Before I head off to my parents' place in search of yummy food and day-early gifts, I just wanted to share a couple of things that (almost) ruined my holiday spirit.
This one is from Libby Copeland at The Washington Post, in an article oh-so-cleverly titled, From Thong to Thesis: Monica Lewinsky Flashes Her Intellect:
There are moments that make you question your fundamental assumptions about the world. One of them took place a few days ago, when news emerged that Monica Lewinsky had just graduated from the London School of Economics.She did not!!
Lewinsky, 33, is known more for her audacious coquetry than for her intellectual heft, and the notion of her earning a master of science degree in social psychology at the prestigious London university is jarring, akin to finding a rip in the time-space continuum, or discovering that Kim Jong Il is a natural blond.
You know, cause she sucked dick. Which clearly is a mark of the intellectually impaired.
Another cringe-inducing moment came from an otherwise good article about the princess craze among young girls (though didn't Salon already cover this two years ago?). From Peggy Orenstein in What’s Wrong With Cinderella?:
In the 1990s, third-wave feminists rebelled against their dour big sisters, “reclaiming� sexual objectification as a woman’s right — provided, of course, that it was on her own terms, that she was the one choosing to strip or wear a shirt that said “Porn Star� or make out with her best friend at a frat-house bash.
Wow. Could a more snarky (not to mention inaccurate) description of third-wave feminism be possible? Sometimes I wonder if it's cluelessness or nastiness that gives way to this kind of writing about young feminism.
But one thing today did put me back in tip-top holiday shape. David Usher, who warned young men to "stay away from feminists and strippers," thinks that Rutgers University--where I got my MA--is the center of "global feminist terrorism." Day made.
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Can't expect MRAs to make a reasoned argument about anything.
If any of David Usher's claims about dowry in India are true, then the proper step seems to be to outlaw dowry. Although I doubt he would be happy about that ("Those evil bitches won't let Indian men buy wives anymore!!!").
It's also interesting that it's those evil terrorist feminists who are destroying international goodwill and not, you know, the Bush administration.
Am I the only one who doesn't care about Monica?
Cool, I got my BA from Rutgers as well, back when it kind of WAS a hotbed of feminism! :)
David Usher, who warned young men to "stay away from feminists and strippers,"
I honestly would not mind in the slightest if men of the type who listen to David Usher were to stay as far away from me as possible.
Yeah, I have to say I like that idea, too. Fewer duplicitous Maximites for y'all to put up with, and meanwhile guys like me don't have to compete with them for attention. A good deal all around.
Truth be told, I suspect that most men who are honestly and deeply uncomfortable with the idea of strong women, and put all members of the opposite sex in a "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" category, need to just loosen up and fall in love with each other. There needs to be a kind of anti-NARTH for people who are emotionally geared for exclusive same-sex relationships, but can't "go there" sexually due to their own homophobia.
Truth be told, the more I get to know heterosexual men, the less convinced I am that there is such an animal. I'm not sure there's a man on Earth who isn't either gay or bisexual, when you get down to brass tacks.
If this sounds incredibly stupid, please blame it on my sleep deprivation--but if we've got a guy who has repressed sexual attraction to members of the same sex and can't stand members of the opposite sex, then what the hell is he doing pursuing heterosexual relationships? I ask this in all sincerity. If you don't love and respect and relate well with women, and there is even the faintest hint of sexual attraction there at all with members of the same sex, then why make yourself and your prospective wife/girlfriend unhappy just to fit into an antiquated heteronormative role?
Just asking. I'll go take a nap now.
Merry Christmas! :o)
Cheers,
TH
very good points, TH.
I would also like to add that these people are more likely to be almost exclusively homosocial.
Indeed--and all of their close relationships with non-related women tend to be sexualized. "You mean you hung out alone with three different single twentysomething women this week?" Uh, well, yes, and we drank coffee and talked about our families.
And then there's the "ladder theory," which makes me downright nauseated.
Cheers,
TH
Tom, the buzzword here is homosociality: in modern society, men are encouraged to be homosocial but heterosexual. If you're interested, talk to Ampersand, who once said he took several pages to define the term in his Ph.D. thesis.
Usher's article was the last straw. From this point on, I reserve the right to call everyone who says "scientifically proven" or something similar without sourcing it an idiot.
I'm not sure what "homosocial but heterosexual" means, though. I mean, if it's about surface-level sexual arousal, that can be conditioned. Sexual orientation runs deeper than that.
It boils down to basic identity, to who you're attracted to on a very deep level. The often celibate (I assume) middle-aged and elderly women who lived in "Boston marriages" in the 19th century, for example, were I think lesbians by any reasonable definition of the term.
So if you've got men who find it easy to build strong relationships with other men but find it exceptionally difficult and unpleasant to build those kinds of relationships with women, and are doing it just because the surface-level sexual arousal is there... Well, maybe the world needs an anti-NARTH for men like that. That's all I'm saying.
I hope y'all have (and are having) a wonderful holiday--I'm most likely AWOL from my computer until Tuesday. :o)
Cheers,
TH
TH,
Homosocial means only having friends of the same sex.
So "homosocial but heterosexual" is the idea held by many boys that "girls are icky" basicly, any boy that is friends with girls is gay. As boys become teens, it shifts to "every boy who is friends with a girl is gay, or trying to get in her pants".
I think socially enforced homosociality is connected with socially enforced heterosexuality.
TH,
As I have had the experience of dating heterosexual men who don't like women, what you are saying makes sense. Many men expect their girlfriends to act like fifteen-year-old boys who happen to have different body parts.
A very Merry Christmas to all of you. :-)
homosociality is connected with socially enforced heterosexuality
homosociality is also the comparison amongst males to prove one is a real man. women don't really exist in this world except as pawns to prove one's manhood. so homosociality is connected with heterosexuality is connected to homosexuality. the homophobia sweeping the nation is men's repressed homosexuality.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!
She interned for the president. Whatever she did afterward, one has to be pretty bright to get into that position in the first place.
Awesome. I graduated from Rutgers in 2004 and was proudly part of the feminist movement which is still going strong there. But to say Rutgers isn't a 'family' school because of the feminists?? He must have overlooked all the OTHER reasons that Rutgers isn't a 'family' school! Regardless, Rutgers is the best place for free speech for college men and women...
I've never tried it, but I'd think giving a blowjob, like anything else, is easier for smart people, or at least creative people.