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 – whether to protest rape or to go to a Halloween party – it’s like you’re 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. … 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 — that is, when women are at their peak of desirability. …
[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 — like a man walking at night with a bulging wallet — 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 Allen’s 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 it’s not because of The Sexy — 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. Might I suggest Dame Judi Dench?
Thank you Dracula and Joanna! 😀
(see NWO…. FUNNNNNNNNN 😀 three letters! like NWO! or Ami! 😀 FUNNNNNNN 😀 well I spell it w/ like a billion letters, but you can just use the 3 😀 tho i suspect you’re just more familiar with using F-U-N without the N xD )
I dressed as Ramona Flowers this year. Too slutty?
Ramona Flowers?! Why, she’s had sex with men! And occasionally women! That harlot!
Pecunium: ” zhinxy: Of course he can’t. Find me one place where he has actually answered a question about his personal beliefs…”
Good point. It’s like getting him to name what exactly he invented.
Ami –
“I bet he spent today putting crucifixes around his house and screaming at the dirty pagans to get away from his lawn xD”
Seriously, NWO? Did you do anything fun today? Pass out candy? Set out a glowing pumpkin? Just enjoy the crisp fall air?
Aw Lauralot, I would have totally loved a Roxy to accompany me. Alas, no nerdy girl friends =(
NWO, that last comment made so little sense it wasn’t even offensive.
It’s early in the night for you to already be falling back on “Oh YEAH? Well, uh… well… well YOU! Yeah, there. I said it.”
REMEMBER NOT TO NAME AN UNSLUTTY OUTFIT
Dunaden won the Melbourne Cup in a photo finish from Red Cadeaux – really a dead heat
Hold on. Ya mean you, a woman, was propositioned by a man. Shall we draw and quarter him? I mean he must have done something wrong otherwise why would you reference it. And he could actually tell you were a woman just by looking at you? Manly magic, I guess.
o_O What’s w/ the sarcasm NWO? I thought you didn’t believe people’s gender COULD be identified by looking XD Funny how suddenly you slip when you’re not freaking out about evil trans ppl lurking around every corner xD
NWO, why so shy? XD Zhinxy has some stuff you need to judge w/ your awesome judgey powers of judgingness! XD And as usual, you hide back in your little MWOle hill xD
NWO: My comment making no sense was the entire point.
There was no difference between what you said, and what I said.
It’s just you so lack the wit to see it that you think repeating the experiment makes your initial comment suddenly sensible, rather than further pointing out our intellectual incapacity.
Slave,
1. The behaviors between female and male animals in mating situations are varied from species to species.
2. The mating behavior of other animals does not apply to humans.
“I bet he spent today putting crucifixes around his house and screaming at the dirty pagans to get away from his lawn xD”
I dressed a vampire hunter last year. Made myself a wooden cross to wear around my neck, and I held it out in front of me as I gave out candy. This one girl in a vampire costume, I think she was about ten, recoiled and hissed when I opened the door. It was awesome. 🙂
It’s just past the witching hour on Halloween, so let’s chant:
WHAT SHOULD WOMEN WEAR?
WHAT SHOULD WOMEN WEAR?
WHAT SHOULD WOMEN WEAR?
If NWO’s night here is ruined, it’s by his own actions, he chose to dress his thoughts in words to attract attention, and publicly display his ideas.
NWO doesn’t dress up nemore, cuz once he went to a Star Wars convention as Luke Skywalker, and then somebody cut his hand off, and he understood it was his fault, so he never dressed up again. xD
What should women wear?
Actually, he hasn’t yet. He refuses to. That’s the whole problem.
WHAT SHOULD WOMEN WEAR?
WHAT SHOULD WOMEN WEAR?
WHAT SHOULD WOMEN WEAR?
It was a good thing that he didn’t dress up as Han Solo or ppl would have taken it as an invitation to kidnap him and put him in a bathtub of dry ice xD
What should women wear?
DAMN GIRL
You are so awesome.
NWO’s sarcasm baffles me. I’m going to take this statement and try to un-sarcasticize it, to see what we’re left with.
I think what he’s saying here is:
@zhinxy
“Holly: “Zhinxy – He’s anti-Semitic, so he can’t approve of anything being worn by Jewish women.”
How dare I actually blame someone like a Rothchild or a Rockefeller for being major contributors to mass poverty, economic hardships by their own actions. After all they’re Jews. Are all Jews exempt from any citicism? Or will I be anti-semetic for calling any person, who happens to be a Jew, a criminal?
Why is there a JDL? Isn’t that the very height of racism? Are there any other defense leagues for any other nationality? PLD for Polish. SDL for Sudanese. MDL for Mongolian. LDL for Libyan. MDL for Morrocan. RDL for Russian. BDL for Brazilian. EDL for Etheopian.
You see I’m an equalist. Either every nationality gets a defense league, or nobody gets one. Also, you don’t get a free pass because of your nationaity.
You know what I find most surprising about NWO? That he actually calls breasts by their proper name. You’d think he’d call them “dirty pillows.”
You know, I just realized… like having sex (where he’s SUPER PRO underage girls having tons of sex, but anti any adult women having sex xD ), clothing is the same deal. XD Remember his previous posts where he talks about underage girls in bikinis and mini skirts and how it’s not fair he can’t have them? Apparently adult women wearing skirts = bad, but underage girls wearing skirts = “can you hike it up just a little more please?”
Actually it’s pretty disturbing when you put what he says about adult women and what he says about children together >_<;;
Big Book of Larnin’ – “Jewish” is a nationality 😉