Is War Machine, the mixed martial arts fighter accused of brutally beating his ex, a Men’s Rights Activist?
The “hero” the Men’s Rights movement deserves?
If the Men’s Rights movement is looking for a celebrity endorser, I think I’ve found just the guy for them: the mixed martial arts fighter, and erstwhile porn actor, War Machine, currently sitting in jail on charges of brutally beating and attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack.
Men’s Rights activists should be able to look past these criminal charges; after all, as they remind us all the time, women are forever falsely accusing innocent men of all sorts of terrible things.
And in so many ways War Machine is perfect for them. An MMA fighter, he’s already only one letter away from being an MRA. A misogynistic asshole with rage issues, he’ll have no trouble fitting in with the Men’s Rights crowd. And, especialy important for a movement that has a lot of trouble getting any good PR, he’s a bit more comfortable on camera than the Paul Elams and Dean Esmays of the world, with experience on television (on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra), and in seven films (albeit pornographic ones).
Best of all: he’ll need no ideological education from what A Voice for Men likes to call Fuck Shit Up University. War Machine – real name Jonathan Koppenhaver – is already an outspoken proponent of many of the Men’s Rights Movement’s core beliefs.
Consider these selections from a little Men’s Rights manifesto War Machine wrote a few years ago during a previous stint behind bars, serving time for felony assault after two bloody bar fights. His rant, which a friend posted to the internet, would fit right in with the sort of stuff we’ve seen regularly posted on the Men’s Rights subreddit, or The Spearhead, or A Voice for Men. I’ve bolded some of the Men’s Rightsiest bits:
The oppression of MEN is worse than oppression of Jews in Nazi germany, worse than the slavery of Blacks in early America…
There has always been the oppressor and always the oppressed. Before, it was blatant … NOW the oppressor has learned to disguise his evil. You can see man, but you can not see MEN. How easy it is to oppress a minority that is invisible to the eye! How genius of the oppressor! And what a better target too! …
Men challenge injustice from Government, MEN fight for their Constitutional rights, that are slowly being taken away every year. …
And they don’t just oppress us by making more laws and taking away more freedom, they are far more clever than that! Ask yourself what your REAL dream was?? If you gave up on this dream, why? Because of the brainwashing of the Government, that’s why! They taught you to “play it safe.” They told us a responsible man has ONE wife, a house, good credit, good job, and kids. How are you supposed to chase your dreams while maintaining all of that!?
Men are supposed to take risks and be aggressive! What accomplishments have ever come of a man scared to risk it all!? None!? Where would the world be? Still ‘flat!’ Still ‘Earth at the center of the universe!’
If any of you have your Men’s Rights Bingo cards out, I’m guessing you might already be close to scoring a bingo. We’ve got a comparison to slavery that could have come straight from the pages of A Voice for Men, a marriage-is-death-to-male-dreams rant that could have been borrowed from any MGTOW forum, and an evo-psych-esque argument that men are the true risk-takers and the world’s real innovators.
And I don’t think War Machine would have much trouble with Paul Elam’s “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” either.
[I]t’s Christmas day and I’m laying in my bunk wondering “Why in the hell do American men get married!?” … If your wife is being a bitch you can’t slap her, if your wife is yelling at you, God forbid you yell back … Next thing you know it will be illegal to fuck your wife! LMAO! Maybe then, MEN in this country will get the fucking hint and MOVE! This country forces you to be a bitch!
In another online posting, War Machine touched on another Men’s Rights hobbyhorse, the notion that the justice system is stacked against men:
[L]ook at the prisons, they are FULL of MEN, not women. Are men “evil” and women not? Or do the laws target and attempt to restrict NATURAL MEN’S BEHAVIOR? How many of the HEROES in American history would avoid prison if they lived today? Davey Crockett? Thomas Jefferson? David Bowie? General Grant & General Lee? Shit, George Washington. … Laws target MEN and men’s behavior. Women want to bitch and cry about their rights and equality… LMAO! MEN are the ones locked away like animals, while women run free!
Someone might have to explain to War Machine that David Bowie is not actually a famous American HERO but a famously androgynous British musician who once recorded an album called “Heroes.” (Mr. Machine may be thinking of James Bowie, a well-known 19th century American frontiersman and slave trader, and the guy the Bowie Knife is named after.)
But other than that, he seems ready to go.
There is, of course, that whole attempted murder charge to deal with.
It’s true the Men’s Rights Movement has had few problems in the past rallying behind men with histories of violence. But War Machine might be a harder sell as a Men’s Rights hero. His alleged attack on Mack left her with a cracked rib, a ruptured liver, numerous broken bones, missing teeth and her eyes swollen shut. (See here for photos of her injuries; obviously this link is NSFW and could be triggering.)
While Mr. Machine denies attacking Mack, he joked to a TV host last year that if she were to leave him “I would just kill her” and get a tattoo saying “Rest In Peace” above the tattoo of her name he has on his neck.
And several hours after allegedly trying to murder her, War Machine tweeted this lovely message about his ex:
War Machine does seem to be at a low point in his life. Even aside from the charges he faces, and the time he seems likely to serve, his career in porn is almost certainly over. The “Alpha Male” clothing line he helped start wants nothing to do with him. Nobody but the prison system seems to want this guy.
In other words: Men’s Rights activists, this is your chance! War Machine may not be the, er, hero you want. But he’s certainly the hero you deserve.
Posted on August 21, 2014, in a voice for men, alpha males, antifeminism, domestic violence, entitlement, excusing abuse, incoherent rage, men created civilization, men invented everything, men who should not ever be with women ever, MGTOW, misogyny, MRA, paul elam, post contains sarcasm, reactionary bullshit, red pill, violence and tagged anti-feminism, antifeminism, christy mack, domestic violence, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, red pill, violence against women, war machine. Bookmark the permalink. 1,454 Comments.
@ Fibi
You can always just email the snark directly to me, I’m certainly frustrated enough to fully appreciate it.
@cassandra: emailing David and the mods (that still sounds like a 60s rock band name to me) to get my email address passed to you.
There is a particular angle I would like to get educated on. I typed stuff here that I have deleted as I don’t want to trigger anyone (and it would possibly trigger people not yet triggered in this thread /sigh).
@cassandrakitty
Here’s a portion of what I wrote.
Now I’m not the brightest bulb when it comes to trans issues but having read Cassandrakitty’s comments multiple times, I see no insinuation that Ally is comparable to a rapist or a rape apologist. I believe her point was about the potentially coercive effect of Ally’s statements, even though that wasn’t Ally’s intent.
Of everything that went down, those last two quotes were the most objectionable, from my perspective.
I’m actually much more concerned about the fact that people don’t feel like they can talk about stuff than about Ally yelling at me. If she wants to yell at me, fine, whatever, it’s the fact that people are creeping around going “shit, can I even mention this thing that’s been bothering me?” that’s the real problem, imo.
(Though thank you for seeing past my Maleficant costume.)
It’s a great costume. That’s got to count for something.
Did you still want to be Ursula? Because I saw the best Ursula costume ever in a (really weird) music video.
Back from class and catching up, again.
Unimaginative, standing ovation for your comment here. You said what I’m thinking much better than could.
Standing ovations to WWTH and marinerachel, also.
daintydougal, hugs! Those were the sweetest things to say. The blog will survive – it’s survived worse meltdowns than this before – but it’s extremely heartening to know one’s wanted, because I, and others, had the real fear that there’d be a lot of hostility towards us.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying, now.
Don’t worry about not remembering my blog address, you’re not missing anything – I’ve hardly posted in months. :P
The one person in question is Ally, yes. And I think Nova put it extremely well here:
For calling spades rude shovels: I’ll stay since it seems Ally’s decided to leave, or at the very least, if threads don’t centre around her issues all the time. My issues were with her, not anyone else – and at least now I know there were more than three people unhappy with the way conversations were being policed or people were self-censoring to a ridiculous degree.
Nova, thank you for speaking up, especially in a thread whose OP was so horribly close to your own experiences. Hugs if they’re welcome.
gillyrosebee, HUGS, and more hugs!
Robert, I’ve never heard that saying but I love it – makes me think of all those Brueghel paintings of peasant weddings where everyone’s whooping it up. :D
O_O
Good grief. When did we stop coming on heat in order to breed, then?
coffee, thank you for your comment. It is good to have another trans woman’s voice here. The trouble, for me and I think others, is the predators out there who don’t hate their own genitals; the ones who brag about how their penises are, in their own words, so much better than other women’s genitals, oh and btw some of us lesbians don’t like vaginas (!!!); the trans women who actually are rapists. A vanishingly small minority, I hope, but it’s like any predators: they’re taking cover and using the broader conversation to gaslight women, just as cassandrakitty described. I was feeling very dubious about some of Ally’s talk, and raising that whole “but lesbians should consider penises!” in any way was the last straw. I don’t care whose penis it is, if a woman’s not attracted to ‘em, that should be the end of the conversation, exactly as cassandrakitty said above.
gillyrosebee:
Oh god yes, THIS. Our intent – even when Ally knew full well what it was and said so – nope, not good enough. But hers? Magic.
QFT. Silencing tactics and the conversation being directed by her were entirely how I read it.
… I’m going to end up quoting your entire comment at this rate! Yes, yes, yes, to all of it.
I don’t know, maybe it isn’t possible, but I’m in a ‘screaming into a windstorm’ phase in my life right now, though, so there is that.
Yes, I do completely see how people can feel that they are being unfairly accused of being coercive and advocating the violation of consent. I can see how, from their perspective, that seems both supremely clear and utterly unreasonable (especially since they absolutely know that they totally don’t intend, nor would they want to be associated with those who might actually be doing so).
Here’s the thing, though, cloudiah. I read you writing that one side ‘feels like’ while the other side “are being” accused; that is to say you are taking a side and arguing it as if it is about the feelings of the individuals involved, but I’m saying (and I literally just walked into this tonight, so maybe I am missing out on some of the build up to this explosion) that the key is not who feels most wronged or most justified in their stance, but whether or not we are going to tolerate one group policing the sexuality of another for its own purposes. I am saying that this insistence on minutely examining the (potential, hypothetical) biases and motivations behind lesbian women’s sexuality, particularly their degree of sexual attraction to transwomen, comes with a long history and is highly problematic, and to operate as if it isn’t is profoundly dishonest.
I can’t speak for lesbians, but I know that as a bi woman, I have often had the experience of listening to folk, both gay and cis, opine at great length about how ‘odd’ and ‘strange’ bi identities are, and inquiring (in a purely general and sociological way, of course, no personal offense meant, ahem, ahem) about the “pathology” inherent in being ‘unable to settle one way or the other’ or ‘sexually unstable’ or ‘in a phase’ or etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. From that experience, I find it distasteful in the extreme to sit by and see the propriety of anyone’s sexuality policed for being distasteful or infelicitous to someone else.
Let’s be clear about this; the issue is not ‘gee, society has some shitty and oppressive expectations with regard to gender identity and the expression of sexuality,’ because I think that’s something we all agree with. The problem comes up when the conversation moves to ‘lesbians are shitty because some of them don’t find trans women sexually attractive due to their inherent transmisogyny.’ Not ‘here’s an issue facing my community’ but ‘here’s why your community sucks from the perspective of my needs.’
Maybe this boils down to ‘not all lesbians’ but it doesn’t feel like it, because the question is still not about whether shitty lesbians and TERFs exist (sadly, they do, because there is no shortage of shitty people in the world) but whether or not person A is justified in policing the sexuality of people of identity B, because it suits their interests to do so.
I always think that, too! :D
Hell yeah, I’m Ursula.
Auntie Alias, don’t shut up. There’s been enough of people being silenced or scared to say things here – that’s what this is all about.
I hope I haven’t contributed to that! Ally’s the catalyst but everything I’ve been reading elsewhere lately has me asking why the FUCK this hasn’t ever been discussed here. (Oh, but I know, of course: because people who knew anything about this didn’t dare raise it.) I’m straight … or is that narrow … but the idea of being told “You should consider my penis because reasons” screams of nothing less than bog-standard misogyny and, yes, male entitlement, to me – regardless of who it’s coming from. It’s inherently rapey, regardless of the intent.
Hey Fibi, wanna snark to me too? ::makes puppy dog eyes:: Drop a line to the mods, I can get your email addy that way.
gillyrosebee, another great comment!
Even if it were “not all lesbians,” it still boils down to TOUGH LUCK. A group of women have their boundaries about their own spaces and their own bodies? Nobody gets to argue their way into either.
YAY! :D I love your cheerful presence here!
How are your classes, kittehserf?
Argh, I’m not sure now that makes sense even to me. Ramble, ramble, blort, ramble, blargh.
Thanks for the hugs, kittehs. I’m gonna go try to get some sleep.
BTW David and/or hellkell passed a couple of people’s emails on to me, so check your inboxes.
If my comments contributed to any part of this
my apologies.
Auntie Alias, thank ‘ee!
The classes are nearly over, Ceiling Cat be praised. Two more days! We all had to do PowerPoint presentations this morning. Mine was the shortest ever. I was pretending to have a fantastically successful knitting pattern website I wanted to expand into crochet, and this was to get designers on board. I claimed my accountant had made me use PP, and I was only doing so to keep him happy, so the audience could ignore my four pathetic slides and look at MEEEEEE in my splendid knitted skirt.
The rest of the day was fun, too: went into town, had chocolate and orange crepes at my favourite French cafe, then wandered through the Botanic Gardens with Mr K.
gillyrosebee, you’re speakin’ my language! :D
Nah, gillyrosebee, I didn’t mean you. My irritation was with Cloudiah trying to steer the conversation back to whether or not Ally’s intentions were good, when that’s actually kind of beside the point in terms of the issue of whether or not the basic idea that started this mess is a problem. Part of the problem is that there are at least two different conversations going on here and they keep getting tangled up.
BTW, didn’t you say that you were bi? A new version of the same argument is now being aimed at us (I’m bi too), in fact there’s a comment making the rounds on Tumblr about how bi women who aren’t interested in trans women should have our heads bashed in with rocks. I think that one was meant to be about social exclusion as well as sex, but still – bashing people’s heads in with rocks? Really? This is why I don’t have a Tumblr account, that sort of “if you see a social problem, solve it with violence!” attitude seems to thrive there.
Whew, glad to hear it!
Thanks for speaking up, kittehserf.
I don’t even want Ally to leave. I appreciate many of her contributions. I wish her the best. It’s been exhausting though being constantly anxious about potentially stepping on her toes knowing the degree to which she’ll spin out if I do and that I’ll be slapped down with disproportionate force by people who believe not setting her off should be my primary goal when posting here. It’s not a two way street either. She doesn’t extend the same excessive courtesy and understanding to people who might have their own needs or unknowingly push one of her buttons.
Her habit of monopolising discussions, while usually just frustrating, is really hurtful when those of us who grumble irregularly come here seeking a little understanding and she almost immediately redirects the conversation to being about her own struggles with total disregard for anything we’ve shared. It’s incredibly invalidating.
Ugh, Tumblr. If Twitter is bad (despite my addiction to it) in terms of fostering shallow-minded idiocy, Tumblr is twenty times worse. It seems that every crappy idea I run into these days IRL is being propagated by some dank corner of Tumblr. Sure, there’s some good porn and some great geekery, but it sometimes hardly seems worth the rest of it.
Half the cruddy, shallow pseudo-feminist memes MRAs use as proof that feminism is ‘evil’ and ‘over’ and whatthehell else wouldn’t exist if not for Tumblr.
So, yeah, not really a fan.
That sounded like a great day, kitteh!
Yeah, any time I run into something absurd masquerading as a social justice idea nowadays I just assume it probably came from Tumblr.
Not to say that there aren’t some good people on Tumblr, btw. It’s just that in general, if I was to try to explain how it fits into the rest of the net, I’d say “go home and sleep it off, Tumblr, you’re drunk”.
This should be written in big flashing letters, I swear. It was a pattern, particularly once the open threads started. Someone has a problem they want to vent about, or get a bit of sympathy, or actual advice? Nope, Ally’s got something much worse to talk about and everyone must look there. Got something exciting or just plain happy to share? Can’t have that, it’s buzzkill time. It wears out sympathy, eventually, and just feels manipulative.
katz, thanks and hugs! I really did not want to leave; I love this community. But damn, the frustrations that were building up, and felt like one wasn’t allowed to say anything or one would be labelled transphobic, or – horror of horrors – a TERF. I cannot express how relieved I am to see other people shared these frustrations, and that they can be spoken about.
Love it, Fibinachi.
Should I be ashamed that I still can’t figure out how to upload an avatar?
It was, Auntie Alias!
But, but, Confused Cats!
marinerachel – d’you have a Gravatar account? They’re free, that’s how I upload mine.
But but but, people who think that they’re ferns.
You have to set up a gravatar account, which is tied to an e-mail, and then that’s the system you use. It also comes with a wordpress account, generally.
You can then make it display stuff when you over over the avatar, like my eternal words “missing the point”, or kittehserfs rather more poetic and beautiful phrase.
Now getting them together with Mr Fern Phobic Freud would be interesting …
Speaking of ferns, the King’s Domain fern gully had its waterfall running again today. First time I’ve seen it in years, with all the water restrictions. I was so happy to see it. It was sad to see the pool all dried up so long.
Awww!
I’m glad that not too many folks are not leaving. Particularly you, Kittehs.
(I notice you’re not displaying MOD anymore. Are you still working as David’s unpaid help?)
Yippee, at least Kitteh isn’t definitely leaving, that’s some good news in the sadness rain. I just started the grieving process over learning I’m losing Fibinachi’s near-genius MRA mocking doggerel forever and I’m definitely stuck in the denial stage.
Re: Cassandra is almost always right.
This is most true with trolls, whom she immediately pegs out of the gate, while I’m still sheepishly giving them completely undeserved slack.
I’m (barely) too proud to beg you not to leave and since I can’t force you to stay via hypnotism though the internet, I’m going to honor whatever decision you make. I’d just honor a decision to not leave a whole lot more because this is about my needs, for me at least.
Re: Tumblr
Someone posted an link to a blogger on Tumblr, who was denounced as a TERF, when she’s really just a 20-something lesbian getting frustrated with people who have seemingly thrown gender and queer theory in a blender, chugged it down it and now perpetually vomit it out on the internet without thinking things through at all.
I stumbled across her debating someone saying ludicrously elaborate, made-up theories about how real lesbians are attracted to gender and was convinced that any reference to genitalia, much less having any preference for one, is always transmisogynistic and terrible (when it’s done by lesbians). The problem with Tumblr is people will endlessly argue with anyone without considering who those other people are. This became crystal clear when I read that debate and then looked at who was blathering all this anti-lesbian nonsense. It was a FOURTEEN year-old girl who identified as cis asexual. Not making that up.
So adults, stop arguing with smug, judgmental Junior High Schoolers who like to denounce strangers in weird pseudo-progressive show trials on Tumblr and Twitter. It doesn’t lead to positive things. If someone uses terms like “cisbian” and “bihet”, everyone other then their parents and schoolmates should stop trying to have a serious conversations with them.
—
I have plenty more to say about the cotton ceiling thing, but won’t. I will again compliment Cassandra for being right, because the most offensive thing about the “controversy” is how straight cis women are throwing lot that old classic “lesbians always use dildos and strap-ons, so what’s the big deal about penises”, which I used to only hear from guys wanting threesomes (or twosomes). Lesbians make up a wee, little tiny portion of the overall female population. I’m too lazy to dig up the statistical proof, but bisexual women outnumber lesbians by quite a bit in the not straight lady minority. I’m at the point where I miss the whole “lesbian invisibility” thing of yesteryear, when people hadn’t the foggiest idea what lesbian sex might or might not entail.
I’m not even going to try to explain why the “a dildo is just like a penis and all lesbians use dildos, right?” thing is so ridiculous, given that anyone making that argument must not understand how dildos, penises, or lesbians work. Like, huh? We already had “but I don’t understand what genitals could possibly have to do with sex” the last time this conversation happened, which, OK, the people making that argument were high school rather than middle school aged, but yeah – don’t try to argue about sexuality with kids, adults, including the adult right here who made that mistake last time. I really wouldn’t want my eyebrows to freeze in the “huh?” position.
I can’t sleep, and am not coherent, but Fibi, you’re leaving us? Noooooooooo!
Katz — it’s going to be awhile, my tank plans got all fucked up when I decided I needed to breed brine shrimp because the gobies just aren’t taking to frozen food. And then I bought a used 10g that isn’t actually water tight (I needed a new terrarium anyways, but wasn’t gonna worry about that until winter). So now I do have a tank set up, but it’s definitely only big enough for one. To make things more obnoxious, I think my mother’s putting her foot down on how much water I can have in my room, which means getting another either means moving them to the basement, or moving Puff to the sun porch (which, besides the sun problem, is a fucking mess, and utterly uninsulated)…after I get another, larger tank.
Yep, still babbling about my critters instead of the topic at hand, consider me the comedy relief?
Note – I mean sex the act, not sex the biological category. I’m not even going to get into the latter debate, but just to be clear, yes, there were people saying that they didn’t understand how someone’s genitalia could possibly be relevant to attraction or to sex, the act.
*looks down, looks at Cassandra, looks down again* I’m pretty sure that what’s down there is relevant to about 95% of potential sexual partners. We bi people aren’t exactly a screamingly large percent of the population.
Contrapangloss — no cooling besides having a mesh top instead of a glass one and we’re at 26°C — sun isn’t really up yet though, otoh the big tank is still at 28°, so I guess that lid makes more of a difference than I thought (w00t for that, since 28° is way too hot, 26°C is close enough that it’s why my American ass is using Celsius)
I wasn’t sure that they even got the idea that the mechanics of sex would be different based on what genitalia people have, honestly. Do they think people have sex by just sort of snuggling and looking into each other’s eyes or what? Even putting anything involving penetration aside, do they think it would make no difference in terms of how, say, oral would work? I’m so confused.
Thanks, Arctic Ape!
When I thought I’d have to leave, I suggested to David he’d need another mod. If I’m staying, I’ll be happy to do it again, if David wants. I emailed him about that but don’t reckon he’d have seen it yet (at this hour of the morning Chicago time, I’d hope he’s catching some zzzzz!)
brooked:
I should think not. That sort of mind power is the preserve of the Furrinati.
OW I sprained my eyes reading that!
Seconded HOW DID I MISS THIS?
:(
Curses, and here I thought we’d converted you!
Maybe they think it’s aural sex and they just talk about it.
Or like that scene from Demolition Man with the virtual reality headsets.
Also, Fibi, don’t leave! Even if some of us end up doing so (I’m not sure yet, depends how this whole thing plays out, I’m still worried that there’s going to be a huge backlash at some point), there’s no reason you have to, and who else would write the limericks?
Popping back in to quickly say:
Hurray, kittehserf is staying! And cassandrakitty hasn’t ruled it out! Things looking brighter this morning.
Fibinachi, if you’re going, please reconsider! Poet laureates are hard to find.
And gillyrosebee in her 12:49am comment (one page back) summed up pretty much everything I was thinking/feeling as I made my way through the thread yesterday. Thanks for having the brains and the eloquence to say everything I wanted to say.
You’re telling me that’s not how you do it?
Oh.
Uhm.
huh. I may need to reconsider my stout assertions of incredible sexual prowess now. And I had gotten so good at not blinking, too! Although this rather explains a lot, including why my first girlfriend broke up with me on account of the “Creepy staring thing”.
Anyhow, no. No. I’m not. I never even considered it. Think we’re having an accidental miscommunication all around. The only expressions of any emotion I have made, and will make, is that I am very thankful for the existence of this site and the many people on it (you, reading this, you, have directly and tangible made my life measurably better in many ways and I am very thankful), who have taught me endless things about everything from practical coding (so much so that I am an actually paid website jockey for my wizard company, which is no end of fun) to self-resiliency in dealing with abusive personalities to just how one actually cooks a proper pie.
oh, and the feminist theories of social structure as it relates to the individuals that live in an often cruelly callous world of stunted, somewhat myopic perspective and unwavering pressure on the minds and bodies of everyone to perform on an often horrid and base level but which still has beauty and wonder and pies.
But mainly the coding and the happiness and the pies.
I could never leave you. This is the second site on the internet where I’ve broken my personal “No comment” policy, and haven’t regretted it even once.
Fibi’s like a cockroach. Ten thousand years from now, it’ll just be cat pictures, raging PUA’s and limericks.
There once was a site that mocked it
those incessant tales of sucky Ids
Pua and MRA tall tales to tell
They don’t tell them well
and I’d rhyme better, but really, fuck it.
( Although the appreciation of my fantastic personality is obviously a bonus, and I feel I should maybe have Argenti accidentally assume I am leaving more often, so that my hideously underfed ego can suck up all these stray bursts of mentions of how I enrich the place.
Yeeees.
Yessssss I am a worthy human being aren’t I… where’s my full length mirror so I may bask in my own perfectednesnsnesness )
THANK CEILING CAT FOR THAT!
No no, Fibi’s like WALL E, only poetical. The cockroach is just the little buddy hanging around for the limericks.
I have a trans woman lesbian friend who has had the surgical procedure to remove her penis and create a vagina. Please let me know if I get anything wrong here. She had a girlfriend who, fully cognizant of the fact that she was a trans woman, asked her to wear a strap on. My friend had a really hard time processing that request but ultimately said no.
I have found, as I did discussing gender and sexually identity with my friend, this thread to be very provocative in furthering my thoughts around these matters and challenging my world view. I get the theoretical viewpoint around sex and gender as construction, but I can’t transfer it into a personal, lived experience without coming up with questions of preference and coercion. Someone said why are we asking individuals to examine their preferences and not taking society to task? I agree.
Bit tipsy, watching Supernatural.
*dances with pom poms*
Kittehserf’s not leaving
Cassandra’s maybe not too
Fibinachi never considered it
Hellkell, what about you?
That was bad and I should feel bad, but eh. Anyway, I’ll just mention here what I already said privately to another: It kinda felt like Ally had a tendency to make every thread about her. I did enjoy some of her comments and insight, but I mean that can get frustrating after a while. I didn’t want to say anything, though, because A) I tend to be conflict-avoidant, and B) I don’t get to post here as often as I’d like and it didn’t seem right to call out someone who was participating here more often than I was.
@Fibinachi
So you leaving the board is a completely unfounded rumor I weirdly made up in my mind? That’s good news to me, without actually being news.
@Argenti
Never stop discussing your fish, I love hearing people geek out about something I know nothing about.
—-
I haven’t comment anywhere even semi-regularly since the dying days of Usenet in 1990s.
This site has given me so much, most importantly it showed me how adorable baby stingrays are.
Kittehserf:
Oh, snap :)
Argenti:
You only get acceptable measurements in Celsius?
Arctic Ape, turns out the cheap new thermometer I got for the axolotl tank has much bigger Celsius numbers, which works since most of the world uses it, and damned near every page about them uses it. I had to get up to read the small C numbers on the big tank, my other tanks are all in F. Confusing, but when you’re used to working out parts per million, reading both sets of numbers is pie.
Fibi, W00T! I’m glad I misunderstood, whatever would we do without your poetry?!
Brooked, never, they’re my babies! Even my mother calls them her grandbabies, amazing for an Italian woman who’s long been “so, when are one of you going to give me grandbabies?”. Now she has fish (and great-great-grandfish, but I’m not allowed to mention that, it makes her feel old, despite cories reaching sexual maturity by a year and a half). Also, D’AWWW LOOK AT THE WITTLE STINGRAY!! If I ever win the lottery, a huge freshwater stringray tank is SO on my list!
Ray are actually really pretty irl, even the grown ones. The baby is adorable, look at its widdle mouth!
The only reason I brought up Ally is because the whole conversation on this thread started when (IMO) her views were misrepresented.
As I’ve said repeatedly, I think everyone here is in agreement on those points.
But with that, I’m happy to drop it.
Trans lesbian here, again.
@BigMomma “Someone said why are we asking individuals to examine their preferences and not taking society to task?”
I did that, actually. I think the uncomfortable implication people have been glossing over is that individuals are part of society–even minorities. This kind of rhetoric seems to self-Other the Queer community, like we ourselves do not form a society, or that we don’t have a broader society interacting with us. It’s us vs. them with this kind of question.
To examine one means examining the other. No matter how self-aware you are, you’re still a product of your culture, as well as a product of your biology, so even if you identify a problematic pattern in others, and try to communicate that, there exists the very real possibility that you, yourself, have been informed by that pattern.
When it comes to sexual attraction of transfolk, there’s one thing to bear in mind. We’re exposed to boys and girls, strictly one or the other, from a young age. We’re exposed to varying details of sexuality in our development. We form a fairly accurate idea, early on, of who we’re attracted to… but we don’t learn about gender variance until later in life. That is something you have likely experienced, as an individual, because of expectations from society. So transfolk are usually cut out of the picture entirely during development, and the few times we are depicted in media… well, I’m sure ya’ll know the rest.
It’s like, if a girl starts out puberty thinking she likes boys, because that’s what media and her parents and her friends tell her to do, why is it okay for her to figure out she’s gay later on–what changes when we introduce transfolk into the equation? I’m genuinely asking. Is it because we’re doing it post puberty? Doesn’t make sense, some people have a mid-life crisis of realizing they’re gay (see the Premeire of Ontario. Oh, Canada effeminate man -> metro -> genderqueer -> trans”, though GQ isn’t always transitory and I don’t assume anyone calling themselves that has “yet to pick a side”. nonsense).
Also vis-a-vis the strap on thing… in my case, because it’s something lesbians actually do, it would likely just validate my sexual identity. I don’t know for sure, because I have neither a girlfriend nor a strap on, but picturing it in my head… yeah, imaginary!me is giggling from the irony, but still in to it.
And as I and others have said repeatedly, we are not just talking about discussions we’ve seen here.
Ack, looks like a portion of my comment was ate by the data vampires. I have to go to work, I’ll be back in a half day to discuss.
Coffee — true enough, and I didn’t even know that I didn’t have to “pick a side” until I was 27 or so — and queer politics are not new to me! By 27, the vast majority of people know who they’re interested in. And yeah, that being shaped by culture is damned likely, but rather unchangeable on an individual level. So, for me at least, when I say change cultural standards, not individual preferences, or anything with that dichotomy, I guess I’m more going for pushing the idea that trans people can be attractive and suitable partners and not the laughingstock media bullshit, as opposed to anything implying that someone, in particular, not an abstract someone, could be attracted to a trans person if…
Because asking lesbians to examine their preferences, well, they get that enough without getting it in queer circles too. Dicuss how we can work together to change things though? Always.
Honestly, parts of coffee’s comment still feel uncomfortably close to “your preferences would be different if your socialization had been different”, which a. you can’t actually assume that and b. even if you could, that doesn’t mean the person’s preferences as they are now can or should change. It feels like people really, really don’t want to accept the idea that hey, maybe some lesbians just plain do not like cock and that’s just how their sexuality is.
It’s much better than the version of this argument making the rounds on Tumblr, but I’m not convinced that it’s philosophically all that different.
Just wanted to say that I have been here for about 6 months, and I haven’t been reading or posting here like I was in the beginning because of several of the issues being presented in this thread. I can’t even believe all this has come up because it is exactly what I’ve been thinking and feeling for months.
I totally get that some people have been through hell and back and I am not opposed to providing support, but I really think that in-depth personal lives/problems should be limited to certain threads, or its own thread. I have my own trigger issues and it is impossible to avoid certain triggers when people are constantly dragging their trials and tribulations through most threads; to be repeated continuously every time a new troll shows up or a new member starts posting. I’m not referring to simple, short examples to illustrate a point. I’m talking about heavy, in-depth, step by step descriptions. I’m sincerely not trying to be insensitive, but people should have the option of participating in something of that nature. It’s too hard to avoid when it’s everywhere.
And speaking of triggers, I take 100% responsibility of mine and don’t expect anyone or any thread to cater to it. When something comes up that is tough for me, I leave, at least that thread. I really believe that it should be expected here that people take responsibility for their own emotional/mental health. It bothers me to no end to see people purposefully ignoring trigger warnings and then whining about how they are triggered and shouldn’t have read it. We’re all big people here and that shouldn’t be happening.
Finally, I know that it is very difficult for oppressed groups to deal with not being heard in this world.That said, not every topic is about every group of people, oppressed or not. An example would be a thread involving an MRA troll and their relationship/attractions to women. To insert, “What about (insert oppressed group that MRAs would not be attracted to) and derailing the thread is inappropriate. Most people realize that not everything is about them, but a few need to consider it.
Just wanted my say. Carry on.
I hadn’t even thought of the issue of personal comments in general threads possibly introducing triggering stuff that people might be able to avoid more easily if that stuff was kept to the personal threads, but that is an excellent point.
Well, I’m really glad things are settling down around here. Glad you’re staying Kittehs and Marinerachel. Cassandra, if there was going to be a backlash against you, I think at this point it would have already happened. What I’m saying is you should definitely stay :D
I’m also learning a little bit more about why tumblr is so maligned. I only visit a handful of sites that I like, don’t have an account and don’t follow any social justice sights that have contentious arguments so I didn’t really know. I mostly just don’t have an account because I don’t like the format very much.
Whoever designed the format for Tumblr should be fired. Were they high?
TMI WARNING
Can confirm in my case that pretty much it. I knew I was different at some unspecified early age but knew I was a lesbian for sure by 10th grade. I didn’t date in high school and made a brief attempt at having a boyfriend as a freshmen in college.
The guy I dated was super sweet, attractive and we got along great to the point that I thought we had “chemistry”. The kissing was nice, but the one aborted attempted we made at sex was disaster for me because It was the first time I interacted with penis and, oh boy, it was a complete turn off and it made it painfully clear I had no interest in penises. Later that year I found I had a plenty of enthusiasm for vaginas and never looked back.
I’ve found men attractive but have no interest in getting naked with then because I have zero interest in their genitalia. I love a ton of things about women when I interact with them in life, but in bed genitals do matter to me.
Women who don’t like penis at all is pretty rare since most women are heterosexual and more women are bisexual then lesbian. This has led to all sorts of theories that their is something wrong with us, that we had bad experiences men or bad parenting (see gay reparative or conversion therapy for the fun details of those theories).
I know my fucking sexuality, it hasn’t changes in thirty years. I’ve worked through homophobia, including two suicide attempts, depression, anxiety and shame, and now have become comfortable with who I am. I wasn’t shaped by media representation of lesbian sexuality, because I grew up in the 1980s and other than a few books I furtively pored over, I saw barely any media representation of lesbian sex until after I knew I was gay. I saw more then all the generations of lesbians who came before me through out the world, but that’s not saying much.
So I’m not too enthused by strangers, often a whole lot younger then me, telling me I haven’t examined the “problematic patterns” in my sexuality. I don’t need people trying to shame me into some sham conscious-raising self flagellation. How about examining your homophobia and the misogynic ideas you have about there being a “correct” or “superior” way for women to describe their sexuality, to feel attraction and have sex?
Fuck you for your new spin on “love the sinner, hate the sin” and self-righteousness in policing lesbian sexuality.
This is part of the point I keep trying to make. In their zeal to protect one marginalized group (trans women) a whole lot of people are quite enthusiastically pissing all over the boundaries of another marginalized group (cis lesbians). This is not OK.
@WWTH
I agree that it was nice how things calmed down, so maybe my rant isn’t well timed but I was pretty set off by Coffee’s comments. I didn’t mean to resume the drama, but I don’t like being lectured about my sexuality (obviously).
I hear you and I respect your position, cloudiah.
I’m actually not quite happy to drop it just yet, though I am open to the idea that I’m coming into this long after other folk have maybe already been wrestling with it for a while and are tired and bruised and ready for it to be off the table. And I want to be clear that I’m not writing from a position where I feel I have it all worked out; I’m kinda still thinking in motion on this, and honestly my brain is working so badly right now that it feels like I am walking about in a fog. I’m not sure if I am being clear at all, because it seems like a twisted pile in my head that still really needs to be untangled and examined.
For me, the question at hand was not necessarily whether Ally’s position was being mischaracterized or not (although I take the point that she and you felt that it was), but rather the deeper assertion at play about authority and propriety. I am specifically concerned with the idea that topics are put out of bounds because of the sensibilities of those concerned will not permit any disagreement or even discussion, no matter how respectful (and no matter how the issues themselves call for thinking).
Yes, I acknowledge that some issues and ideas are deeply painful for some people, and yes I wholeheartedly agree that we have an obligation to be decent when they are discussed, AND ESPECIALLY that some stances are as close to indefensible as is possible to be. And I acknowledge that there some domains where experience does grant authority: I would never presume to dictate how someone should respond to trauma, or address the implications of systematic discrimination on their own lives and communities.
But that wasn’t what I read going on there. What I saw was one person taking the position that because an issue affected them, they got to dictate the terms of the discussion and to establish the propriety of all the other positions, even when it also affected those other perspectives, and then becoming incensed and resorting to what I read as pretty over the top assertions of fundamental bad faith in their reasoning (while I acknowledge that she felt attacked, I still can’t quite process the assertion that cassandrakitty was calling Ally either a rapist or a rape apologist).
I hate to make this about Ally when she’s not here to participate, but the difficulty I was finding was that it seemed perfectly reasonable (not to mention incredibly generous and in no small measure brave) to speak from her position as a transwoman and her struggles with social and interpersonal pressures, but that it felt highly problematic when she sought to dictate other’s experience (‘lesbians must be acting out of transmisogyny because I am clearly acting in good faith and from the pain of my experience and I know I mean well’) and then to assert that any pushback against this position could only be because of further transmisogyny.
The part I had the hardest time was the implicit idea (which was not incidental, it was repeated multiple times), that lesbians own experience of their sexuality and desire was up for negotiation based on terms imposed by the trans lesbian community. Yes, society is shitty when it comes to non traditional gender and sexual roles, but you get to negotiate your own, not those of others. Yes, you get to call yourself female or male or neither or whatever, according to your own understanding of your identity, and I would never presume, and would stand firmly by your side against anyone who tries to call that into question or shame you or oppose your construction on any lines but you do not get to dictate other’s identity.
Identify yourself as female (or male or pan or whatever seems most vital to you) if that’s how you understand yourself and I will face violence to stand in support of you. But you cross the line if you insist that because you are female, I am required (at the risk of shame and coercive, abusive behaviour) to find your expression of female-ness sexually desirable. Which is not to say that I might not; I personally am attracted to a whole range of types of people in general, but no one person has the right to dictate that I should, that I MUST be attracted to their version of that identity. We can talk about the complexities of desire (it is after all a fascinating topic) but you do not have the right to require me (or anyone else) to justify my desire to you nor are you permitted to shame me into conforming to your expectations or even your hopes for my desire.
Honestly, seeing people who’ve felt like they have to hold their tongues for a long time finally feel able to rant is making me feel a lot more inclined to stay.