Information
- Founded:
- Fall 2008
Favorite Pages
Social RSS
Report this feed
You are about to report that this RSS feed has violated the RSS-Connect Terms of Service, the Facebook Terms of Use, the Facebook Code of Conduct or the Facebook Copyright Policy.
All reports are strictly confidential.
| Reason: (Required) |
 The Sexist
| Report | |
|---|---|
|
Last Week’s Most Popular Blog Posts
2 Jul 2009, 1:44 pm |
|
|
The Sexist will be out for the holiday weekend tomorrow, so I leave you with last week’s greatest hits. What better way to celebrate America’s birthday than reading a bunch of random shit about sex on the Internet?
Photo by Misserion Read more >> 
|
|
|
Indians Divided Over End to Gay Sex Ban
2 Jul 2009, 12:44 pm |
|
|
Today, “New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality,” the New York Times reports. The decision, which overturned an 1861 law banning “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal,” marks the first decision from an Indian court to “directly address rights for gay men and lesbians.” Indians are intensely divided over the issue, and both supporters and detractors have flooded Internet message boards with their thoughts on the ruling. It seems absurd that anyone would object to erasing a law that would punish a private sex act between consenting adults. Yet as One Yahoo! India message board on the issue reveals, many of the conversations occurring in New Delhi today look pretty similar to U.S. debates over legalizing gay marriage.
Argument: A double-whammy: If homosexuality is legalized, then humans will become extinct. Also, it’s a slippery slope leading to incest and bestiality.
Argument: Gay people are gross.
Argument: Gay people are gross. But, down with the British! (Okay, maybe not the last part).
Argument: Homosexuality is a disease, and more people will catch it now.
Argument: God.
Argument: You people are fucking morons.
Read more >> 
|
|
|
Click Here For (A Feminist Critique Of) Sarah Palin’s Throbbing Thighs!
2 Jul 2009, 10:00 am |
|
|
Yesterday, DoubleX tweeted the following teaser to a story on Sarah Palin’s recent profile in “Runner’s World”:
“Sarah Palin, in spandex, discusses her ‘throbbing thighs,’” is the classic ladymag linkbait-and-switch:
A. Write about an issue of great interest to the American public. Ex. Sarah Palin; tight-fitting clothing; throbbing body parts; the portion of a woman’s leg nearest to the vagina. B. Present the story as a feminist critique on the political ramifications of said topic; in other words, issues of lesser interest to the American public. Ex. “Anyone who still thinks Sarah Palin isn’t trying to use her enviable physique to her political advantage should read this Runner’s World profile in which Palin says, ‘I knew my thighs were going to just throb.’ The throbbing thighs are accompanied by a slew of cheesecake shots of Palin in close-fitting running gear” (courtesy of DoubleXer Jessica Grose) C. Write headlines and teasers for the story that are indistinguishable from the T&A treatment. Hey, I clicked on it! I happen to disagree with Grose’s post. I see nothing particularly exploitative about Palin discussing her running techniques and wearing running gear in a magazine photo. On Runner’s World’s end, you could say that the full slideshow was overkill—though this short-shorts photo of David Paterson shows that Palin isn’t the only victim of the magazine’s political cheesecake. That being said, I understand why the the piece was packaged in the strange way that it was—pull in the readers interested in Palin’s “throbbing thighs,” only to criticize Palin for showing them off. DoubleX has needs. We all do. It’s no secret why my critique of local media sex writing, “Teen Sex Scandal!,” is consistently one of the most-clicked blog posts on the Sexist. Sure, I could have titled it something a little more to the point—and a lot less sexier—but that would have meant sacrificing the slew of impulse google clicks from readers that are certainly more interested in porn than whatever feminist critique I have to offer. Are these ladymag link tactics any better than Web sites which deal in fleshy linkbait, only to offer real flesh on display, and not a feminist critique of the same? Probably not. But there is one upside to the T&A bait-and-switch: The pleasure in knowing that Web surfers searching for Sarah Palin cameltoe are unsuspectingly clicking through to a big dose of feminist theory. Sometimes they even stick around to write long-winded negative comments—another reliable source of linkbait! Read more >>  Sarah Palin’s Throbbing Thighs!&logo=http://www.animatedpokes.com/connect/images/rssconnect_logo_200x50.jpg&logobg=FFFFFF&logocolor=3B9BCC){kind=logo}
|
|
|
The Onion’s Best and Worst Rape Jokes
2 Jul 2009, 8:00 am |
|
|
I’ve written a lot recently on who can successfully tell a rape joke and what targets are fair game for the butts of those jokes. One perennial source of rape humor, the Onion, gets the rape joke dynamic right a lot of the time. The format has a lot to do it: as America’s leading source of fake news, the Onion is always skewering the media along with its make-believe subjects, and media treatment of sexual violence is often ripe for satire. Sometimes, its best and worst shots, after the jump.
EVEN SARAH PALIN WOULDN’T BOYCOTT: 5. “Police Sketch Artist Likes How Portrait Of Serial Rapist Turned Out”
TARGET: Amateur artists. MONEY QUOTE: “‘I like how she added a little white dot to the suspect’s pupils to make his eyes stand out,” Haines said. “It sent a little chill up my spine, I’ll admit. And the shading on the face is nice, too. She’s come a long way with skin tones. I remember how, when she first started working here, Lynn Marie would just rub the side of the pencil lead across the paper if she had to draw a black suspect.” WHY IT WORKS: The amateur artist obsessed with her own “work” at the expense of all reality? Classic. — 4. “Brutal Gang Rape Gives Screenplay More ‘Punch’”
TARGET: Douchebag screenwriters who think a rape is all it takes to make their product edgy. MONEY QUOTE: “‘The studio asked for a little more oomph, a little more edge,’ Weichert said of the added scene, in which the sister of lead character Jack Fist is brutally raped in an alley by Fist arch-enemy Ivan Petra and a band of the Russian drug lord’s thugs. ‘So, to give Fist more motivation, I figured I’d put in a crime he’d definitely want revenge for. Only the sickest of freaks would fail to identify with the hero after seeing this rape scene.’ Weichert also noted that the scene calls for female nudity, which ‘has never hurt a film’s box-office receipts.’” WHY IT WORKS: “Edge” is the eternal excuse for the sexualized spectacles that pass for rape on the big screen—often delightfully devoid of consequence or physical and emotional impact (sometimes, there are boobs!). This eerily prescient Onion item predicted Jody Hill’s much-maligned “edgy” date rape scene in Observe and Report by ten years. — 3. “Candidate Turns to Focus Group for Position on Rape”
TARGET: Spineless politicians. MONEY QUOTE: “Wanting to ‘feel out the popular attitude before committing to a position,’ Virginia House of Delegates candidate Mark Earley turned to focus-group analysis Monday to determine Virginians’ stance on the hot-button issue of rape.” WHY IT WORKS: Focus groups always deserving of satire. Bonus points, because so many politicians have made unpopular comments about rape that the situation isn’t entirely inconceivable. — 2. “Neighbors Believed Murderer Only Capable of Rape”
TARGET: Those who secretly think of rape as a more understandable offense than other violent crimes. MONEY QUOTE: “I’ve known John Smith since grade school,” said Deborah Sykes, 38, Smith’s next-door neighbor. “I’d never have suspected for a second that he had it in him to murder two innocent girls. Rape them, sure. But murder? No way.” WHY IT WORKS: This story recalls the recent murder trial of a Vancouver, Wash. man who would admit to killing a 13-year-old girl but not to raping her. He insisted instead that he “killed her after having sex with her.” The Onion joke, similarly, plays off the misconception that rape is a less-than-violent crime because it involves sex. And everyone likes sex—and can understand why a person would want it so bad they’d force it out of a victim. — 1. “Raped Environment Led Polluters On, Defense Attorneys Argue”
TARGET: Anyone who has ever said, “she was asking for it.” MONEY QUOTE: “While, obviously, it is extremely unfortunate that this forest was raped, it should have known better than to show off its lush greenery and tall, strong trees in the presence of my client if it didn’t want anything to happen,” said lead defense attorney Dennis Schickle, speaking before a courtroom packed with members of the media. “It’s only natural for any red-blooded American developer to get ideas in its head when it’s presented with that kind of untouched beauty.” WHY IT WORKS: The Onion at its best: Revealing the absurdity of the most annoying character defamation defense by re-framing it in a different context. — MORE OFFENSIVE THAN AN A-ROD AND WILLOW QUICKIE IN THE 7TH: 5. “J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape”
TARGET: J.K. Rowling; Scholastic Books. INSULT TO INJURY: From a fake Scholastic VP of PR: “[The date-rape] is a beautiful moment in the book, full of raw, raw honesty, and I think I would be doing you a disservice by not letting you discover the magic yourself.” WHY IT FAILS: At first, I thought that this video targeted Rowling’s announcement that Albus Dumbledore was gay, and made jokes out of comparing homosexuality to rape. My bad: The video was released four months before Rowling announced that the functionally asexual wizard was gay. As commenter W Allison points out, the joke is, in fact, targeted at “how the whole time before the last books, Scholastic was teasing like all these terrible things were going to happen—death, ruin etc.” to the books’ beloved adolescent characters. So, it’s actually a lot funnier than I thought. Still, the Scholastic VP of PR character makes my skin crawl, and not in a ha-ha-makes-my-skin-crawl kind of way. — TARGET: The media, which blows all missing white female disappearances out of proportion; but also, missing girls who were probably raped. INSULT TO INJURY: “The worst case scenario remains that she is dead. Raped to death by her merciless assailant.” WHY IT FAILS: Kinda funny, but relies completely on shock value. . . . which begins to fade after 2 minutes 33 seconds. 3. “Israeli President Accused of Rape”
TARGET: Jews; Palestinians; Jews INSULT TO INJURY: “Well, at least he’ll have Palestinian support behind him for having raped a Jew.” WHY IT FAILS: Subbing in Jewish jokes for rape jokes is kind of a rogue move, but this offensive bait-and-switch doesn’t produce the hilarious punchlines to overcome the overall queasiness. — 2: “Report: Almost Nobody Raped During Duke’s First Lacrosse Match”
TARGET: The three Duke Lacrosse players accused of raping a woman in 2006 (the charges were dropped in 2007). INSULT TO INJURY: “‘The Duke lacrosse program plans to uphold its proud tradition of winning and barely raping anyone,’ first-year coach John Danowski told assembled reporters and law-enforcement officials after the match. ‘And it was great to see the record number of 6,485 fans in attendance, all of whom really showed their support except the two female undergraduates seated in Section 8A and [Blue Devils cheerleader] Chrissy [Heinman], who were being sexually assaulted.’” WHY IT FAILS: This item may be attempting to skewer the overblown media reports of the infamous Duke lacrosse scandal. Instead, it adds fuel to the fire by playing off the lacrosse players’ perceived insatiable rapiness—helping make this “she cried rape” case more high-profile than any case involving an actual rape. — 1. “Fellow Cheerleaders Rally Cheer Of Support For Recently Raped Teammate”
TARGET: Those pesky high-school cheerleaders with so much school spirit; rape victims; rapists. INSULT TO INJURY: “‘R-A… P-E-D, nothing’s gonna stop Su-zie. Yay, Suzie!’ the squad cheered before the 1,500 students who filled the gymnasium to celebrate the victim’s return to school. Rapist Fritz Hent, an East Hawks linebacker, will sit out the first game of the season as punishment.” WHY IT FAILS: Not enough shock value to soothe the cringe on this one. Working in a rape reference to make fun of cheerleaders? Why? — Related Posts How Sarah Palin Confuses Liberals Into Arguing Against Feminism — CORRECTION: Originally, this post shamelessly accused the Onion of homophobia for playing off Rowling’s Dumbledore-is-gay announcement in its rape video. But as W Allison points out in the comments, the Harry Potter joke video was released on June 4, 2007, a full four months before Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay. It turns out the video only appears homophobic after the fact! Read more >> 
|
|
|
Sexist Beatdown: Let’s Talk About Sex, Whatever That Is
2 Jul 2009, 6:00 am |
|
|
Quick Quiz! Sex. What is it, exactly?
Today, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I will get to the bottom of this mysterious phenomenon, and figure out why the definition of “sex” is not actually any particular combination of penises, vaginas, anuses, and mouths, but rather a tool for cheaters to pretend they’re not cheating and homophobes to pretend they’re different from gays. Good morning, by the way!
AMANDA: hi SADY: why hello! AMANDA: do you want to talk now? SADY: yes indeed! first off, i think we should acknowledge that approximately 125,000 celebrities will have died by the time we post this. THE GRIM REAPER HAS COME FOR CELEBRITY AMANDA: and they never learned the true meaning of sex! SADY: ah, yes. apparently, americans “can’t agree” on it! this is something i could in no way have learned from my own personal life of dating. i define sex as a peanut butter sandwich. is that so wrong? AMANDA: when involved in a high-profile political scandal, i define sex as “one step past whatever i did with that woman” SADY: i personally define sex as “anything you can’t tell grandma about for fear she might lose her tenuous grip on this mortal coil.” but the studies themselves are intriguing! AMANDA: yeah definitely. i think, though, that they may be lacking in context. like, it’s not as important to define what “sex” is as it is to define what we’re comfortable with people doing with us or with other people. i feel like defining sex is just inviting loopholes. see: anal sex to keep virginity. SADY: right, exactly. AMANDA: and any cheater’s excuse about anything SADY: and many many men’s magazine think-pieces about how it’s not cheating if it is with a stripper or other sex worker AMANDA: or in argentina. etc. SADY: oddly, the men’s definitions of sex tend to be more liberal than the ladies’, though, as per this particular article! like: forty-four percent of men surveyed said that oral sex was doin’ it. only thirty-seven percent of ladies said the same. AMANDA: yeah, that was a surprise to me. i have a theory on this. it’s good. SADY: i eagerly await it! AMANDA: ok, so women are socialized to downplay their sexual expertise in order to not appear as— i believe the scientific word is “slutty”. and so may tend for the stricter definition in self-reporting. whereas men may want to fudge it a little bit in order to be able to put another notch in the bedpost SADY: there is actually a long passage in that keith gessen novel (”All The Sad Young Literary Men”) that backs up your theory. observe how i move smoothly from actual science to literature! but: the dude is trying to figure out his Number and his List and whatever and is trying to figure out how liberal his definition needs to be. he concludes, if i remember aright, that blowjobs should indeed count in The Number! AMANDA: sha-wing SADY: whereas ladies might indeed self-identify as Virgins, a la Dionne in “Clueless” (CINEMA! INTERDISCIPLINARIAN THOUGHT!) had they only, say, given the BJs, or received the Lady BJs. actually, this study is weirdly non-specific about Giving and Receiving of sexual favors. AMANDA: yeah, i noticed that also. allow me to extend an example from yet another genre, the Hip Hopera. SADY: please do! AMANDA: one thing that i’ve always found is important in these definitions is who is doing the sexing or non-sexing. so, a man could get Very Very mad at his girlfriend kissing another man, while he’s out Real Penis Vagina sexing some other woman. and maybe it’s not so much men excusing their own behavior while demonizing women, but that, as an individual, you can excuse your own guilt because you know the emotional context, the strength of the temptation, etc. etc. See: R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, where everyone is fucking everyone else and they all get PISSED when they find out their significant other has been doing the same thing. SADY: yes, and yet i feel that (since this article is all about contextualizing “sex” in light of certain political figures putting the Thing in the Places Where You Ought Not To) that there has probably never been a case of someone being cheaterly without KNOWING that they were being a cheaterly cheater. i think you can basically define “cheating” as “that thing you’re going to feel really guilty about not telling your wife and/or husband and/or unmarried life partner because you know, for some reason, even if there was no Sexual contact involved by any definition, that you did something they would not like.” AMANDA: totally. i think the rush to define it, in the case of the high-profile cheating, is that the public is just honestly curious about the sexy details. not that we like, want to know what sex is. SADY: right? especially if they took place in argentina! and involve THE FORBIDDEN PASSIONS that you told everyone you were on the Appalachian Trail to cover up! all of the futzing around, semantically, can be useful only when trying to figure out how the other person involved sees your sexual exchange… but no-one’s denying that the exchange was sexual, in that case. the actual interest is kind of in knowing what other people have been up to. AMANDA: and, in the case of say, gay sex, trying to define them out of the mainstream or out of existence. like, sure, you can put your penis in his butt, but it’s not sex, whatever it is you’re doing. which i refuse to equate with my penis in vagina business. SADY: ha, yeah, or sex between women, in which case basically everything outside of a strap-on is relegated to “foreplay.” never “duringplay.” AMANDA: UGGGGHHHH i feel myself sliding into the inevitable rant about the supremacy of the male orgasm in the sexual blah de blah and how that’s what this is all REALLY about and i can’t force myself to do it. SADY: you sure? i have lots of thoughts about how the penis-in-vagina-as-real-sex thing is totally not good even for couples that have, respectively, penises and vaginas! LOTS OF THOUGHTS I TELL YOU. AMANDA: save it for another sexist beatdown. Photo by Mike Licht Read more >> 
|
The Sexist cover story on sex at the Catholic University of America