I ran across this remarkable painting, titled “The Irritating Gentleman,” on Sheltered and Safe From Sorrow, a blog devoted to Victorian mourning rituals and other creepiness from that period. The gentleman in question seems to be a Victorian era Pickup Artist in action. He’s even peacocking, Mystery style, with that bow tie and stupid hat and even a non-ironic handlebar moustache. Probably the only thing keeping him from wearing aviator goggles is the fact that airplanes haven’t yet been invented.
What makes it all the worse is that the PUA’s target is clearly in mourning. As the blogger behind rawr I’m a tumblr notes:
She’s wearing all black in 1874. Black gloves, hat, cloak, and dress. In public. The whole nine yards. That’s not a fashion choice or a gothic thing. Back then when people wore all black like that, they were in mourning for someone who died. No one did mourning like the Victorians, that shit was an art form to them.
Someone in her family has died—she could even be a young widow. No one’s accompanying her either. With the carpet bag? She’s traveling alone while still in deep mourning. Look at the closeup. She’s got tears in her eyes. She is upset, devastated in a way that one is only when someone has died. And the guy’s still bothering her, like her problems are flippant bullshit and she needs to just smile or pay attention to him because ladies are supposed to be pleasing for men no matter what shit they’re going through. That’s not a look of “what an ass.” That’s a look of devastation that even in her pain, she’s expected to give people like him focus. She’s not mad. She’s hurt. And to add insult to injury? Everyone would be able to tell. It was a clear sign and still is in ways that someone is mourning, to dress in black crepe like that. He would know why she’s wearing all black, and he’s still demanding her attention.
What an insufferable dick.
Yep.
Pecunium, if the human species ought to die out, can we start with objectifying asshats first?
RE: Merv
Fuck off, I’m trying to have sex with my husband here.
RE: Abnoy
Dude. Ew. EW! You go sit in your corner and think about what a skeeze you are.
RE: fantsyq
(And since I’m a radical feminist, I think that the only way to fix male sexuality is to dismantle the patriarchy, the other way around won’t work, there’s no incentive for most men to try to build a new male sexuality because the male sexuality as it is right now has the overwhelming societal support. (Including the support of most women, unfortunately.))
My sexuality doesn’t need to be ‘fixed,’ kthanks. I’m not a dog.
Ahh, well, at least my sexytimes are no less normal than anyone else’s, I’m almost pleased!
Seconding pillow in hell’s motion about asshats.
Perhaps Abnoy is a Dalek, they have similar ways of speaking:
“Human female has escaped, I have failed! Self-destruct!”
(Paraphrased from a Jon Pertwee classic Who)
“What is the meaning of this negative?”
“It means no” – 9, when the daleks kidnap Rose
I am still disturbed by the idea that Abnoy apparently can’t tell a boner from a desire to comfort someone.
YOU CAN NOT CURE MY TEARS WITH YOUR BONER, ABNOY. That’s not how tears work.
@LBT
What? I don’t think you understood what I was getting at.
Dalek Sec in the Season 2 Finale…
“The female’s heartbeat has increased”
Am I the only one who finds it weird that Daleks refer to ‘human male’ and ‘human female’ when they do not share our reproductive systems or concept of gender? Wouldn’t it make more sense to refer to us by our clothing colour – for example, the red human, or the blue human? They do have a concept of colour, after all.
The Daleks don’t want to misgender people?
In Who mythology the Daleks are the mutated remnants of the previous inhabitants of Skaro, who were humanoid and sexually bimorphic, so they might have some idea of that concept working in other species either in their warped mentalities or drawn from their extensive memory banks – whereas in another Pertwee episode, the Sontaran warrior Lynx is momentarily confused by meeting a ‘human female’ (who happens to be Sarah Jane, of course), since the Sontarans are essentially clones and monosexed. (Doctor Who doesn’t handle sex and gender terribly well, as is well known.)
@LBT
This stuff just puzzles me. It’s like that time I was playing Sims 2, and I was thinking “the female servos look really creepy”* and then it hit me: they’re fancy cleanbots you can woohoo and sometimes they hog the games console, why do they need a gender? You don’t need a gender to woohoo!
And then I wondered why this bugged me more than the concept of vampire robots, but, y’know.
* I now have less-creepy servo defaults. Well, their eyestalks are creepy, but that’s the good kind of creepy.
Yeah, it’s always seemed weird to me that sexual reproduction with a male entity and a female entity is one of the most consistent parts of alien life in fiction – particularly the fact that you only quite rarely see a species where there are two genders but the difference isn’t a major part of personal identity.
@Xanthe
I know that the Daleks were created from bimorphic stock, it just seems bizarre that they can consistently identify ‘human male’ and ‘human female’ over a vast quantities of cultures and time periods where fashion is highly variable and many of the gender markers are not inherently part of the ‘natural’ human e.g. haircuts, clothing, make-up.
@LBT:
“RE: Merv
Fuck off, I’m trying to have sex with my husband here.”
Bwahahahahahahaha don’t say things like that! Mr K’s in the office and you might give him ideas. 😉
Also ditto about sexuality not needing to be fixed tyvm – if his is broken I wouldn’t want it fixed.
@CWS – referring to us by clothing would make it confusin’ for when they run into the same companion in a different outfit. “Formerly red human is now lilac and chartreuse stripes aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” BOOM
@Xanthe – didn’t Lynx mention things like “the thorax is different” in that episode?
I don’t think it’s something the writers have really been bothered about to hang a lampshade on it: we’re so anthropomorphic ourselves (and we’re brought up in a society that relentlessly and inappropriately sorts people into gender binary pigeonholes) that we have difficulty not projecting anthropomorphic characteristics onto wholly invented alien species that don’t resemble us in shape or form: so naturally Daleks are just as adept as human beings are at recognising gender. (*facepalm*)
(That, or they’re inveterate crotch watchers, looking out for primary sexual characteristics)
@MorkaisChosen – didn’t The Left Hand of God look at a planet where people were sort of gender-neutral physically and socially, and only took on “male” and “female” characteristics when they came into heat?
Now I have this image of the Daleks with their eye stalks permanently angled down …
I expect to be referred to as a “carbon unit”, myself. It made perfect sense to me.
@ Kitteh’s Unpaid Help, that’s the one. The Time Warrior, Part Two if my memory serves me… a quick Google brings up a quote of, “the hair is finer, the thorax of a different construction…”
Yes, when they went into kemmer they took on the characteristics of the opposite sex they chose to partner with for reproduction.
My main memory of the Sontarans then is my mother calling ’em Mr Potato Heads. Oh, and the scene from one of the shows where the Sontaran’s energy is sucked out by his ship (the Doctor having reversed the settings or something) and his head caves in like a deflating balloon, which was quite weird.
Kemmer, that’s it. Only read the book once, years ago – didn’t like it that much. I do remember the narrator being side-eyed like a bit of a pervert because he was always physically male.
It is LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness. You should give it another read. It ages well.
*stares at course reading pile*
*stares at ‘for fun’ reading pile*
Well, fuck.