots who respond to vanilla personal ads, so again, you've proved nothing. Except, of course, in the BDSM community there tends to be more vociferous condemnation by *all* genders of the tosspots, than in vanilla life.

Your analysis is meaningless without knowing what your advert said, and being able to know what exactly you invited by it.

For Rage Against the Man-chine

Post: BDSM (the sexual equivalent of being into Renaissance faires) Part 2: The Problem with Kink

Commenter: Snowdrop Explodes

In your last post, you write "I’ll ask that you keep in mind the fact that you can’t refute an argument that is true in most cases with a single counterexample, even if it is your own personal experience."

However, here you appear to be taking your own personal experience and treating it as universal.

You write, "It might be a result of my being unlikely to respond positively to orders, but I really can’t imagine doing aught but snickering at someone handing out orders to me with the expectation that I’d get all excited by it. I realize that role-playing gets some people all hot and bothered, but that shit is lost on me."

But the expectation comes from the fact that prior to giving the orders, the person receiving the orders has communicated clearly that zie responds in that way. This is why I have heard so many stories of sexually submissive women "corrupting the vanillas" as their first BDSM experiences - that is, asking (nay, demanding!) that their vanilla boyfriend should take on a BDSM dominant role.

You have yourself done precisely what you were warning others against doing.

For Women's Space

Post: Misogynist Myth for Today: “There are as many abusive women as abusive men. Abused men are invisible because they are ashamed to tell.”

Commenter: Rachel Setzer

Just because it's more rare for men to be abused by women doesn't mean that it's okay to marginalize those men who are abused by women. It DOES happen and is JUST AS wrong (not more wrong, not less wrong, JUST AS wrong) when a woman abuses her male intimate partner. Nevermind that all of this debate about whose more abused men by women or women by men completely ignores those people who are gay and abused by their intimate partners.

In my opinion, intimate partner abuse and violence needs to be addressed as a whole, focusing on heterosexual as well as homosexual men and women. It may be that most survivors of domestic abuse are heterosexual women, but that doesn't mean that the heterosexual men and homosexual men and women should be ignored while we deal with the so-called "real problem". Perhaps we should focus more on preventing abuse and violence on the end of the abuser rather than who gets shamed by whom on the victim end of things.

For Women's Space

Post: An Open Letter from Me, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, to Pro-Porn, Pro-Prostitution, Misogynist, Male-Centered, Anti-Feminist Persons

Commenter: Debi

Heart, I really don't think anybody is trying to silence you. And I don't think anyone honestly expects that you will stop "vocally and outspokenly oppose pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, the enslavement of women, male dominance, white male heterosupremacy, and all brutality towards women throughout the world." I for one wouldn't want you to stop doing that.

But the problem arises when, for example, you speak about another blogger, or cite something they have said, without giving the context by way of a link, or just an explanation of where the person is coming from (or even who the person is). This misrepresents people, and naturally, gets their backs up. If you want to call out Renegade Evolution, to take your latest example, then you are free to do so, but in the interests of transparency and honesty, it would be best to link to what she said specifically that you are calling her out on, so that people can go there and read it, and form their own opinions.

Of course, it's your blog and you can do what you like with it, but I'm just saying that it seems to me whenever a thread here becomes a "trainwreck" it is not because of "trolls" coming along and attempting to derail it or whatever, but because of your disrespect to (certain) other women in the first place. Coming from a feminist, the dimissal of any woman's voice, or lived reality, is very hard to take. You consistently allow comments from Satsuma, for example, who will not listen to other women, but insists that they have been raped when they say they have not, or that they were abused as children when they say they were not. Satsuma doing that is dismissing completely other women's voices - yet she is allowed to do that in this "Women's Space". However, if one of those women Satsuma says has been raped comes here to say that she is wrong, she is not allowed to do so.

As I said, it's your blog and your choice, but the problem arises from this "Women's Space" listening avidly to some women, whilst others are silenced. And, of course they can go back to their own blog and say what they have to say there, but I think many would much prefer and open discussion at the site of the original "calling out", as that is surely the best way to have a discussion.