Happy Halloween! The LA Times has decided to celebrate the unholiest of holidays with a convoluted op-ed from conservative ideologue Charlotte Allen using Halloween as an excuse to bash both sluts and slutwalks. Because, you know, if you dress like a slut ā whether to protest rape or to go to a Halloween party ā itās like youāre begging to be raped. Bad feminists! Bad Halloween revelers dressed as sexy nurses!
Here are a few of the more coherent passages from the piece:
[T]he SlutWalk feminists are in denial of a reality that is perfectly obvious to both the women who favor “sexy” for Halloween parties and (although perhaps not consciously) the SlutWalkers themselves. The reality is that men’s sexual responses are highly susceptible to visual stimuli, and women, who are also sexual beings, like to generate those stimuli by displaying as much of their attractive selves as social mores or their own personal moral codes permit. ā¦ It’s no wonder that SlutWalks have quickly outstripped (as it were) Take Back the Night as anti-rape protest. Women get another chance besides Halloween to dress up like prostitutes!
Just watch out, ladies, because dressing sexy is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, with your wallet hanging out!
[T]he vast majority of rape victims are under age 30 ā that is, when women are at their peak of desirability. ā¦
[T]he fact that rapists tend to target young women rather than grandmotherly types suggests that in the real rape culture (in contrast to the imaginary rape culture of some feminist ideology), the faux-hos of Halloween and their SlutWalker counterparts marching in their underwear ā like a man walking at night with a bulging wallet ā should be careful about where they flash their treasure.
So thank you, Charlotte Allen, for once again showing just why the Slutwalks are necessary in the first place.
Jill at Feministe has an excellent response to Allenās nonsense, which points out that while, yes, younger women are more likely to be victims of rape,
Younger people are also the most likely group to be the victims of aggravated, non-sexual assault. … In fact, younger people are victimized by violent crime more often than older folks as a general rule. A person between the ages of 12 and 24 is six times more likely to be the victim of a robbery than a person over the age of 50; about half of people who report being the victims of aggravated assault are under the age of 25. Men are much more likely than women to be the victims of violent crime. In every age group, black people are the most likely to be the victims of violent crime.
So yes, it is true that younger women are more likely to be targeted for sexual assault than older women. But itās not because of The Sexy ā unless hormones and hard-ons are what are causing criminals to choose their (mostly male) targets for robbery and assault also.
So, really, the only really safe costuming strategy for young people on Halloween, regardless of gender, is to dress up like an old white lady. Ā Might I suggest Dame Judi Dench?
Ami, how dare you slander an erect — er, rather UPSTANDING heterosexual like Slavey by suggesting he would use an IV. To use an IV he would need to own needles. But, if you own a needle that makes you a drug addict. Now, injecting heroin is an immoral lifestyle that eventually infects you with HIV. But, as everyone knows, HIV is a gay disease created by the Rockefellers to unify the homosexual lobby. Therefore, everyone who owns a needle is a gay man. QED
So that’s why I haven’t snagged a doctor husband yet!
Damn sexy gays oppressing us women folk.
@Joanna: Some women (straight or otherwise) are so oppressed by the sexy gay dudes that they are forced to write naughty fanfics in which all sexy characters are gay. It may look like those women enjoy themselves immensely, but we all know it’s really a cry for help.
@the new religion of Ami-ish: do y’all believe that Ami has garlic toast and noodley appendages and flies around? Because then I’m on board. š
Holly: I go to a hippie school in Florida. The last time I wore shoes was yesterday, on sufferance, to go to the post office. There are only rare occasions in which shoes become slutty!
And jackets aren’t slutty unless I have a class in the really cold classroom: then either black velvet blazers or purple hoodies are slutty.
You mean the Male Gays?
I was The Cookie Monster for Halloween, because The Cookie Monster is clearly awesome. The boyfriend was a firefighter, for a few reasons but largely because I have a thing for firefighters and we were going to have fun firefighting adventures. Clearly I used my weaponized female sexuality by wearing clothes intended to make men want to have sex with me, and by doing so manipulated the poor creature into wearing clothes that would make me want to have sex with him. It didn’t work, of course, because women don’t express their sexuality by wanting to have sex; they express it with miniskirts. Or any skirts. Or pants. Or something. Actually, I’m not sure what clothes are or are not slutty. NWO, care to help out?
Dracula: I don’t blame you for missing it, but I pointed that out last night.
Women who dress “like sluts” are trying to turn men on.
If a man catcalls you, etc., he must have been turned on.
Ergo, if you are catcalled, you were dressed like a slut. Q.E., fucking, D.
And, since you were dressed like a slut, you were asking for it, and got exactly what you wanted.
NWOslave, “logic”.
Indeed.
I’m still laffin’ at the thought of Slavey running around planting crucifixes everywhere and screaming at the “dirty pagans” to get off his front lawn….then again, he’d have to crawl out of his mom’s basement to do that, wouldn’t he? Silly bugger…..
This local story made me think of this thread and NWO’s ridiculous assertion that women provoke any and all negative attention. A female police officer was riding her bike on patrol during Madison’s Freakfest and got slapped on the ass. What a whore, dressing all sexy. She was asking for it.
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/crime_and_courts/article_433d9a8a-048c-11e1-b4f4-001cc4c03286.html
blitzgal’s link says that the man apologized profusely as received his citation. Anyone want to bet he was saying “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were a real police officer with the power to arrest me! I thought you were just some woman dressed like a police officer, who is totally fair game for slapping!”
Who would be* fair game, rather. Proofreading is so harrrrd.
You guys! I actually thought of Slavey last night. I was walking to Walgreens and I passed some trick or treaters. One of them was a little girl who I think was supposed to be Tinkerbell, or some other sort of fairy, with sparkly wings, a tutu, and a wand, and it occured to me that Slavey would think she was flaunting her sexuality (she was about 5 or 6). And then I felt slightly nauseous, and very motherly and protective.
Really, he’s not well in the head.
Also, in terms of women being harrassed because we’re flaunting our sexuality, the most consistently harrassed I’ve been in a while was on the few days after my cat died. I had him for 19 years and nursed him through years of renal failure, so you can imagine what a mess I was. I was wandering around either crying or with a blank stare and red eyes for several days. During those few days I was harrassed at a level that hasn’t happened since I was a teenager. It was fucking horrible – it wasn’t flirtatious, it was aggressive and bullying. It was blatantly predatory, because it certainly wasn’t like I was looking super attractive, what with the red eyes and the runny nose and the general air of misery. What I quite visible was, though, was emotionally off balance and vulnerable, and damn did that ever draw in the creeps.
Sorry, Pencunium. Forgot you covered that already. (In my defense, I’m overtired, have a headache, and was distracted by jaw-full of Novocaine when I posted.)
Okay, just misspelled my name, which I take as further proof I’m not all here right now. My comment explaining this is on moderation.
So what definition of proposition are we using here then?
I was once propositioned. As in, a guy literally asked me, “How much?”
For the record, I was wearing a below-the-knee black wool winter coat. I guess he must have imagined something totally prostitute-worthy was happening under there.
How long have we been trying to get NWO to answer this question? Months?? Maybe he has to meditate about it to ask for enlightenment from the gods, and the gods are just taking a really super long time.
Or maybe he’s just an idiot.
Those are the only two possibilities.
I was once asked “how much” while on my way to a goth club, wearing a black velvet cloak that covered my entire body. Vampire prostitute?
I was also once asked the same question while wearing my school uniform.
I was once asked “how much” in a sweatshirt, jeans, and wet hair on my way to a Starbucks. Not my finest slutwear.
Oh, they’re asking how much for sex? I always just assumed that they liked my outfit and wanted to know how much it cost me. I guess that explains why they get this weird look on their face and walk away, as I wax eloquent about the joys of having a Nordstrom Rack nearby.
I’ve been propositioned a couple of times. Somehow I think the interest was different, though I have to say it was a bit strange. I didn’t think that heading to the subway from work last week I looked like I was in the market to buy some sex.
@Ami
No, that won’t work…
http://www.the-gutters.com/comic/206-ilias-kyriazis
Approved. š
@Wetherby
Hahahaha! Girlfriend showed me that. It was awesome!
And I screwed up Pecunium’s name as well. Fuck. Sorry about that.